Just your type
April 3, 2023 3:25 AM Subscribe
Hello, Monday, happy free thread! This week, I'm wondering ... does anyone remember typewriters? Weren't they fussy and fiddly and fun? And didn't they sound great? Well, if so, today I have another free thing (or two) in your free thing thing, that may be pertinent to your interests: 1) an online (type)writing app called Writer that offers "distraction-free focus" and saves your text, plus you can opt to have manual or electric typewriter key strike sounds accompany the composition of your deathless prose. Hemingwayesque! (don't be put off by the neon green text — you can change that; use the gear icon to adjust your preferences.)
Also, 2) if you happen to have Kontakt (info), this cool, free audio plugin: Typewriter, a (Wavesfactory) Kontakt sample instrument featuring a real Royal vintage typewriter. Fun Video; Download.
So! Enjoy the very satisfying clickityclack if you are an old style-typewriter sounds enjoyer, and please enjoy your free thread regardless!
Also, 2) if you happen to have Kontakt (info), this cool, free audio plugin: Typewriter, a (Wavesfactory) Kontakt sample instrument featuring a real Royal vintage typewriter. Fun Video; Download.
So! Enjoy the very satisfying clickityclack if you are an old style-typewriter sounds enjoyer, and please enjoy your free thread regardless!
You have heard the Typewriter Concerto, haven't you?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:39 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:39 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
In the mid 1980’s I typed out the first three chapters of a book about role-playing games on an old and battered (even then) Underwood typewriter. I had to share the book with my sister and I wanted those sections myself!
posted by grmpyprogrammer at 3:45 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by grmpyprogrammer at 3:45 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
My Mum did a lot of typing. We had a number of obsoleted typewriters as toys. All manual. I suspect that is a big part of my attraction to computers: I could already type knew where the letters were, and I understood the power of mail-merge.
posted by pompomtom at 4:05 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by pompomtom at 4:05 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
When I was a wee lad I somehow came into possession of a giant doorstop of a Remington. It was such a cool machine. And almost impossible for young me to press the keys hard enough to make a usable impression. So much respect for people who could use those all day. Fingers of iron.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:30 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:30 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
The origin of the RETURN key is a good one
posted by lalochezia at 4:34 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 4:34 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
One of Fantagraphics' Peanuts collections includes a strip showing a side-on shot of a typewriter being used by (I think) Peppermint Patty. The publishers realised - quite rightly - that many younger readers wouldn't have the faintest idea what this strange device was, so they added a footnote to explain it. That was one of the first times it hit me that my youth and early adulthood was now far enough back in time to require this treatment, and it was not a happy thought.
Also, if it's Free Thread Monday, it must be time for me to recommend a piece of music I've recently been enjoying. This week's suggestion is Sea Jigs by Pontún.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:52 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also, if it's Free Thread Monday, it must be time for me to recommend a piece of music I've recently been enjoying. This week's suggestion is Sea Jigs by Pontún.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:52 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
When I was 20 I did a year-long project where I typed a poem, one per each day of the year, on an old Smith-Corona portable typewriter in the window of a downtown youth culture center in Reykjavík. I can’t touch a typewriter without being transported back there in my mind.
posted by Kattullus at 4:53 AM on April 3, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 4:53 AM on April 3, 2023 [19 favorites]
On a similar obsolete tech note, I bought a vintage Apple //e Platinum computer last week. I have started a hobby project to develop a new video mode. Somebody released a video card for the Apple II that provides HDMI out, and emulates all of the (extremely quirky) Apple II video modes on it.
But that video card has an entire Pi system-on-a-chip in it! My project is to provide a new API on the Apple side which works basically like a modern graphics accelerator. Instead of specifying the color of every pixel, one by one, in a frame buffer, one defines bitmap tiles up front, uploads those to the card (which has, effectively, infinite memory compared to the Apple), and then can send simple tile-oriented commands to paint the screen with vastly less effort.
I got a demo working in the AppleWin emulator over the weekend, where I hacked in the API I intend to support, to debug the design before trying to implement it on the Pi. It uploads the EGA-level graphics 16x16 tiles from the DOS version of Ultima V, and lets you walk around the overworld.
It’s still cheating on multiple levels because we are synthesizing the commands with an external C++ application outside of AppleWin and sending them over via shared memory. I am currently working on writing Apple assembly code to start doing that part of it more genuinely. Then do the rendering code to have a standalone Pi system do the display over a tcp socket from AppleWin, and then finally integrate it with the hardware card to do it for real all on hardware.
posted by notoriety public at 4:54 AM on April 3, 2023 [11 favorites]
But that video card has an entire Pi system-on-a-chip in it! My project is to provide a new API on the Apple side which works basically like a modern graphics accelerator. Instead of specifying the color of every pixel, one by one, in a frame buffer, one defines bitmap tiles up front, uploads those to the card (which has, effectively, infinite memory compared to the Apple), and then can send simple tile-oriented commands to paint the screen with vastly less effort.
I got a demo working in the AppleWin emulator over the weekend, where I hacked in the API I intend to support, to debug the design before trying to implement it on the Pi. It uploads the EGA-level graphics 16x16 tiles from the DOS version of Ultima V, and lets you walk around the overworld.
It’s still cheating on multiple levels because we are synthesizing the commands with an external C++ application outside of AppleWin and sending them over via shared memory. I am currently working on writing Apple assembly code to start doing that part of it more genuinely. Then do the rendering code to have a standalone Pi system do the display over a tcp socket from AppleWin, and then finally integrate it with the hardware card to do it for real all on hardware.
posted by notoriety public at 4:54 AM on April 3, 2023 [11 favorites]
I recall (from back in the days of Mac OS8 & 9) a system extension that played all the appropriate typewriter sounds as you typed on the keyboard, including the “return” sound. I think there was also a bell, but I can’t recall how it was invoked.
Lordy, I miss Mac system extensions. There were soooo many fun ones.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:55 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Lordy, I miss Mac system extensions. There were soooo many fun ones.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:55 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh, golly, memories. The great big heavy manual with the lever and the bell noise. You know the Tetris dreams? I had those dreams, but for typing.
I learned to type the summer after 10th grade and in some ways it was a godsend and in others it limited me; that was back when the acceptable jobs for women were nurse, teacher, or secretary and at the time I didn't want to be a nurse or a teacher. As a female attorney in a firm where I was working told me, "If I'd learned to type I wouldn't have become a lawyer." I was around for the first electrics, the IBM ball, the first one-line word processor, and the early word processing programs (I still miss the plain screen of early WordPerfect).
I switched to teaching and went back to grad school in my forties, and being able to type and take shorthand ended up being really useful in myethnographic dissertation fieldwork, though in retrospect I had way too much data. It also meant I could support myself while I was on fellowship, because the fellowship didn't actually pay enough to live on.
As a writer, being able to touch-type (and use the backspace key liberally) has been a great gift for my ability to compose on the fly.
Now I'm studying French, and last night I was having those Tetris dreams again, but for the imperfect, the conditional, and the future tenses.
posted by Peach at 5:06 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
I learned to type the summer after 10th grade and in some ways it was a godsend and in others it limited me; that was back when the acceptable jobs for women were nurse, teacher, or secretary and at the time I didn't want to be a nurse or a teacher. As a female attorney in a firm where I was working told me, "If I'd learned to type I wouldn't have become a lawyer." I was around for the first electrics, the IBM ball, the first one-line word processor, and the early word processing programs (I still miss the plain screen of early WordPerfect).
I switched to teaching and went back to grad school in my forties, and being able to type and take shorthand ended up being really useful in myethnographic dissertation fieldwork, though in retrospect I had way too much data. It also meant I could support myself while I was on fellowship, because the fellowship didn't actually pay enough to live on.
As a writer, being able to touch-type (and use the backspace key liberally) has been a great gift for my ability to compose on the fly.
Now I'm studying French, and last night I was having those Tetris dreams again, but for the imperfect, the conditional, and the future tenses.
posted by Peach at 5:06 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. [ding]posted by uncleozzy at 5:11 AM on April 3, 2023 [19 favorites]
If your Commodore 64's SID sound chip has burned out so it no longer makes sound, you can replace that chip with an plug-in-identical equivalent that recreates the SID's hardware interface and audio quirks entirely in software running on a ARM Cortex-M4 processor with full floating point support. And the ability to update its firmware from the C64 itself. The ARMSID, just 34€.
The M4 is a 32-bit processor; the 6510 in the C64 is an 8-bit processor. The M4 runs at 100Mhz, the 6510 at 1Mhz. Compared on bit width and processor speed alone, the M4 is 400x the computer than the 6510. Interestingly, though, the C64 has more RAM; 64K vs 32K, while the M4 has more ROM (flash tho) at 128K vs 20K.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:22 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
The M4 is a 32-bit processor; the 6510 in the C64 is an 8-bit processor. The M4 runs at 100Mhz, the 6510 at 1Mhz. Compared on bit width and processor speed alone, the M4 is 400x the computer than the 6510. Interestingly, though, the C64 has more RAM; 64K vs 32K, while the M4 has more ROM (flash tho) at 128K vs 20K.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:22 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
The ding in a typewriter was an effect of the carriage passing the location set as the right margin, to let the typist know when to go to the next line. No good typist would actually be looking at the typewriter, so an audible sound was needed to allow them to focus just on listening/copying rather than worrying about the position of the carriage. Most office (non-portable) typewriters had a adjustable hard left margin point to which the carriage would return, and an adjustable soft right margin that triggered the bell.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:28 AM on April 3, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:28 AM on April 3, 2023 [6 favorites]
Just caught the tail end of typewriters.
Weirdly, our early 1980s typewriter was considered too important, too valuable, and too fragile for a little kid like me to pound away at, but the just as old TI-99/4a was already so obsolete by 1987 that I was free to use it unsupervised.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:38 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
Weirdly, our early 1980s typewriter was considered too important, too valuable, and too fragile for a little kid like me to pound away at, but the just as old TI-99/4a was already so obsolete by 1987 that I was free to use it unsupervised.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:38 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
Compared on bit width and processor speed alone, the M4 is 400x the computer than the 6510.
Exactly the situation I’m looking at with the VidHD card, seanmpuckett. Only more so. It’s got an Orange Pi Zero Plus 2, which is a 4 core Arm64 underclocked down to 800MHz for power and heat reasons. 512MB RAM with 200MHz memory bus. It has a daughter card which does the low-level interfacing with the Apple bus, and snoops the entire state of the bus, building a complete map of the 64k address space of the Apple, updating it on a cycle by cycle basis.
posted by notoriety public at 5:41 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Exactly the situation I’m looking at with the VidHD card, seanmpuckett. Only more so. It’s got an Orange Pi Zero Plus 2, which is a 4 core Arm64 underclocked down to 800MHz for power and heat reasons. 512MB RAM with 200MHz memory bus. It has a daughter card which does the low-level interfacing with the Apple bus, and snoops the entire state of the bus, building a complete map of the 64k address space of the Apple, updating it on a cycle by cycle basis.
posted by notoriety public at 5:41 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't have to remember typewriters as I've assembled a small collection of the things: I use them for letter-writing. They range from a 1937 Imperial 'The Good Companion' portable to a 1970 Olympia SG-3.
posted by misteraitch at 5:50 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by misteraitch at 5:50 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I went off to college with a portable electric Smith-Corona. When I tell young people this, they look at me with awe. At least I think it’s awe. I choose to believe it’s awe.
posted by scratch at 6:04 AM on April 3, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by scratch at 6:04 AM on April 3, 2023 [12 favorites]
Like misteraitch, I have a collection -- about a dozen of them. There's one sitting here by my desk at work that actually gets used in official state government business from time to time.
posted by JanetLand at 6:08 AM on April 3, 2023
posted by JanetLand at 6:08 AM on April 3, 2023
I think kids today are pretty much required to turn in work "typed." In the 80s, with the exception of a major term paper, nobody ever required typed work. I could turn in my weekly 5-page papers in my horrible, barely legible cursive. I do wish I had taken a typing class back then though. I took my first programming class in 11th grade learning BASIC on a TRS-80, but nobody even suggested that keyboard skills were a prerequisite for the class. I still can't touch type.
posted by COD at 6:10 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by COD at 6:10 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I've just had a vivid memory of a very young me chicken peck typing out an email (pegasus mail??) to my grandparents on the absolute brick of a laptop that my parents had in early 90s. "I'm sorry if you're having trouble reading this" I typed. "It's because I'm writing this while being chased by a bear!" Peck.. peck... Peck..
posted by freethefeet at 6:14 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by freethefeet at 6:14 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
I had a Brother electric when I was a girl. I was very proud of writing stories that looked "real," and I did at least one school project on it in the sixth grade, which, again, looked very "real" to me. At that time, the teachers didn't want to see printed work. I thought that they thought that dot matrix printing looked tacky or that kids could use computers to cheat somehow, which was silly. That was before the internet, AOL, or even a copy/paste command. But even after inkjets and lasers came into regular use, my teachers wanted to see your handwriting. Now I think it was probably to avoid an easy way for kids to pay other kids to do their work for them.
I didn't learn typing until I had to take it in the school's computer lab in 1991 or so, and as hard as it was for me, it has been right up there with learning to write in the first place. Nothing fancy--phosphor screens, no CD-ROMs. I credit the games we played as much as anything else, like Typing Invaders.
Although I've struggled with RSI for the past 10 or 12 years, I think it was down to the touch screen more than typing, although typing certainly aggravated it until I bought ergonomic accessories and various gloves.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:16 AM on April 3, 2023
I didn't learn typing until I had to take it in the school's computer lab in 1991 or so, and as hard as it was for me, it has been right up there with learning to write in the first place. Nothing fancy--phosphor screens, no CD-ROMs. I credit the games we played as much as anything else, like Typing Invaders.
Although I've struggled with RSI for the past 10 or 12 years, I think it was down to the touch screen more than typing, although typing certainly aggravated it until I bought ergonomic accessories and various gloves.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:16 AM on April 3, 2023
Yeah, my high school graduation present was an electric typewriter, but nothing as sweet as one of those Smith Corona babies with the cartridge ribbon.
I loved typewriters from the time I was a toddler, and one of my earliest memories is of a toy typewroter that I could actually type with on paper. When I was a young teen, my father was given an electric typewriter from Germany that had a German keyboard layout, which was so mysterious to me then.
It took me a while to get used to using a word processor instead of a typewriter, because it seemed much too easy to just go back and undo everything you wrote on a computer, while it was a major pain to re-type something on paper, so I felt like I thought about my word choice a lot more carefully when using a typewriter.
posted by briank at 6:17 AM on April 3, 2023
I loved typewriters from the time I was a toddler, and one of my earliest memories is of a toy typewroter that I could actually type with on paper. When I was a young teen, my father was given an electric typewriter from Germany that had a German keyboard layout, which was so mysterious to me then.
It took me a while to get used to using a word processor instead of a typewriter, because it seemed much too easy to just go back and undo everything you wrote on a computer, while it was a major pain to re-type something on paper, so I felt like I thought about my word choice a lot more carefully when using a typewriter.
posted by briank at 6:17 AM on April 3, 2023
Speaking of obsolete, my college's old brutalist library had a number of "typing rooms," cubicles with carpeted walls, for banging out papers without bothering roommates. Since then, they'd been changed to grad student carrels. I worked in the archives, and from what I could gather, reserving a typing room and keeping hold of it was a major concern at the end of terms in the '80s. At my time, things could get heated in the computer lab for the same reason. Most people didn't have printers or whatever software their STEM teachers wanted. I remember going to the lab with a floppy disk for a hard copy, late at night or near dawn.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:24 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Countess Elena at 6:24 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
I occasionally worked on Selectrics (back when mainframes had them as printer/keyboard I/O).
I have a cycle shaft tool somewhere that I'm sending to zippy if I ever find it.
I took the train from VT to DC yesterday. First train trip since before Covid.
What a great way to travel.
posted by MtDewd at 6:28 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
I have a cycle shaft tool somewhere that I'm sending to zippy if I ever find it.
I took the train from VT to DC yesterday. First train trip since before Covid.
What a great way to travel.
posted by MtDewd at 6:28 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
Man, college computer rooms. When I finally made it back into college for real, it was 1995, and the computer room at my dorm was mostly filled with fairly standard IBMs, which were always in use. But way at the back, there were a couple of extremely high end PowerPC machines which mostly went neglected. Not by me! Pretty much everything I needed to do for class, I could do via terminals to the Unix machines across campus, or write my papers via whatever word processing stuff was on the PowerPCs. Also I developed an Angband addiction, which I was able to feed at any Mac anywhere on campus, as the game including save files fit on one 800K disk.
posted by notoriety public at 6:32 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 6:32 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. <DING
posted by kiwi-epitome at 6:47 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by kiwi-epitome at 6:47 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
College computer labs were pretty boring and Microsoft by the time I got to them. The printers were usually down or had a really long queue, so I'd install a postscript printer driver (this was allowed for some reason?), print my work to a file, use a self-contained windows port of SSH/SCP to upload the file to my linux box at home (I commuted), and print it myself. Come to think of it, I probably could have gotten around having to install a printer driver because I'm pretty sure whatever big honkin' network HPs they had probably spoke it already.
I went everywhere in those days with 3.5" floppy disk with a self-contained SSH/SCP client on it plus my private key. For a guy who's always been pretty norm-core, this was the most cyberpunk I'd ever feel in life. Later on I'd get a laptop and WiFi would become a thing, but it wasn't the same.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:50 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
I went everywhere in those days with 3.5" floppy disk with a self-contained SSH/SCP client on it plus my private key. For a guy who's always been pretty norm-core, this was the most cyberpunk I'd ever feel in life. Later on I'd get a laptop and WiFi would become a thing, but it wasn't the same.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:50 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think there was also a bell, but I can’t recall how it was invoked.
Someone has probably answered this, but the bell let you know you were getting close to the end of your line and needed to do a carriage return.
I loved typing on a Selectric. The satisfying bang-bang-bang of those keys. There was one in my office when I was an adjunct professor, oh, say 20 years ago, and when no students showed up for office hours, I'd type my journal on it.
posted by Well I never at 6:55 AM on April 3, 2023
Someone has probably answered this, but the bell let you know you were getting close to the end of your line and needed to do a carriage return.
I loved typing on a Selectric. The satisfying bang-bang-bang of those keys. There was one in my office when I was an adjunct professor, oh, say 20 years ago, and when no students showed up for office hours, I'd type my journal on it.
posted by Well I never at 6:55 AM on April 3, 2023
I do enjoy the sound of an old-fashioned typewriter!
In a couple of my first office jobs I recall being asked more than once to try to make typewriter corrections or changes on official documents... this rarely went well.
About the time I was off to college (1987ish) I got one of those inbetween typewriter and computer devices, a word processor where a long narrow window displayed exactly one line of text that could be edited. (Shortly after, an Apple Performa! And after that, an Atari Mega 2 with a Megafile 30 - because my computer friend assured me I should never need more than 2 MB of RAM or 30 MB of hard drive space.)
In other news I have once again declared a month of painting every day, and while I did manage to paint both April 1 and 2, both times it was the very end of the day for less than an hour... you'd think I didn't want to do painting at all. : -|
(Totally counts though, and the portrait is looking better than expected.)
posted by Glinn at 6:56 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
In a couple of my first office jobs I recall being asked more than once to try to make typewriter corrections or changes on official documents... this rarely went well.
About the time I was off to college (1987ish) I got one of those inbetween typewriter and computer devices, a word processor where a long narrow window displayed exactly one line of text that could be edited. (Shortly after, an Apple Performa! And after that, an Atari Mega 2 with a Megafile 30 - because my computer friend assured me I should never need more than 2 MB of RAM or 30 MB of hard drive space.)
In other news I have once again declared a month of painting every day, and while I did manage to paint both April 1 and 2, both times it was the very end of the day for less than an hour... you'd think I didn't want to do painting at all. : -|
(Totally counts though, and the portrait is looking better than expected.)
posted by Glinn at 6:56 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
My handwriting has always been terrible. So when I found an old manual typewriter at a yard sale when I was a kid, I ponied up some of my hard-earned paper route money and took it home. It was an Olympia, and it had the most awesome font; a blocky, futuristic font that made everything I wrote look, ironically, like it was written on a computer. It's the Senatorial font on this page, and man did I have a nostalgia flashback finding that this morning.
Ironically, I cannot find Senatorial as a computer font.
posted by MrVisible at 7:00 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Ironically, I cannot find Senatorial as a computer font.
posted by MrVisible at 7:00 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I loved typing on a Selectric.
The IBM Selectric was the mighty god-king of electric typewriters, and I will brook no argument on this point.
I occasionally get a small urge to go through eBay and look for one, but the fact that I really have neither room nor any earthly use for one always stops me.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:05 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
The IBM Selectric was the mighty god-king of electric typewriters, and I will brook no argument on this point.
I occasionally get a small urge to go through eBay and look for one, but the fact that I really have neither room nor any earthly use for one always stops me.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:05 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
Got an electric typewriter for high school graduation. The typing class that I took in high school was very much oriented toward prepping people (mostly girls) for the typing pool, and per seanmpuckett above, the goal was to type fast and accurately without ever looking at your hands; getting a high words-per-minute score was the goal, and in fairness, I did get my first library job in part because I had a decent WPM. But that much typing for hours a day gave a lot of those typing pool women RSI, as well; at that first library job, the chief clerk had to wear these hand braces for her RSI that reminded me of Spider-Man's web shooters. That job also introduced me to word processing software and laser printers, as well as the internet, pre-Eternal September. (I had had some experience with computers several years earlier; my school got some of the earliest Macintoshes, and I did invitations for the psychology honors society event that featured about four or five different fonts, because I could, damnit.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:10 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:10 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Happy Monday everyone!
Just wanted to let you know we've been doing ongoing threads of decluttering/life tasks support over in IRL if anyone wants to join us for encouragement, complaining, or bragging about getting things done!
I got myself a Qwerkywriter for Christmas and I love it.
posted by toastyk at 7:17 AM on April 3, 2023 [6 favorites]
Just wanted to let you know we've been doing ongoing threads of decluttering/life tasks support over in IRL if anyone wants to join us for encouragement, complaining, or bragging about getting things done!
I got myself a Qwerkywriter for Christmas and I love it.
posted by toastyk at 7:17 AM on April 3, 2023 [6 favorites]
I just can't resist a free plug-in. I have too many already. So many I don't even know what all I have so finding something musical for what I'm recording has the potential to derail the entire creative process, but freeee….
posted by ob1quixote at 7:20 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by ob1quixote at 7:20 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Around 1990, a friend mapped typewriter sounds onto his Mac keyboard. We laughed.
Growing up, we had a cheap portable mechanical typewriter. Didn't everyone? It had a few endearing character shifts, and the typed lines of course reflected the operator skill or lack thereof. For me, its most memorable use was for some parts of a gr 8 science fair project - electric quiz cards with multiple choice answers, and foil between 2 layers of construction paper. I found one of the cards recently when sorting a long-forgotten box of photos and stuff. (yes, I took first in the science fair, but it was a small town. Steve Jobs I wasn't)
* * *
Thanks toastyk for the spring cleaning thread. My hoarding is just a minor affliction (thanks to having a small house and a spouse that brooks no clutter outside of designated areas), but my friend's hoarding is off the chart and has already cost him his marriage. I hope to help him make some inroads this year.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:25 AM on April 3, 2023
Growing up, we had a cheap portable mechanical typewriter. Didn't everyone? It had a few endearing character shifts, and the typed lines of course reflected the operator skill or lack thereof. For me, its most memorable use was for some parts of a gr 8 science fair project - electric quiz cards with multiple choice answers, and foil between 2 layers of construction paper. I found one of the cards recently when sorting a long-forgotten box of photos and stuff. (yes, I took first in the science fair, but it was a small town. Steve Jobs I wasn't)
* * *
Thanks toastyk for the spring cleaning thread. My hoarding is just a minor affliction (thanks to having a small house and a spouse that brooks no clutter outside of designated areas), but my friend's hoarding is off the chart and has already cost him his marriage. I hope to help him make some inroads this year.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:25 AM on April 3, 2023
About the time I was off to college (1987ish) I got one of those inbetween typewriter and computer devices, a word processor where a long narrow window displayed exactly one line of text that could be edited.
Oh man, I had one of those, Canon of some sort IIRC.
I filled in a high school class slot with a typing course on a whim, loved banging away on the Selectrics. Good whim in the end as most of my professional career has been spent at a keyboard.
posted by calamari kid at 7:28 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh man, I had one of those, Canon of some sort IIRC.
I filled in a high school class slot with a typing course on a whim, loved banging away on the Selectrics. Good whim in the end as most of my professional career has been spent at a keyboard.
posted by calamari kid at 7:28 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Good morning, MeFites! Just popped in to say I'm celebrating my 400th life modeling gig tomorrow night! :)
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:28 AM on April 3, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:28 AM on April 3, 2023 [14 favorites]
Another typewriter hardware feature on office machines were tab stops. Every time you pressed a key, the carriage would jump forward a single character width and stop; this was done with a rack-like set of pawls in the machine, and a catch on the carriage. To contrast, when you pressed TAB, the catch would lift as long as you held the key down, so the carriage would just shoot to the left as quickly as possible until you let up on the key. Tab stops were little adjustable metal flags you could slide back and forth that would as the carriage was moving during a tab, trip the the raised catch, thus stopping the carriage. For correspondence the first tab stop was generally set at 5, and the second at about 50, so tapping tab to start a paragraph would make an indent, and tapping it again would allow typing the right-side block of the sender's address. For filling out forms or typing out tables you'd have quite a few more stops set.
Some electric typewriters could do real right justification and center justification, which was really clever. You'd press a key to enter centre or right justification mode, then you would type and the carriage would move but the machine would not type anything, as it was storing your keystrokes in a tiny RAM buffer. On a right justification, the carriage would jump one character to the right for each one you typed. On a centre justification, it would jump to the right once every two characters typed. When you hit TAB and/or RETURN, the machine would suddenly spit out all the characters you typed right where the carriage was, and because it had already moved appropriately for how many characters you typed, the result was properly justified.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:29 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
Some electric typewriters could do real right justification and center justification, which was really clever. You'd press a key to enter centre or right justification mode, then you would type and the carriage would move but the machine would not type anything, as it was storing your keystrokes in a tiny RAM buffer. On a right justification, the carriage would jump one character to the right for each one you typed. On a centre justification, it would jump to the right once every two characters typed. When you hit TAB and/or RETURN, the machine would suddenly spit out all the characters you typed right where the carriage was, and because it had already moved appropriately for how many characters you typed, the result was properly justified.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:29 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
I own two manual typewriters, both of which were opportunistic finds at a little vintage store in my neighborhood. We didn't need either and both were somehow immediate "we should buy this" things when my wife and I saw them. One's an old Remington Deluxe that's IIRC a late 40s post-war model that still has basically old-timey Underwood vibes but at that point in the evolution of the machines was more streamlined; the other is a...something? from maybe the 60s? when typewriter manufactures had started embracing modern design fashions; some pastel color for the smooth glossy frame, keys that look like the keycaps of what would eventually become computer keyboards, etc.
I don't use either much (the latter clearly not enough to remember the details, it came with its own little suitcase and has spent most of it's life with us in that), but the Remington did become a kind of therapy machine in late 2016 as something I would literally physically bang out some journaled thoughts while dealing with the fucking election and the fucking everything else adjacent to that. I spent a couple month hammering out a page a day just to have something to manifest my anger and stress into that had better feedback than the soft subtle plastic ticking of Microsoft Natural.
The fact that Tom Hanks is just a gigantic fucking typewriter nerd is a fact that pleases me whenever I remember. He could have been Tom Hanks, Grocery Clerk and he'd probably have still been that huge typewriter nerd who works at the grocery store.
posted by cortex at 7:30 AM on April 3, 2023
I don't use either much (the latter clearly not enough to remember the details, it came with its own little suitcase and has spent most of it's life with us in that), but the Remington did become a kind of therapy machine in late 2016 as something I would literally physically bang out some journaled thoughts while dealing with the fucking election and the fucking everything else adjacent to that. I spent a couple month hammering out a page a day just to have something to manifest my anger and stress into that had better feedback than the soft subtle plastic ticking of Microsoft Natural.
The fact that Tom Hanks is just a gigantic fucking typewriter nerd is a fact that pleases me whenever I remember. He could have been Tom Hanks, Grocery Clerk and he'd probably have still been that huge typewriter nerd who works at the grocery store.
posted by cortex at 7:30 AM on April 3, 2023
Late last year, a typewriter shop opened right on Water street in Port Townsend, WA. They do repairs, and will let you test out and hire various typewriters.
posted by jimfl at 7:32 AM on April 3, 2023
posted by jimfl at 7:32 AM on April 3, 2023
As an antique dealer I come across typewriters a lot; one thing that impresses me is how many children, in the 9 - 14 age range, are fascinated by typewriters and want to own one. A coworker's kid, when shopping with their encouraging grandmother, spent $20 on a 1910 model that turned out to be a 80lb boat anchor, which now sits next to my front door on the assumption that "I could use it", but more because the coworker wanted the eyesore out of his house.
But, kids looking to spend $20 - $30 on a little portable typewriter happens a lot more than I'd expect. Maybe they love click-clacking for a little while then realize why everyone was so ready to move to electronic devices, but at least they satisfied that itch. One girl recently was so happy to find one because she was going to write her diary on it, like she saw on the TV show Wednesday.
I recently sold my Ghia typewriter: yes, the guys that designed race cars came up with a super-speedy design for a relatively stock Smith-Corona typewriter. I held onto it because of its relative rarity, but my wife finally said it was time for it to go, so it did. I don't think I ever actually typed anything on it.
Sitting in my office is a super-sexy Olivetti Valentine, even more of a racecar than the Ghia, which was my grandparents', then my dad used it in college in the 80s, at which time, I, as a 9 or 10 year old kid, typed up "screenplays" and stories and letters to friends...so I guess that's why it's still in my office and not for sale in the antique mall. It's more valuable than the Ghia was, but the 9 year old me is having a harder time parting with it.
We have one typewriter in the antique mall which has actually gotten comments about how over-priced it is (we're asking about $200), because I have never seen a cleaner, well-functioning typewriter. Most typewriters we sell get de-gunked and adjusted by me to the point where, yeah, you can type on it, but this typewriter is almost a joy to type on. You need to remember, these were the super-powered business machine of the day and the expectation was that they were supposed to work well and be used constantly. Finding a typewriter where pressing the key takes very little effort to get the type slug to hit the page is few and far between. But, it's a dull gray with a dieselpunky shape from the 1940s, I hold no attachment to it. Maybe some kid with deep pockets will buy it and truly learn what typing is like.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:40 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
But, kids looking to spend $20 - $30 on a little portable typewriter happens a lot more than I'd expect. Maybe they love click-clacking for a little while then realize why everyone was so ready to move to electronic devices, but at least they satisfied that itch. One girl recently was so happy to find one because she was going to write her diary on it, like she saw on the TV show Wednesday.
I recently sold my Ghia typewriter: yes, the guys that designed race cars came up with a super-speedy design for a relatively stock Smith-Corona typewriter. I held onto it because of its relative rarity, but my wife finally said it was time for it to go, so it did. I don't think I ever actually typed anything on it.
Sitting in my office is a super-sexy Olivetti Valentine, even more of a racecar than the Ghia, which was my grandparents', then my dad used it in college in the 80s, at which time, I, as a 9 or 10 year old kid, typed up "screenplays" and stories and letters to friends...so I guess that's why it's still in my office and not for sale in the antique mall. It's more valuable than the Ghia was, but the 9 year old me is having a harder time parting with it.
We have one typewriter in the antique mall which has actually gotten comments about how over-priced it is (we're asking about $200), because I have never seen a cleaner, well-functioning typewriter. Most typewriters we sell get de-gunked and adjusted by me to the point where, yeah, you can type on it, but this typewriter is almost a joy to type on. You need to remember, these were the super-powered business machine of the day and the expectation was that they were supposed to work well and be used constantly. Finding a typewriter where pressing the key takes very little effort to get the type slug to hit the page is few and far between. But, it's a dull gray with a dieselpunky shape from the 1940s, I hold no attachment to it. Maybe some kid with deep pockets will buy it and truly learn what typing is like.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:40 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
this is about as relevant as a Fargo S2 clip will ever get to a discussion of typewriters
man, the casting was so great for this season.. I didn't see the point to serializing a lovely film, but S1 got me hard and S2 got me harder. great score in the opening sequence here.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:43 AM on April 3, 2023
man, the casting was so great for this season.. I didn't see the point to serializing a lovely film, but S1 got me hard and S2 got me harder. great score in the opening sequence here.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:43 AM on April 3, 2023
My dad's small business (i.e., him and my brother) still use eighty-pound IBM Selectric typewriters for documents that involve carbonless forms. I love their quiet, purposeful hummmm while they wait for you to strike the keys.
In 1990 I headed off to college with an electric typewriter. I never learned to touch-type and still can't so -- far from making it faster for me to crank out drafts -- the effort of typing meant that having it was actually a disincentive to do anything but the final version of my papers. I got pretty good grades for essentially turning in only rough drafts for two semesters, before picking up a Mac Classic before Sophomore year started.
(One of these included a paper that a friend still ribs me about, which was marked "A-, you failed to support your thesis." Probably still have that one somewhere. I always did have style...)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:06 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
In 1990 I headed off to college with an electric typewriter. I never learned to touch-type and still can't so -- far from making it faster for me to crank out drafts -- the effort of typing meant that having it was actually a disincentive to do anything but the final version of my papers. I got pretty good grades for essentially turning in only rough drafts for two semesters, before picking up a Mac Classic before Sophomore year started.
(One of these included a paper that a friend still ribs me about, which was marked "A-, you failed to support your thesis." Probably still have that one somewhere. I always did have style...)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:06 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Gotta check out the decluttering thread. We have a lot of stuff to get rid of. Difficulty: it isn’t all ours (it’s the stuff belonging to a deceased relative) and most of it is very heavy - as in, rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. There were hoarding issues involved as well and it was beyond bad. Life is crazy lately and things should slow down soon so hopefully we can get a dent put in this.
I needed something to train for because I was starting to fall out of shape (again, see above comment about life being crazy) so in December I signed up for a bike event over Memorial Day. I’ve been training for it ever since and this last week was the first time that I feel like I’m making real progress and might actually be able to pull this off. However, I had family in town last week and they wanted to do some of the local hikes. I haven’t gone hiking in months, where in the last several years hiking has been my big thing. As we’re all climbing a really steep trail, I remember how much I miss hiking, as training for the ride has been taking all my active time. And I realize that the simple truth is that I’m a hiker. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being on the bike, but I’m a hiker. I’ll try to mix in regular bike rides going forward afterwards, but I still have so many places to hike.
*ding*
posted by azpenguin at 8:06 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I needed something to train for because I was starting to fall out of shape (again, see above comment about life being crazy) so in December I signed up for a bike event over Memorial Day. I’ve been training for it ever since and this last week was the first time that I feel like I’m making real progress and might actually be able to pull this off. However, I had family in town last week and they wanted to do some of the local hikes. I haven’t gone hiking in months, where in the last several years hiking has been my big thing. As we’re all climbing a really steep trail, I remember how much I miss hiking, as training for the ride has been taking all my active time. And I realize that the simple truth is that I’m a hiker. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being on the bike, but I’m a hiker. I’ll try to mix in regular bike rides going forward afterwards, but I still have so many places to hike.
*ding*
posted by azpenguin at 8:06 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Came back to mention Tom Hanks, and see he's been mentioned.
His book Uncommon Type is pretty good, and he reads the audiobook himself.
I haven't watched this yet, but I see there's a documentary called California Typewriter.
posted by MtDewd at 8:09 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
His book Uncommon Type is pretty good, and he reads the audiobook himself.
I haven't watched this yet, but I see there's a documentary called California Typewriter.
posted by MtDewd at 8:09 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
a rack-like set of pawls in the machine
one of many discarded titles for the fourth studio album from The Police
(In junior high I had a typing class. Right before it began I broke my right thumb. Whoo-hoo, Ima get out of typing class! Uh, no, here's a book on one-handed typing! Grrr. Never did learn more than accelerated hunt & peck.)
posted by chavenet at 8:13 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
one of many discarded titles for the fourth studio album from The Police
(In junior high I had a typing class. Right before it began I broke my right thumb. Whoo-hoo, Ima get out of typing class! Uh, no, here's a book on one-handed typing! Grrr. Never did learn more than accelerated hunt & peck.)
posted by chavenet at 8:13 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
My father-in-law was a career academic, beginning in the middle 60s, and wrote almost exclusively on typewriters into the early 1990s. His daughter and I, aging punks + veterans of the pre-desktop publishing zine world, caught the tail end of typewriters being genuinely useful tools, and inherited his entire collection of them. Even after letting some go, we have 6, including a massive 1950s Royal that's made primarily out of thick steel + easily weighs 25lbs.
We can't quite bring ourselves to throw them out, and have been trying to think of some fun craft/art projects we can use them for with our kids.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:16 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
We can't quite bring ourselves to throw them out, and have been trying to think of some fun craft/art projects we can use them for with our kids.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:16 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Accelerated hunt and peck sounds like my style.
A manager I had told me a story about when he was a young typewriter repairman.
He had a call in a typing pool, and while he was testing out his fix, and apologizing to the customer about his typing ability, he said he was just a 'hunt and peck' typist.
The lady said, 'That's all right. A lot of the girls here are huntin' peckers.'
He was pretty embarrassed.
posted by MtDewd at 8:22 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
A manager I had told me a story about when he was a young typewriter repairman.
He had a call in a typing pool, and while he was testing out his fix, and apologizing to the customer about his typing ability, he said he was just a 'hunt and peck' typist.
The lady said, 'That's all right. A lot of the girls here are huntin' peckers.'
He was pretty embarrassed.
posted by MtDewd at 8:22 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
If anyone ends up in Edinburgh and fancies banging something out on an old Royal 10 from 1914, or just gawping at some other lovely typewriters, check out Typewronger Books. It also sells books, I guess.
posted by sarble at 8:30 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by sarble at 8:30 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I learned to type one summer when I was in junior high (mid 70s) on my mom's manual. She thought it would be a good summer project for me. (It was!)
I then took typing in summer school in HS . Electric typewriters!
In college I made extra money by typing papers for people in my dorm. I used an electric typewriter that had a whiteout cartridge --you had to pull out the regular ink cartridge, insert the white out cartridge, then put the ink one back in. In time it almost became one motion. Haven't thought about that in years!
posted by bookmammal at 8:37 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I then took typing in summer school in HS . Electric typewriters!
In college I made extra money by typing papers for people in my dorm. I used an electric typewriter that had a whiteout cartridge --you had to pull out the regular ink cartridge, insert the white out cartridge, then put the ink one back in. In time it almost became one motion. Haven't thought about that in years!
posted by bookmammal at 8:37 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I joined the editorial team of a busy weekly newspaper in 1985, when the whole team was still using big, heavy manual typewriters to produce all their copy*. There were eight on us clustered round a long newsdesk, and on press day the sound of everyone frantically bashing out copy on those machines was deafening. When a phone call for you came in (on a landline, of course), you sometimes had to duck under the desk to hear what the other person was saying and take your notes from there.
That sound of massed typewriters clattering away is one I look back on very fondly now - I used to think of the news desk as a great ship at full steam as we powered it towards deadline. The antiseptic little click of computer keyboards in a modern newsroom is more practical and efficient in every way, but really can't compare for excitement and atmosphere.
* I think the paper's switch to Macs came around 1990.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:40 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
That sound of massed typewriters clattering away is one I look back on very fondly now - I used to think of the news desk as a great ship at full steam as we powered it towards deadline. The antiseptic little click of computer keyboards in a modern newsroom is more practical and efficient in every way, but really can't compare for excitement and atmosphere.
* I think the paper's switch to Macs came around 1990.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:40 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have nothing on typewriters, but I do have a theater update! I am officially in Tony n' Tina's Wedding for the second time. This time I'm Donna the bridesmaid, which shall be fun drama, and also the wedding singer. I note I only got this part because I was the second youngest woman to audition (presumably the youngest one got Tina) and wrote down that I can sing, otherwise I probably would have been the same character again. I fear we will have NO other bridesmaids because every other woman who auditioned is probably over 50, but....oh well, not up to me to figure out. Rehearsal starts tonight!
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:50 AM on April 3, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:50 AM on April 3, 2023 [11 favorites]
I recently sold my Ghia typewriter: yes, the guys that designed race cars came up with a super-speedy design for a relatively stock Smith-Corona typewriter.
That is boss. I had not seen one before and it certainly looks like it could do 175 on a straightaway.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:57 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
That is boss. I had not seen one before and it certainly looks like it could do 175 on a straightaway.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:57 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
My mother uses an IBM Selectric III with the correcting ribbon. It hasn't been working lately. I took a quick look at it. My theory is that the low-quality aftermarket carbon film ribbons don't feed properly, and jam up the type head. I will have to take another look at it, and I will also see if better-quality ribbons are available. But, yeah, Selectrics were serious office equipment, and you can see that in the build quality. Wenestvedt is right... the hum of the electric drive motor is purposeful!
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:58 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:58 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
My high school got a bunch of new Selectrics just before I started, so I was thrilled to take a typing class. We had an old iron monster typewriter at home, but it was so hard for me to use even in hunt & peck mode. Touch typing has been one of those life skills that I'm extremely glad I got to learn, and now that I have a new (to me) monster computer I'm thinking again about writing, journaling, and getting out some of those wacky stories.
In other news, rebound Covid is a thing, and speaking of clutter I just realized I have a couple of empty Covid test boxes scattered around my desk in various cubbies. So time to roll up the sleeves, step away from the internet, and...go make apricot jam, yeah, maybe scones.
posted by winesong at 9:13 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
In other news, rebound Covid is a thing, and speaking of clutter I just realized I have a couple of empty Covid test boxes scattered around my desk in various cubbies. So time to roll up the sleeves, step away from the internet, and...go make apricot jam, yeah, maybe scones.
posted by winesong at 9:13 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
mmmmmm CHONK CHONK CH-CH-CHO-CH-CHONK mmmmm ... i cleaned offices for a while and sometimes i'd turn one of the Selectrics on just to hear that sound.
the true sound of commerce
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:15 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
the true sound of commerce
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:15 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm old enough to have taken typing courses in school on a typewriter AND a computer. And in the 1990s after we were firmly in computer word processing world at school and even at home, my parents still used their electric typewriter for any SERIOUS LETTERS they needed to write.
Needing to file at least 2 600-word news articles per day at my first post-college job, I got very good at typing.
I am much less proficient at playing Euchre, which I managed to learn last week for a neighborhood Euchre tournament my wife and I were invited to over the weekend. I didn't finish dead last, so I consider that an accomplishment.
posted by emelenjr at 9:20 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Needing to file at least 2 600-word news articles per day at my first post-college job, I got very good at typing.
I am much less proficient at playing Euchre, which I managed to learn last week for a neighborhood Euchre tournament my wife and I were invited to over the weekend. I didn't finish dead last, so I consider that an accomplishment.
posted by emelenjr at 9:20 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Peripheral to typewriters, when my mom would take me into her office where she worked as a secretary, she would set me to work cranking the Gestetner machine to make copies of whatever she'd banged out on the Selectric.
Making copies of something hasn't been as kinesthetically satisfying since.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:21 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
Making copies of something hasn't been as kinesthetically satisfying since.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:21 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm part of an Austin-based group called the Typewriter Rodeo -- we take our vintage manual typewriters to various events and type custom poems on the spot for people. (Like the late great Austin band the Asylum Street Spankers, we operate without the benefit of demon electricity!) I type on a 1947 Royal Quiet deLuxe.
There are actually folks who do this on the street all over the country, and beyond, basically like poetry buskers. They charge a small fee per poem, or, more commonly, work for tips. It takes a spot with a good deal of foot traffic to work for them. I've done some of that myself, but our business model in the Typewriter Rodeo is a bit different -- event organizers hire us to type at their events, as a sort of attraction. We've typed at nonprofit fundraisers, charity events, weddings, schools, libraries, academic or corporate conferences, company parties, pop-ups, even once at Willie Nelson's ranch. People are fascinated by the sound and look of the things, especially kids and older folks.
Like typewriters, poetry is an antiquated, anachronistic, and frankly obsolete technology -- that's part of why I love it (and typewriters, and radio, and acoustic instruments, etc., etc.) Nothing ever really goes away, it seems, it just becomes a subculture of enthusiasts. That's when things get really fun AFAIC.
I think the common conception is that most people hate poetry, and that may be true, but it turns out that lots and lots of people LOVE poetry if it's about something relevant to them personally and they get to watch its creation, right on the spot. Many people have been moved to tears by their poems, and told us things when requesting them that you would never expect someone to reveal to a stranger. We're a bit like a confession booth, or fortunetellers. We take in the gestalt of the person in front of us (the "recipient", in our term of art) and let whatever flows through us and out of the typewriter do what it will. There's not enough time to engage the inner editor, which is why it's probably the most fun writing I ever do.
(We've also received not one, but *two* pieces of fan mail from the aforementioned Mr. Hanks. He's one of our biggest fans!)
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 9:22 AM on April 3, 2023 [11 favorites]
There are actually folks who do this on the street all over the country, and beyond, basically like poetry buskers. They charge a small fee per poem, or, more commonly, work for tips. It takes a spot with a good deal of foot traffic to work for them. I've done some of that myself, but our business model in the Typewriter Rodeo is a bit different -- event organizers hire us to type at their events, as a sort of attraction. We've typed at nonprofit fundraisers, charity events, weddings, schools, libraries, academic or corporate conferences, company parties, pop-ups, even once at Willie Nelson's ranch. People are fascinated by the sound and look of the things, especially kids and older folks.
Like typewriters, poetry is an antiquated, anachronistic, and frankly obsolete technology -- that's part of why I love it (and typewriters, and radio, and acoustic instruments, etc., etc.) Nothing ever really goes away, it seems, it just becomes a subculture of enthusiasts. That's when things get really fun AFAIC.
I think the common conception is that most people hate poetry, and that may be true, but it turns out that lots and lots of people LOVE poetry if it's about something relevant to them personally and they get to watch its creation, right on the spot. Many people have been moved to tears by their poems, and told us things when requesting them that you would never expect someone to reveal to a stranger. We're a bit like a confession booth, or fortunetellers. We take in the gestalt of the person in front of us (the "recipient", in our term of art) and let whatever flows through us and out of the typewriter do what it will. There's not enough time to engage the inner editor, which is why it's probably the most fun writing I ever do.
(We've also received not one, but *two* pieces of fan mail from the aforementioned Mr. Hanks. He's one of our biggest fans!)
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 9:22 AM on April 3, 2023 [11 favorites]
In eleventh grade - it's the end, the end of the seventies - I went to a private girls' school in South Carolina. You had to take an elective every term: there were two electives - typing and sewing. I was outraged for obvious reasons. My mother, always practical, said, well, yes dear, you're not wrong, but on the other hand most of the adults I know if asked what they wish they could do say either sew or type. So I took both. I never got to be any good at either - although I did make a fairly cute little stuffed turtle - but a decent WPM count eventually got me into office jobs. My first office job was in 1987 in New York City for Columbia Artists Management. We had forms for artist contracts that were six pages, pre printed, the top was white, then the second one was yellow, then the third was pink and then I think the bottom ones were blue. So I had white, yellow, pink and blue white-out lined up on my desk, neat little bottles, because every time I made a mistake (which I did all the time, see above at not actually being all that good at it, and tab stops are horrible things) I had to correct every single page with a little dab of the right color. It was horrible. We slowly switched to computers and a dot matrix printer that I figured out ASCII art on; my boss thought I was some kind of crazy witch when I produced a Merry Christmas banner complete with ASCII Christmas trees and even a blocky reindeer.
I think I have told my favorite typewriter memory before here - my great aunt Claire had a cursive typewriter. She wrote my mother long letters and as a child I thought it was her handwriting. I used to look at them in complete awe.
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:30 AM on April 3, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think I have told my favorite typewriter memory before here - my great aunt Claire had a cursive typewriter. She wrote my mother long letters and as a child I thought it was her handwriting. I used to look at them in complete awe.
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:30 AM on April 3, 2023 [6 favorites]
I have little in the way of typewriter tales, save that my workplace moved into a spot vacated by a dwindling typewriter repair spot in 1997 and I figured that was a business model that was vanishing. I am pleased that a few have hung on.
I used to have a Selectric which my mom gave me when she decided this computer thing wasn’t just a fad. I moved house in 1991 and I reckon I left it behind, as I cannot recall ever seeing it after that move.
This same mom had a serious health scare over the turn of the year. She, a little shy of eighty, has always been very independent and has lived on her own since I moved out at twenty, some 35 years ago. One day in December my wife and I got a call from her at 6:00 a.m. with the line from the classic commercial: “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
We drove to her place and found her sitting on the floor in her hallway, where she had been most of the night. We got her onto her feet and she seemed a little dazed but insisted all was well.
It turned out that she had fallen a couple of times before and was starting to have missing time. She’d be out running errands all day then come home and have no idea where she had been and have to examine her online banking to see where she had spent money.
For the next couple of weeks she had people staying with her in shifts (me, my mom’s best friend, and my aunt) to make sure she was okay. She fell a few more times, but did not injure herself in any of these.
She decided to get one of the gizmos advertised in the aforementioned commercial. A day or two later she called me from her cell phone to say she had fallen in her room and could I call the non-emergency ambulance number for her (I couldn’t get to her place that day). She stressed that the paramedics would have to buzz the superintendent of her building when they arrived as she could not reach her landline to buzz them in. I did so and then called her back to let her know they’d be about fifteen minutes. When I called back, I asked when her gizmo was arriving; she said it was being delivered that day. I noted that it’d be deeply ironic of the courier arrived to deliver it and she could not respond to the buzzer because she had fallen.
The situation did not improve and just after Christmas she was admitted to the hospital. Her blood sugar, blood pressure, magnesium and a few more things were critically low. She was using a walker (a Zimmer frame for UK readers) and even then could walk only a few steps. Just after new year’s, I visited her and brought her a chicken sandwich from the hospital’s surprisingly good cafeteria. I hauled her up to sit on the edge of her bed and she enjoyed the first meal she’d been upright for in five days. Then without any segue, she launched into The Funeral Talk: where she thought the memorial should be, who would probably get the most use out of her car, etc.
That day the results of some imaging came back and the culprit was revealed: done fifty years ago she had an operation for a stomach ulcer and the long-sealed scar had given way. She had been bleeding into her stomach for weeks. I am no botanist, but I am pretty sure the blood does more good in the veins than in the GI system.
She was put on some medication to heal up the problem, and less than 72 hours after she was telling us where the will was and giving me the passwords for various accounts she was home. Three months on, she is doing fine (she kept her walker in the corner for a couple of days but even gave up on the cane after a week).
Yay!
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:31 AM on April 3, 2023 [24 favorites]
I used to have a Selectric which my mom gave me when she decided this computer thing wasn’t just a fad. I moved house in 1991 and I reckon I left it behind, as I cannot recall ever seeing it after that move.
This same mom had a serious health scare over the turn of the year. She, a little shy of eighty, has always been very independent and has lived on her own since I moved out at twenty, some 35 years ago. One day in December my wife and I got a call from her at 6:00 a.m. with the line from the classic commercial: “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
We drove to her place and found her sitting on the floor in her hallway, where she had been most of the night. We got her onto her feet and she seemed a little dazed but insisted all was well.
It turned out that she had fallen a couple of times before and was starting to have missing time. She’d be out running errands all day then come home and have no idea where she had been and have to examine her online banking to see where she had spent money.
For the next couple of weeks she had people staying with her in shifts (me, my mom’s best friend, and my aunt) to make sure she was okay. She fell a few more times, but did not injure herself in any of these.
She decided to get one of the gizmos advertised in the aforementioned commercial. A day or two later she called me from her cell phone to say she had fallen in her room and could I call the non-emergency ambulance number for her (I couldn’t get to her place that day). She stressed that the paramedics would have to buzz the superintendent of her building when they arrived as she could not reach her landline to buzz them in. I did so and then called her back to let her know they’d be about fifteen minutes. When I called back, I asked when her gizmo was arriving; she said it was being delivered that day. I noted that it’d be deeply ironic of the courier arrived to deliver it and she could not respond to the buzzer because she had fallen.
The situation did not improve and just after Christmas she was admitted to the hospital. Her blood sugar, blood pressure, magnesium and a few more things were critically low. She was using a walker (a Zimmer frame for UK readers) and even then could walk only a few steps. Just after new year’s, I visited her and brought her a chicken sandwich from the hospital’s surprisingly good cafeteria. I hauled her up to sit on the edge of her bed and she enjoyed the first meal she’d been upright for in five days. Then without any segue, she launched into The Funeral Talk: where she thought the memorial should be, who would probably get the most use out of her car, etc.
That day the results of some imaging came back and the culprit was revealed: done fifty years ago she had an operation for a stomach ulcer and the long-sealed scar had given way. She had been bleeding into her stomach for weeks. I am no botanist, but I am pretty sure the blood does more good in the veins than in the GI system.
She was put on some medication to heal up the problem, and less than 72 hours after she was telling us where the will was and giving me the passwords for various accounts she was home. Three months on, she is doing fine (she kept her walker in the corner for a couple of days but even gave up on the cane after a week).
Yay!
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:31 AM on April 3, 2023 [24 favorites]
My older brother calls "Accelerated hunt and peck" the Columbus Method: "find it and land on it."
posted by wenestvedt at 9:35 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 9:35 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
For correspondence the first tab stop was generally set at 5, and the second at about 50, so tapping tab to start a paragraph would make an indent, and tapping it again would allow typing the right-side block of the sender's address. For filling out forms or typing out tables you'd have quite a few more stops set.
The best part was the satisfying thud it made when it jumped all the way across to get to a more distant stop (like with sender's address block), which would be amplified substantially if it was sitting on a metal desk.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:37 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
The best part was the satisfying thud it made when it jumped all the way across to get to a more distant stop (like with sender's address block), which would be amplified substantially if it was sitting on a metal desk.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:37 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
ricochet biscuit that was a tense read, I'm happy for you all that it's turned out well in the end, yay indeed :)
posted by sarble at 9:39 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sarble at 9:39 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
My brother and I used up too many typewriter ribbons, or very possibly our typewriter was so ancient or odd that we didn’t know where to get replacements. Therefore we learned to re-ink our ribbons, which I think partly got me a job in my college terminal ward because I could re-ink the line printer. And that got me enough computer familiarity that when my original deeply unworldly plan didn’t work out, I was hireable into progressively less dreadful computer jobs, and finally a great one.
In which I helped briefly resurrect the return ding, because BEL is right there in hypothalamic low ASCII and my GUI-for-the-punters corp employer was still using the terminal window for its bug tracker and if you put some BEL into your bug reports you could *hear* when your group saw them.
posted by clew at 9:42 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
In which I helped briefly resurrect the return ding, because BEL is right there in hypothalamic low ASCII and my GUI-for-the-punters corp employer was still using the terminal window for its bug tracker and if you put some BEL into your bug reports you could *hear* when your group saw them.
posted by clew at 9:42 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
My grandparents had a Selectric for their business, and they sent out a monthly newsletter that mostly used (IIRC) the script type ball font, which is incredibly nostalgic for me now. The last typewriter I used was one of those one-line LCD edit window ones, and while it was more convenient most of the time, I’m fairly sure I still had to break out the liquid paper for mistakes I’d missed during frenzied term paper all-nighters.
posted by mubba at 9:45 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mubba at 9:45 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
One of the most useful classes I ever took back in junior high was a couple of semesters of typing. (Despite the fact that the teacher wasn't really temperamentally suited--there was a rumor going around at the time that she'd thrown a stapler at a kid's head.)
To this day I'm a relatively speedy touch-typist, and I'm pretty accurate. I still remember that back when I started my current job, my boss was a little irritated with me when I kept typing on something while he was trying to talk to me...until he realized that I was making eye contact and carrying on the conversation the entire time I was typing. He hasn't complained since.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 9:47 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
To this day I'm a relatively speedy touch-typist, and I'm pretty accurate. I still remember that back when I started my current job, my boss was a little irritated with me when I kept typing on something while he was trying to talk to me...until he realized that I was making eye contact and carrying on the conversation the entire time I was typing. He hasn't complained since.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 9:47 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Typewriters didn't really happen with me around, though I can relate tales of clambering around dad's computer bureau around age six. Was there a giant scary lineprinter that could feed fanfold so fast it would shoot in the air? You betcha!
I do have a hernia-inducingly heavy NEC Spinwriter printer, though. It was a competing technology to the daisywheel, but the print tines are bent upwards into a thimble shape. Inside its cast-metal enclosure apparently lies a full 8080-based computer system dedicated to driving the motors. It belonged to a technical author, and at the time, they had to decide between a new car and this printer. The car might've been somewhat lighter.
I am still failing to get my Altaid 8800 kit running. It's an 8080 CP/M computer, but small enough to (nominally) fit in an Altoids can. It seems to want to send bits at 38400 bps, but receive them at 19200. This is vexatious.
posted by scruss at 9:52 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I do have a hernia-inducingly heavy NEC Spinwriter printer, though. It was a competing technology to the daisywheel, but the print tines are bent upwards into a thimble shape. Inside its cast-metal enclosure apparently lies a full 8080-based computer system dedicated to driving the motors. It belonged to a technical author, and at the time, they had to decide between a new car and this printer. The car might've been somewhat lighter.
I am still failing to get my Altaid 8800 kit running. It's an 8080 CP/M computer, but small enough to (nominally) fit in an Altoids can. It seems to want to send bits at 38400 bps, but receive them at 19200. This is vexatious.
posted by scruss at 9:52 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I took three semesters of touch typing in junior high school in the early 80s. I'd already been poking around on a computer keyboard for years at that point, and as a piano student I figured that this would be a good skill to have and might be an easy A because I already knew how to talk to my fingers.
Two semesters were done on manual typewriters, which is such a muscle-building exercise I'm not sure I could manage it these days. I haven't touched a manual typewriter in decades. The third semester was on electric, I think early Selectrics with the type balls but not the error correction. The transition from manual to electric was not an easy one, I will tell you.
Anyway, someone was asking about crafts projects to do with typewriters. A very quick google brought up this, patterns telling numbers of spaces and characters to type on each line to create what is basically an ASCII picture by hand. The book in the article is available as a free PDF. There's a lot of this kind of thing online if you poke around a bit. I don't know the ages of your kids, but it's really good counting practice. We had patterns for two-fold cards and stuff we could do in class if you finished an assignment, for extra credit or just for fun/personal use.
posted by hippybear at 10:04 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
Two semesters were done on manual typewriters, which is such a muscle-building exercise I'm not sure I could manage it these days. I haven't touched a manual typewriter in decades. The third semester was on electric, I think early Selectrics with the type balls but not the error correction. The transition from manual to electric was not an easy one, I will tell you.
Anyway, someone was asking about crafts projects to do with typewriters. A very quick google brought up this, patterns telling numbers of spaces and characters to type on each line to create what is basically an ASCII picture by hand. The book in the article is available as a free PDF. There's a lot of this kind of thing online if you poke around a bit. I don't know the ages of your kids, but it's really good counting practice. We had patterns for two-fold cards and stuff we could do in class if you finished an assignment, for extra credit or just for fun/personal use.
posted by hippybear at 10:04 AM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
When I took typing class in junior high, the instructor would put on some music while we practiced our typing drills. One day, he put on this old record of Big Band music, because he's old and so why not? I was typing away when the music was interrupted by an announcement of some unusual explosions on the planet Mars. Hmmm, I thought, that sounds interesting.
Reader, I had read Wells' War of the Worlds, but had never heard the other Wells' War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Suffice it to say that the typing class became increasingly chaotic as the meaning of these phenomena became more clear to even the youngest junior high schooler.
posted by SPrintF at 10:24 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
Reader, I had read Wells' War of the Worlds, but had never heard the other Wells' War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Suffice it to say that the typing class became increasingly chaotic as the meaning of these phenomena became more clear to even the youngest junior high schooler.
posted by SPrintF at 10:24 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I only have two things to say re: typewriters.
#1. Growing up, my mom had a manual Royal typewriter that was badass. Spent a lot of time hitting all they keys at once and then unclogging the jammed strikers. So fun!
#2. My junior high school typing teacher was Mrs. Hall. As in, "Hall" of Hallmark. How crazy is that? The old days when billionaires were teaching JH typing.
posted by Windopaene at 10:51 AM on April 3, 2023
#1. Growing up, my mom had a manual Royal typewriter that was badass. Spent a lot of time hitting all they keys at once and then unclogging the jammed strikers. So fun!
#2. My junior high school typing teacher was Mrs. Hall. As in, "Hall" of Hallmark. How crazy is that? The old days when billionaires were teaching JH typing.
posted by Windopaene at 10:51 AM on April 3, 2023
Making copies of something hasn't been as kinesthetically satisfying since.
There is something deeply satisfying about mid-century technology, isn’t there? A while ago I put an LP onto a turntable to listen to it. It was the first time in, I dunno, a decade? I was very happy with the whole tactile experience of it.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:53 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
There is something deeply satisfying about mid-century technology, isn’t there? A while ago I put an LP onto a turntable to listen to it. It was the first time in, I dunno, a decade? I was very happy with the whole tactile experience of it.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:53 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I remember as a kid being awed by a computer connected to a Selectric typewriter and using it as a printer. Sure, dot matrix printers were a thing, but the physicality of moving a big, visible ball around (and the much higher print quality) made it seem I was watching an advanced robot prototype.
hunt and peck
James Thurber once described a colleague in the newsroom as a slow typer. He used the hunt and peck method, but would often fail at the hunt part. He had consistent problems finding the letter "u", calling out for help tracking it down.
posted by mark k at 11:14 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
hunt and peck
James Thurber once described a colleague in the newsroom as a slow typer. He used the hunt and peck method, but would often fail at the hunt part. He had consistent problems finding the letter "u", calling out for help tracking it down.
posted by mark k at 11:14 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Something cool on the Doctor Who news front: Russell T Davies has cast Ru Paul's Drag Race champion Jinkx Monsoon for the upcoming season. So the next Doctor is a Rwandan/Scottish actor best known for playing gay characters, his companion is trans actress Yasmin Finney, and now they've added a drag queen to the cast.
I'm looking forward to seeing some mouth breathers' heads explode. Keep being awesome, RTD.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:19 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm looking forward to seeing some mouth breathers' heads explode. Keep being awesome, RTD.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:19 AM on April 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I took typing in high school on Selectrics. I remember spending entire class sessions typing exercises like
ewe ewe ewe ewe ewe ewe ewe eweposted by neuron at 11:20 AM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
imi imi imi imi imi imi imi imi imi imi.
As a kid, I was given a turquoise manual typewriter that had once belonged to my parents. They had a Selectric for a while, but by the time I was in junior high school this had given way to an Osborne (and then a Kaypro).
I just spent 3 1/2 weeks deciphering mid-to-late Victorian correspondence & other personal writing, and you cannot imagine the joy & rapture I felt whenever I came across something that had been typewritten. (Scowls at Clement Shorter and whatever he thought passed for cursive.)
posted by thomas j wise at 11:36 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I just spent 3 1/2 weeks deciphering mid-to-late Victorian correspondence & other personal writing, and you cannot imagine the joy & rapture I felt whenever I came across something that had been typewritten. (Scowls at Clement Shorter and whatever he thought passed for cursive.)
posted by thomas j wise at 11:36 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
The best part was the satisfying thud it made when it jumped all the way across to get to a more distant stop
wzzzzzzzzUNK!
----
At my mom's urging I reluctantly took a typing class in high school, but in retrospect I'm glad I learned to touch-type (except I still need to stare at my hands for certain random-alpha/non-alpha-string passwords). I think I got up to a low- or mid-30's WPM by the end of it, which I thought was pretty good considering how much distance and effort was involved for each keystroke. I'll tell ya, a room full of students arduously clanking away on old un- or semi-serviced typewriters makes a hell of a racket.
When I was a teen, mom bought herself an IBM Selectric, the original one with the same Tonka-toy pale green finish as the one pictured at the top of the Wikipedia article. It was massive by typewriter standards, an absolute unit as the kids say these days, and it made a very satisfying hefty clunk when you typed. The typeball mechanism fascinated and amazed me.
At the same time I inherited her previous manual typewriter, a portable model that I think had been my uncle's when he was in college in the 60's. I used it in college - this was just before computer labs became a thing - but I couldn't tell you the brand/model and I have no idea where it got to after that. By now I can't even remember what it looked like beyond it having a tweed carrying case. I'm sure some of you here are aghast at my ignorance, let alone Mr. Hanks (please, nobody tell him). After college I got a data-processing job; by then electronic keyboards and dumb terminals were the thing, then personal computers, and I don't think I've touched a typewriter, manual or electric, since.
A few years later, in the 386 or 486 era, we got some sort of typing tutor program to play around with in the IT support office. There was a more traditional tutorial included, but we immediately turned the "typing invaders" style game part of it into a competition, endlessly attempting to beat each other's best scores. That definitely helped my typing speed; although I don't know what my current WPM is on a computer keyboard it's definitely faster than I was ever able to manage even on mom's Selectric!
Now - my next task will be to get my text-thumbing up to a better WPM on my phone...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:37 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
wzzzzzzzzUNK!
----
At my mom's urging I reluctantly took a typing class in high school, but in retrospect I'm glad I learned to touch-type (except I still need to stare at my hands for certain random-alpha/non-alpha-string passwords). I think I got up to a low- or mid-30's WPM by the end of it, which I thought was pretty good considering how much distance and effort was involved for each keystroke. I'll tell ya, a room full of students arduously clanking away on old un- or semi-serviced typewriters makes a hell of a racket.
When I was a teen, mom bought herself an IBM Selectric, the original one with the same Tonka-toy pale green finish as the one pictured at the top of the Wikipedia article. It was massive by typewriter standards, an absolute unit as the kids say these days, and it made a very satisfying hefty clunk when you typed. The typeball mechanism fascinated and amazed me.
At the same time I inherited her previous manual typewriter, a portable model that I think had been my uncle's when he was in college in the 60's. I used it in college - this was just before computer labs became a thing - but I couldn't tell you the brand/model and I have no idea where it got to after that. By now I can't even remember what it looked like beyond it having a tweed carrying case. I'm sure some of you here are aghast at my ignorance, let alone Mr. Hanks (please, nobody tell him). After college I got a data-processing job; by then electronic keyboards and dumb terminals were the thing, then personal computers, and I don't think I've touched a typewriter, manual or electric, since.
A few years later, in the 386 or 486 era, we got some sort of typing tutor program to play around with in the IT support office. There was a more traditional tutorial included, but we immediately turned the "typing invaders" style game part of it into a competition, endlessly attempting to beat each other's best scores. That definitely helped my typing speed; although I don't know what my current WPM is on a computer keyboard it's definitely faster than I was ever able to manage even on mom's Selectric!
Now - my next task will be to get my text-thumbing up to a better WPM on my phone...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:37 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
I bought an electric typewriter with some word processing features when I was 17 (circa 1990) for $150, and I used it for my school papers and things like resumes, cover letters, important letters, etc., for the next ten years or so, until I bought a secondhand desktop computer from my workplace. It had a little one line screen on it, and one could type in a certain amount of text, proofread it via the screen, and then print it. One time when my younger sister and I were both still in high school, she asked me if she could borrow it for a school paper due the next day. I readily loaned her the typewriter. Late that night she came into my room, shook me awake, and said, furiously, "What did you do to the typewriter to make it not work?!"
I got up, went back to her bedroom with her, took one look at the typewriter, plugged it in to the electrical outlet on the wall by my sister's desk, and went back to bed without saying a word, because it was one of those occasions where absolutely nothing I could have said would have made the situation any funnier or more satisfying than it already was. It still cracks me up that, when my sister couldn't get the typewriter working, the first possibility her mind went to was that though I'd very willingly loaned her the typewriter, I must have sabotaged it in some passive aggressive attempt to keep her from actually using it. To this day it pisses her off royally if I try to tell anyone that story in her hearing.
If I were whisked back in time to become a cash-strapped 1980s teenager again, I wouldn't buy that electric typewriter, but would instead buy a manual typewriter at a thrift shop for significantly less money. I can't say the new electric typewriter was so superior to a manual that it was worth the extra expense -- I might as well have used a secondhand manual until I could afford a new laptop. I would also take the time to teach myself to type using the old typing manual we had that dated from my mother's own high school days. I can type fairly quickly and accurately now, but I would have become a better typist much sooner if I'd invested the effort into learning it properly from the start.
I have a very weird fetish for vintage typewriters. I think they're cool, and whenever I see a neat one in a thrift shop I wistfully linger over it. I do the same thing with vintage luggage, and I think about how I wish I'd bought myself some cool secondhand luggage as a teenager, perhaps relining it and refurbishing it a little once I got it home, rather than buying the cheap, ugly, utilitarian pieces of new luggage I did buy at the time. It makes no sense for me to be thinking about this, because these days I have a (secondhand but very well functioning) laptop and a very nice three-piece set of London Fog luggage, and they are immeasurably superior to the manual typewriters and old luggage that I keep pining over in thrift shops and that would make no sense for me to buy now, yet I can't stop doing it. I think it has to do with my many regrets over how I lived my life in my young days. I could have been so much smarter and cooler.
posted by orange swan at 12:10 PM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
I got up, went back to her bedroom with her, took one look at the typewriter, plugged it in to the electrical outlet on the wall by my sister's desk, and went back to bed without saying a word, because it was one of those occasions where absolutely nothing I could have said would have made the situation any funnier or more satisfying than it already was. It still cracks me up that, when my sister couldn't get the typewriter working, the first possibility her mind went to was that though I'd very willingly loaned her the typewriter, I must have sabotaged it in some passive aggressive attempt to keep her from actually using it. To this day it pisses her off royally if I try to tell anyone that story in her hearing.
If I were whisked back in time to become a cash-strapped 1980s teenager again, I wouldn't buy that electric typewriter, but would instead buy a manual typewriter at a thrift shop for significantly less money. I can't say the new electric typewriter was so superior to a manual that it was worth the extra expense -- I might as well have used a secondhand manual until I could afford a new laptop. I would also take the time to teach myself to type using the old typing manual we had that dated from my mother's own high school days. I can type fairly quickly and accurately now, but I would have become a better typist much sooner if I'd invested the effort into learning it properly from the start.
I have a very weird fetish for vintage typewriters. I think they're cool, and whenever I see a neat one in a thrift shop I wistfully linger over it. I do the same thing with vintage luggage, and I think about how I wish I'd bought myself some cool secondhand luggage as a teenager, perhaps relining it and refurbishing it a little once I got it home, rather than buying the cheap, ugly, utilitarian pieces of new luggage I did buy at the time. It makes no sense for me to be thinking about this, because these days I have a (secondhand but very well functioning) laptop and a very nice three-piece set of London Fog luggage, and they are immeasurably superior to the manual typewriters and old luggage that I keep pining over in thrift shops and that would make no sense for me to buy now, yet I can't stop doing it. I think it has to do with my many regrets over how I lived my life in my young days. I could have been so much smarter and cooler.
posted by orange swan at 12:10 PM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
When I was 20 I did a year-long project where I typed a poem, one per each day of the year, on an old Smith-Corona portable typewriter in the window of a downtown youth culture center in Reykjavík. I can’t touch a typewriter without being transported back there in my mind.
Tape For the Turn Of The Year (amazon) - A poem written, in daily entries over the course of a year, by the great American poet A.R. Ammons, on a strip of adding machine tape rolled into a typewriter. Hello, obsolete technologies. Typewriters! Adding machines! Classical educations!
Fun Fact: Archie Ammons was one of my writing professors at Cornell when I was getting my BA in English and planning to get an MFA and become a working poet. He told me my poetry was not very good, and I should do something else. He was right. IAAL. Thanks, Archie -- good call!
posted by The Bellman at 12:33 PM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
Tape For the Turn Of The Year (amazon) - A poem written, in daily entries over the course of a year, by the great American poet A.R. Ammons, on a strip of adding machine tape rolled into a typewriter. Hello, obsolete technologies. Typewriters! Adding machines! Classical educations!
Fun Fact: Archie Ammons was one of my writing professors at Cornell when I was getting my BA in English and planning to get an MFA and become a working poet. He told me my poetry was not very good, and I should do something else. He was right. IAAL. Thanks, Archie -- good call!
posted by The Bellman at 12:33 PM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
I have an ancient Underwood No. 5 in the living room, on a library table that was saved from a fire. This model of the Underwood was very popular and marketed as the first truly modern typewriter. And though it is easy to find in shops, it is very hard to type on. It's clunky and unsatisfying but it looks terrific. It looks just like the one Ewan MacGregor uses in Moulin Rouge, so any time there's a scene of him typing I'm like, yep, no wonder he was a suffering artist. Forget the tragic love affair, it is simply the worst to type with this thing.
I've also been given, though I haven't yet received, some sort of old typewriter that once belonged to my grandfather's brother. I'm told this typewriter is enormous and wide, wide enough for broadsheet legal documents and certificates and deeds. I am expecting this thing to look like an engine block and be just as heavy. I am fascinated and also filled with dread.
I started writing longhand last summer as part of the morning pages and with time and with daily practice my handwriting has become legible again, and it's actually gotten to the point of being fun: curls and arabesques, em-dashes like the crest of a wave, each capital letter overlapping the words around it wild abandon. I just ordered a set of tombow brush pens and I. AM. EXCITED.
And I like Writer app, taz. Thank you! One of my first questions here way back in 2006 was about how to turn on those clickety-clack sounds on my mac, and I like that Writer has an electric typewriter option.
posted by mochapickle at 12:45 PM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
I've also been given, though I haven't yet received, some sort of old typewriter that once belonged to my grandfather's brother. I'm told this typewriter is enormous and wide, wide enough for broadsheet legal documents and certificates and deeds. I am expecting this thing to look like an engine block and be just as heavy. I am fascinated and also filled with dread.
I started writing longhand last summer as part of the morning pages and with time and with daily practice my handwriting has become legible again, and it's actually gotten to the point of being fun: curls and arabesques, em-dashes like the crest of a wave, each capital letter overlapping the words around it wild abandon. I just ordered a set of tombow brush pens and I. AM. EXCITED.
And I like Writer app, taz. Thank you! One of my first questions here way back in 2006 was about how to turn on those clickety-clack sounds on my mac, and I like that Writer has an electric typewriter option.
posted by mochapickle at 12:45 PM on April 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
I started reading this thread with what i guess must be a visual migraine, though no accompanying headache. Dancing lights right in the center of my vision, which then thankfully migrated to the peripheral part and then back to wherever they lived before. I've had them before, but still annoying and a little disturbing.
I am not a touch typist, though I don't have to look at the keyboard to type something like this, where the keyboard is in my field of vision. I can probably still do a solid 50wpm but have been as fast as 60, which used to be the entry level speed to get any job which required typing, as I recall. In a very low-key way I wish I could truly touch-type, but not enough to spend any time trying to correct my errant ways.
posted by maxwelton at 12:57 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
I am not a touch typist, though I don't have to look at the keyboard to type something like this, where the keyboard is in my field of vision. I can probably still do a solid 50wpm but have been as fast as 60, which used to be the entry level speed to get any job which required typing, as I recall. In a very low-key way I wish I could truly touch-type, but not enough to spend any time trying to correct my errant ways.
posted by maxwelton at 12:57 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
My phone is a Samsung and somewhere I picked up an app that makes my phone keyboard, sound like a typewriter. Hopefully it is just a fun thing, as opposed to a key logger...
We had a ginormous Adler typewriter with pica type, a little bigger font than standard. I would get into a rhythm, typing. My favorite thing I learned in typing class was how to center titles of documents, it was somehow like iambic pentameter, skipping every other letter using the space bar, or maybe the back up key, to end up on the right side of the middle, (yeah, somehow.)
I remember the time, The State Department figured out how compromised their communications were, and every one had to buy manual typewriters for diplomatic communications. My family chalks up my typewriter sounding telephone to my general out-of-touch strangeness, but you see, I am really into touch, typing, that is. Remember, in space no one can hear you ding.
posted by Oyéah at 1:03 PM on April 3, 2023
We had a ginormous Adler typewriter with pica type, a little bigger font than standard. I would get into a rhythm, typing. My favorite thing I learned in typing class was how to center titles of documents, it was somehow like iambic pentameter, skipping every other letter using the space bar, or maybe the back up key, to end up on the right side of the middle, (yeah, somehow.)
I remember the time, The State Department figured out how compromised their communications were, and every one had to buy manual typewriters for diplomatic communications. My family chalks up my typewriter sounding telephone to my general out-of-touch strangeness, but you see, I am really into touch, typing, that is. Remember, in space no one can hear you ding.
posted by Oyéah at 1:03 PM on April 3, 2023
I was taught to center titles by moving to the center of the row and then typing a backspace for every other character.
Not nearly as hasslesome as fitting in footnotes.
posted by clew at 1:07 PM on April 3, 2023
Not nearly as hasslesome as fitting in footnotes.
posted by clew at 1:07 PM on April 3, 2023
Dancing lights right in the center of my vision, which then thankfully migrated to the peripheral part
Sounds like scintillating scotoma, which I likewise get from time to time. Similarly painless in my case, thankfully.
posted by notoriety public at 1:14 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sounds like scintillating scotoma, which I likewise get from time to time. Similarly painless in my case, thankfully.
posted by notoriety public at 1:14 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
The treecutter people who were working around the corner this morning have abandoned a traffic cone in my driveway, and so now I have a free traffic cone! What to do with it...
posted by mochapickle at 1:27 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mochapickle at 1:27 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
now I have a free traffic cone! What to do with it...
If you happen to have a baritone sax on hand, this could be one option.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:43 PM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
If you happen to have a baritone sax on hand, this could be one option.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:43 PM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
If anyone has a line on a typewriter sounds app that works across apps (Pages, Notes, Google Docs) please post it here!
posted by BostonTerrier at 2:01 PM on April 3, 2023
posted by BostonTerrier at 2:01 PM on April 3, 2023
So much love for manual typewriters! Who'd have imagined it?
posted by Paul Slade at 2:18 PM on April 3, 2023
posted by Paul Slade at 2:18 PM on April 3, 2023
You are all rookies :)
In the 60s I put my ink stained fingers on to a new typewriter. No ink! My mother trained me to use a Braille typewriter to translate the visual text to Braille.
And I've spent the past 50 years or so working with computers, and still use hunt and peck, albeit at a fast pace. Few typos because command line stuff on computers has to be exact.
posted by baegucb at 2:35 PM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
In the 60s I put my ink stained fingers on to a new typewriter. No ink! My mother trained me to use a Braille typewriter to translate the visual text to Braille.
And I've spent the past 50 years or so working with computers, and still use hunt and peck, albeit at a fast pace. Few typos because command line stuff on computers has to be exact.
posted by baegucb at 2:35 PM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
now I have a free traffic cone! What to do with it...
So, there was an orange cone on the corner, about 2 blocks from our house, which my wife and I walk the dog past at least once a day. It was there at least two years, probably closer to four, so I asked my night-owl wife to grab it in the wee hours of the night so as not to be captured stealing the illicit safety marker during daylight hours.
The next morning she (partly angry / partly amused) read me the riot act for making her carry such a heavy thing for two blocks while also trying to keep the dog on track, because she had no idea they were so heavy!
I turned it over and apparently it had been used as a funnel for concrete, which had dried inside -- cones do have a heavy base but the concrete easily added 30lbs, so not having a reasonable place to grab as it was a smooth cone-shaped cone, my dutiful wife struggled and struggled to abscond with my new cone so I wouldn't have to be afraid of being caught. She's a keeper I think.
(I managed to remove the concrete, and it is now a funnel for other things, like sandblasting media and dry mortar)
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:38 PM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
So, there was an orange cone on the corner, about 2 blocks from our house, which my wife and I walk the dog past at least once a day. It was there at least two years, probably closer to four, so I asked my night-owl wife to grab it in the wee hours of the night so as not to be captured stealing the illicit safety marker during daylight hours.
The next morning she (partly angry / partly amused) read me the riot act for making her carry such a heavy thing for two blocks while also trying to keep the dog on track, because she had no idea they were so heavy!
I turned it over and apparently it had been used as a funnel for concrete, which had dried inside -- cones do have a heavy base but the concrete easily added 30lbs, so not having a reasonable place to grab as it was a smooth cone-shaped cone, my dutiful wife struggled and struggled to abscond with my new cone so I wouldn't have to be afraid of being caught. She's a keeper I think.
(I managed to remove the concrete, and it is now a funnel for other things, like sandblasting media and dry mortar)
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:38 PM on April 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
In the 60s I put my ink stained fingers on to a new typewriter. No ink! My mother trained me to use a Braille typewriter to translate the visual text to Braille.
Was it a Perkins by any chance? They're still making the manual model that's been around since the early 1950s!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:50 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Was it a Perkins by any chance? They're still making the manual model that's been around since the early 1950s!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:50 PM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
mandolin conspiracy, I have no idea. I don't remember appliance brands from the 60s.
posted by baegucb at 2:58 PM on April 3, 2023
posted by baegucb at 2:58 PM on April 3, 2023
I took three semesters of touch typing in junior high school in the early 80s.
That was just about my own timeframe. Had I the ability to suggest to my younger self what courses to take in high school, I’d try my best to persuade Young RB that (1) typing and (2) music would be much better uses of my course slots to prepare for my life over the next four decades than physics and chemistry were.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:36 PM on April 3, 2023
That was just about my own timeframe. Had I the ability to suggest to my younger self what courses to take in high school, I’d try my best to persuade Young RB that (1) typing and (2) music would be much better uses of my course slots to prepare for my life over the next four decades than physics and chemistry were.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:36 PM on April 3, 2023
Had I the ability to suggest to my younger self what courses to take in high school, I’d try my best to persuade Young RB that (1) typing and (2) music would be much better uses of my course slots to prepare for my life over the next four decades than physics and chemistry were.
Oh, I think about this often. I had wood shop, metal shop, and auto repair available to me for free as classes, and didn't take any of them. Now, as a mid-50s adult, I have really no wood, metal, or automotive skills to speak of.
posted by hippybear at 3:48 PM on April 3, 2023
Oh, I think about this often. I had wood shop, metal shop, and auto repair available to me for free as classes, and didn't take any of them. Now, as a mid-50s adult, I have really no wood, metal, or automotive skills to speak of.
posted by hippybear at 3:48 PM on April 3, 2023
I liked playing on the manual typewriter my mom had at work (middle school guidance counselor). When I was younger, I would smash the keys and get all the arm thingies stuck. Mom was not amused.
I actually learned to type as a young elementary school student. We had an Apple //c at home. Mastertype was just a rectangle space ship that shot out lasers at incoming alien ships as you typed. For extra challenge, there was a mode where you had to press the space bar after every letter.
I took typing in high school in the early 90s. On those manual typewriters. It was an easy A as I could touch type already.
I installed Kubuntu on a laptop recently and there's a typing game with the same idea as Mastertype, but you're on the ground shooting at falling letters. I amused myself for a good 30 minutes with that instead of doing stuff that needed done.
posted by kathrynm at 5:38 PM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I actually learned to type as a young elementary school student. We had an Apple //c at home. Mastertype was just a rectangle space ship that shot out lasers at incoming alien ships as you typed. For extra challenge, there was a mode where you had to press the space bar after every letter.
I took typing in high school in the early 90s. On those manual typewriters. It was an easy A as I could touch type already.
I installed Kubuntu on a laptop recently and there's a typing game with the same idea as Mastertype, but you're on the ground shooting at falling letters. I amused myself for a good 30 minutes with that instead of doing stuff that needed done.
posted by kathrynm at 5:38 PM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
My mother was a secretary her entire working life, and retired just after word processors were introduced to her office.
When they upgraded to Selectrics, she got her old typewriter (a huge, gray behemoth - but electric) for free. Then, when the word processors came in, she got the same deal on her Selectric.
She was a very fast typist, and with the gray machine, it could almost sound like a machine gun in the other room (she typed all her letters).
I’m lucky, because our small town of Bremerton has an awesome typewriter repair and sales shop. The owner is delightful, and gave a really fun talk one month at our historical museum.
posted by dbmcd at 8:28 PM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
When they upgraded to Selectrics, she got her old typewriter (a huge, gray behemoth - but electric) for free. Then, when the word processors came in, she got the same deal on her Selectric.
She was a very fast typist, and with the gray machine, it could almost sound like a machine gun in the other room (she typed all her letters).
I’m lucky, because our small town of Bremerton has an awesome typewriter repair and sales shop. The owner is delightful, and gave a really fun talk one month at our historical museum.
posted by dbmcd at 8:28 PM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I wrote my phd thesis long hand with a leaky old fountain pen, facing the wall in a built in wardrobe sans doors and as often as not with my little boy sitting on my shoulders, pulling my hair, tweaking my ears and generally having a laugh. Repeatedly, I'd get frustrated with my writing, (not him he was lovely), crumple the page up and chuck it on the floor and go again. There'd be a mountain of crumpled paper under my make shift desk, a sort of three plank shelf I bodged up where a wardrobe shelf would have gone. No less often, after a struggle to rewrite again for the umpteenth time, I'd recall an earlier version now deemed perfect and dived under the desk (usually without monkey son on board) in hot pursuit of my perfect 3 lines buried deep in paper mountain. Successfully retrieved, (oh what joy!) I'd carefully cut out the relevant section with the kitchen scissors (now where the fuck did I put them? Back in the kitchen? Chucked under the desk in irritation and lost under the paper? Oh here they are right in front of me all along.) and, no less carefully, sellotape it to the hundreds of other recovered scraps that were slowly morphing into my miles long manuscript. I was possibly the world's first and worst word processor before the the thing itself was invented. I was 'copy and paste' incarnate. What has this got to do with typewriters? Precious little. For the curious, my son lived, he never once fell off tho he thought it a great joke to hurl himself backwards as if diving head long to to the floor which was not great for the neck but certainly stopped me from nodding off. He even prospered despite the relative privation of our single family life together, me a kid of 22 raising a kid. He's 50 and a giant bag of brilliance. I love him to biscuits.
posted by dutchrick at 2:32 AM on April 4, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by dutchrick at 2:32 AM on April 4, 2023 [9 favorites]
...when my mom would take me into her office where she worked as a secretary, she would set me to work cranking the Gestetner machine to make copies of whatever she'd banged out on the Selectric.
OMG, I had completely forgotten about Gestetners! We ran-off my grade school newsletter with one. I discovered that, using something sharp and pointy, you could gently scratch drawings into the Risograph master. I guess that would be my first published drawings.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:47 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
OMG, I had completely forgotten about Gestetners! We ran-off my grade school newsletter with one. I discovered that, using something sharp and pointy, you could gently scratch drawings into the Risograph master. I guess that would be my first published drawings.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:47 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
hippybear: I had wood shop, metal shop, and auto repair available to me for free as classes, and didn't take any of them. Now, as a mid-50s adult, I have really no wood, metal, or automotive skills to speak of.
The school system I attended sort of split us into two streams which were essentially: university, or trades. It's fair to say that they stigmatized the trades side (at least it felt that way when parents and guidance teachers tried to steer me). My marks, and my parents' aspirations for me, said uni...
With hindsight, I should have kept my math and science levels up, but also taken the shops, because I gravitated to that stuff anyway. A friend has been dragging me to the weekly open night at a downtown makerspace, and just last week I learned how to turn aluminum on a lathe. It's never too late, if you still have the interest.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:59 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
The school system I attended sort of split us into two streams which were essentially: university, or trades. It's fair to say that they stigmatized the trades side (at least it felt that way when parents and guidance teachers tried to steer me). My marks, and my parents' aspirations for me, said uni...
With hindsight, I should have kept my math and science levels up, but also taken the shops, because I gravitated to that stuff anyway. A friend has been dragging me to the weekly open night at a downtown makerspace, and just last week I learned how to turn aluminum on a lathe. It's never too late, if you still have the interest.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:59 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
Typewriters were such a big part of my life considering they were really on the way out when I was born. My dad was a typewriter inventor, starting at Teletype then working at Xerox. He led a skunkworks team that was tasked in a race to beat IBM in inventing a typewriter with memory. It was called the Xerox Memorywriter and apparently cost $4,900 in 1984!
posted by Bunglegirl at 9:09 AM on April 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Bunglegirl at 9:09 AM on April 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
Speaking of HS and elective classes, when my family moved and I had to enter a new school for the final year of high school, it turned out that I had all the credits I needed already, bar one or maybe two, which meant that I could jigsaw puzzle together my schedule pretty much any way I wanted, so I took typing (yay), and I had a thing where I helped in the library, and of course the classes I liked, like history and every available lit / writing class, and I was coeditor of the school newspaper AND the literary magazine, and I had math which was the one I needed, and -- Home Ec. And I was pretty wretched at Home Ec, because it was mostly about learning how to sew a simple wrap skirt, and I was so bad at it, sadly.
At any rate, I didn't enjoy the class, though I liked the teacher, and at one point we were given the option of taking some statewide (?) exam for I don't know, extra credit or something, which I didn't need, and I chose not to take it. But my teacher really, really wanted me to take it, so I did. And I ... won the exam? Anyway, I got an award. A Betty Crocker Good Homemaker award! A real medal with a ribbon in a little box. I still have it! I thought it was hilarious then, and I still do. Bad at Home Economics, Good at Taking Tests! Which is why my teacher wanted me to take it, I guess. So our school, out of all the schools, got the highest award. Because of me. And my wrap skirt still sucked the donkiest of donkey balls. I kept it for years, though I'm not sure I ever wore it.
Also I learned to type, which got me my first job that wasn't fast food or bartending.
posted by taz at 11:13 AM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
At any rate, I didn't enjoy the class, though I liked the teacher, and at one point we were given the option of taking some statewide (?) exam for I don't know, extra credit or something, which I didn't need, and I chose not to take it. But my teacher really, really wanted me to take it, so I did. And I ... won the exam? Anyway, I got an award. A Betty Crocker Good Homemaker award! A real medal with a ribbon in a little box. I still have it! I thought it was hilarious then, and I still do. Bad at Home Economics, Good at Taking Tests! Which is why my teacher wanted me to take it, I guess. So our school, out of all the schools, got the highest award. Because of me. And my wrap skirt still sucked the donkiest of donkey balls. I kept it for years, though I'm not sure I ever wore it.
Also I learned to type, which got me my first job that wasn't fast food or bartending.
posted by taz at 11:13 AM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
My class was the last of our high school to still use the electric typewriters in 1996. We all considered those who came after us coddled little babies for getting to use computers.
I’m a good typist and I owe it all to AIM and countless, endless nights talking to my friends in late high school and early college.
How did that sound go?
*boodeleep!
*beedeloop!
I’m at my first cubicle job now after a career spent in private offices and I brought my Unicomp Model M with me . I haven’t heard any complaints so far. Hell, who can hear anything over all this clacking?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 11:21 AM on April 4, 2023
I’m a good typist and I owe it all to AIM and countless, endless nights talking to my friends in late high school and early college.
How did that sound go?
*boodeleep!
*beedeloop!
I’m at my first cubicle job now after a career spent in private offices and I brought my Unicomp Model M with me . I haven’t heard any complaints so far. Hell, who can hear anything over all this clacking?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 11:21 AM on April 4, 2023
A Betty Crocker Good Homemaker award! ... I thought it was hilarious then, and I still do.
Awards are weird to me. Maybe I'm missing an essential personality component that's needed in order to be thrilled by them and want to show them off to other people (who couldn't care less).
My company tries to gamify certain peripheral/optional parts of our jobs, with the alleged objective of getting "badges" that show on our employee lookup page (and the ulterior objective of us feeling more invested in our jobs). I can't help but compare it to the pieces-of-flair bit in Office Space. None of it, of course, translates into anything that would actually make me feel more invested such as raises, bonuses, promotions...
a-WARDS! Huh!!
What are they GOOD FOR?
Absolutely NOTHIN'
say it again y'all
(apologies for the rant)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:58 PM on April 4, 2023
Awards are weird to me. Maybe I'm missing an essential personality component that's needed in order to be thrilled by them and want to show them off to other people (who couldn't care less).
My company tries to gamify certain peripheral/optional parts of our jobs, with the alleged objective of getting "badges" that show on our employee lookup page (and the ulterior objective of us feeling more invested in our jobs). I can't help but compare it to the pieces-of-flair bit in Office Space. None of it, of course, translates into anything that would actually make me feel more invested such as raises, bonuses, promotions...
a-WARDS! Huh!!
What are they GOOD FOR?
Absolutely NOTHIN'
say it again y'all
(apologies for the rant)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:58 PM on April 4, 2023
now I have a free traffic cone! What to do with it...
Hey, it's not a good night unless you get a traffic cone!
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:52 PM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
Hey, it's not a good night unless you get a traffic cone!
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:52 PM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
Non-typewriter derail:
Six weeks ago, Toronto R&B singer Jully Black sang the national anthems at the NBA All-Star Game. As a mark of respect toward the ongoing reflection and series of actions Canada is going through as regards its treatment of its indigenous population (previously, about the appalling residential schools*), Black altered the second line of the Canadian national anthem from “our home and native land” to “our home on native land.”
Yesterday she was honoured by the Assembly of First Nations here in Canada.
News stories today on this are full of comments demanding she be deported (she was born and raised in Toronto) and/or lynched.
This morning I gave a walking tour of Toronto’s Kensington Market, a famously multicultural neighbourhood. My guests were all visitors from abroad and I had to talk about how the tolerance and integration that have made Kensington so successful are such an important model of how Canada works.
*Currently the number of unmarked graves of children found on former residential school properties is about 1900. 1900 dead children forcibly removed from their families and buried in unmarked graves.
I’d make an FPP about the Jully Black news, but even to compose one makes me embarrassed for this country, so here in am in thefree typewriter thread.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:06 PM on April 4, 2023 [11 favorites]
Six weeks ago, Toronto R&B singer Jully Black sang the national anthems at the NBA All-Star Game. As a mark of respect toward the ongoing reflection and series of actions Canada is going through as regards its treatment of its indigenous population (previously, about the appalling residential schools*), Black altered the second line of the Canadian national anthem from “our home and native land” to “our home on native land.”
Yesterday she was honoured by the Assembly of First Nations here in Canada.
News stories today on this are full of comments demanding she be deported (she was born and raised in Toronto) and/or lynched.
This morning I gave a walking tour of Toronto’s Kensington Market, a famously multicultural neighbourhood. My guests were all visitors from abroad and I had to talk about how the tolerance and integration that have made Kensington so successful are such an important model of how Canada works.
*Currently the number of unmarked graves of children found on former residential school properties is about 1900. 1900 dead children forcibly removed from their families and buried in unmarked graves.
I’d make an FPP about the Jully Black news, but even to compose one makes me embarrassed for this country, so here in am in the
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:06 PM on April 4, 2023 [11 favorites]
Have you even SEEN the posts on this place? Shame is not a barrier to making a FPP.
posted by hippybear at 3:37 PM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 3:37 PM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
No other typewriter news. But I did get today's wordle in 2.
posted by kathrynm at 4:46 PM on April 4, 2023
posted by kathrynm at 4:46 PM on April 4, 2023
→
I so keep meaning to do something computery with Bob Neill's books (the first; the second), but ars longa, attention span brevis.
Marcin Wichary has uploaded a whole bunch of similar books to Internet Archive: Fun with your typewriter, by Madge Roemer; Typewriter Art, by Alan Riddell; Artyping, by Julius Nelson; A treatise on ornamental typewriting, by George A. Flanagan, and How To Make “Typeys”, by Underwood.
posted by scruss at 6:05 PM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
an ASCII picture by hand
I so keep meaning to do something computery with Bob Neill's books (the first; the second), but ars longa, attention span brevis.
Marcin Wichary has uploaded a whole bunch of similar books to Internet Archive: Fun with your typewriter, by Madge Roemer; Typewriter Art, by Alan Riddell; Artyping, by Julius Nelson; A treatise on ornamental typewriting, by George A. Flanagan, and How To Make “Typeys”, by Underwood.
posted by scruss at 6:05 PM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
In junior high I had to turn in a typed paper; I dug up the ancient, barely functioning fully manual typewriter in my family's storage unit, and did my best. It probably wasn't half bad for a very first attempt at manual typewriting, actually. However, the teacher failed me and mocked me, because I was supposed to have typed it on a computer. Well, I said, we don't have a computer. Well, she said, your mother should have taken you to the library to type it. Well, I said, my mother couldn't do that, because my mother has a job. Well, she said, that doesn't seem very responsible. Well, I said, aren't you also a mother? What are you doing here?
Fuck that teacher.
Typewriters are probably fine but I never touched one again.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:40 AM on April 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Fuck that teacher.
Typewriters are probably fine but I never touched one again.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:40 AM on April 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
By an astonishing coincidence, one of the old family photos I was scanning this morning had the boat anchor Remington in it. This is a pretty tight crop of an entire room, and was taken in 1976 or so.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:03 AM on April 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:03 AM on April 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Scarcely a day after my last rant, another...
It seems my phone utterly died last night - won't turn on, won't hard-reset, nothin'. Thus no alarm this morning so I overslept and was 2 hours late to work, yay.
It was only a year and a half old! I was expecting to keep it at least 3, maybe 4 years. And to add to my already-great annoyance, most of my 2FA accounts were tied to it so on top of everything else I'm gonna have to deal with that once I get a new phone. Which is an expense I wasn't planning for.
Feh, blah, and phooey.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:17 PM on April 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
It seems my phone utterly died last night - won't turn on, won't hard-reset, nothin'. Thus no alarm this morning so I overslept and was 2 hours late to work, yay.
It was only a year and a half old! I was expecting to keep it at least 3, maybe 4 years. And to add to my already-great annoyance, most of my 2FA accounts were tied to it so on top of everything else I'm gonna have to deal with that once I get a new phone. Which is an expense I wasn't planning for.
Feh, blah, and phooey.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:17 PM on April 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well...mods, how do I un-rant? :D
I tried holding down the hard-reset buttons for much longer than I usually do; the phone finally started up and seems to be just fine! Technology is weird...
Even so, I no longer trust this phone so I'll be doing even more frequent backups than normal.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:19 PM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
I tried holding down the hard-reset buttons for much longer than I usually do; the phone finally started up and seems to be just fine! Technology is weird...
Even so, I no longer trust this phone so I'll be doing even more frequent backups than normal.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:19 PM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
MetaFilter: mods, how do I un-rant?
posted by hippybear at 2:32 PM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 2:32 PM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
I HEREBY INVOKE TNAR!
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:38 PM on April 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:38 PM on April 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Greg_Ace, be happy it works. I had a related-ish incident where I thought my screen was cracked and instead it was just the plastic cover on it that cracked. Saved me money other than I had to pay $11 to order a new phone case/glass screen since sticky-on clear covers no longer exist IRL to purchase apparently.
I was amused at TNAR, though!
Oh, I'll give you a petty rant: I use my old phone as an alarm and some days it is just....not going off, or not going off until late. I can't figure out why other than the phone is old and full and doesn't do much else (I'm tired of trying to purge it over and over again because it constantly says it's out of memory/whatever). I ended up sleeping till 8:10 yesterday because the alarm did not go off until then--and I have alarms that go off at 7:45 and 8 on work from home days. I wasn't caught at this, thank goodness.
I don't want to use my regular phone as an alarm (I have it on silenced during sleeptime because one friend likes to call super early once in a while and can't be dissuaded not to) and since my alarm schedule changes multiple times a week I can't really program that into my clock, but I may be stuck doing that. Grr, argh.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:14 PM on April 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was amused at TNAR, though!
Oh, I'll give you a petty rant: I use my old phone as an alarm and some days it is just....not going off, or not going off until late. I can't figure out why other than the phone is old and full and doesn't do much else (I'm tired of trying to purge it over and over again because it constantly says it's out of memory/whatever). I ended up sleeping till 8:10 yesterday because the alarm did not go off until then--and I have alarms that go off at 7:45 and 8 on work from home days. I wasn't caught at this, thank goodness.
I don't want to use my regular phone as an alarm (I have it on silenced during sleeptime because one friend likes to call super early once in a while and can't be dissuaded not to) and since my alarm schedule changes multiple times a week I can't really program that into my clock, but I may be stuck doing that. Grr, argh.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:14 PM on April 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
My best friend just came through double bypass surgery today. He's younger and healthier than me but two of his bloodways decided they wouldn't let anything pass. I'm told he did great, but he hasn't woken up yet.
I had all kinds of BS standards for what makes a best friend years ago. And then one day, I realized that my best friend was the person who had been the best friend to me. I'm lucky I have this awkward goob who loves me back, awkward goob that I am.
I look forward to talking to him tomorrow.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:01 PM on April 5, 2023 [9 favorites]
I had all kinds of BS standards for what makes a best friend years ago. And then one day, I realized that my best friend was the person who had been the best friend to me. I'm lucky I have this awkward goob who loves me back, awkward goob that I am.
I look forward to talking to him tomorrow.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:01 PM on April 5, 2023 [9 favorites]
I'm lucky I have this awkward goob who loves me back, awkward goob that I am.
This I love, DirtyOldTown. It is such a lovely meeting of self awareness, gratitude and appreciation that some of the best things in life hinge on luck. Really great stuff. Thank you.
I'm going to pick it up and run with it today and share it with my son who is himself a 5 star awkward goob, as prickly as a cactus but with a heart of gold. I have no idea where he gets his irascibility from. His Mum is as sweet as pie. It's a real mystery.
From one awkward goob to another.
posted by dutchrick at 1:09 AM on April 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
This I love, DirtyOldTown. It is such a lovely meeting of self awareness, gratitude and appreciation that some of the best things in life hinge on luck. Really great stuff. Thank you.
I'm going to pick it up and run with it today and share it with my son who is himself a 5 star awkward goob, as prickly as a cactus but with a heart of gold. I have no idea where he gets his irascibility from. His Mum is as sweet as pie. It's a real mystery.
From one awkward goob to another.
posted by dutchrick at 1:09 AM on April 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
And of course, best wishes and a speedy and full recovery to your best friend!
posted by dutchrick at 2:14 AM on April 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by dutchrick at 2:14 AM on April 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
HEY! My friend is awake, grumpy, and swearing a lot.
In short: he is back to normal.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:56 AM on April 6, 2023 [8 favorites]
In short: he is back to normal.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:56 AM on April 6, 2023 [8 favorites]
On the one hand, my work hates me yet again.
On the other hand: (a) I got a friend of mine to fix my hanging down car flap for free and easily instead of having to go to the dealership, (b) I got a new cover for the cell phone, (c) I saw sheep today and got free sheep merch.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:35 PM on April 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
On the other hand: (a) I got a friend of mine to fix my hanging down car flap for free and easily instead of having to go to the dealership, (b) I got a new cover for the cell phone, (c) I saw sheep today and got free sheep merch.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:35 PM on April 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
What sort of merch do sheep even have? Like, little wool samples?
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:09 PM on April 6, 2023
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:09 PM on April 6, 2023
Woolen beanies, mittens, socks... I hear the quality of the merch is not baaaad.
posted by hippybear at 4:41 PM on April 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 4:41 PM on April 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
and sheep at twice the price!
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:33 PM on April 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:33 PM on April 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Shirts and bags with sheep on them. I got stickers.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:45 PM on April 6, 2023
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:45 PM on April 6, 2023
I popped in on my friend and visited him today, which he maybe wasn't expecting, since I live near Chicago and he is in Memphis. But I was at my Mom's in Kentucky for Easter, so I figured why not. I think he appreciated it. He's still a little pissed on principle to be a runner who cares about his diet who had to get double bypass anyway because of genetics f-ing him up.
3.5 hours there, 3.5 hours back but totally worth it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:50 AM on April 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
3.5 hours there, 3.5 hours back but totally worth it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:50 AM on April 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I just signed up to Mastodon. I have no idea how to use it. None at all. I just tried to like Cortex's crow. I may have liked it half a dozen times for all I know. I'll get it figured out before I get even less able to.
posted by Oyéah at 9:19 PM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 9:19 PM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sad news from Finland, as reported by YLE News. Helsinki’s last typewriter repairer is retiring, and even though he’s got plenty of projects, there’s no one to take his place. Here’s the story:
Helsingin Uutiset tells readers that Veikko Tiainen, probably the capital's last typewriter repairman, has closed up his shop in the city's Alppila district.posted by Kattullus at 12:27 AM on April 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Starting in the 1960s, Tiainen mainly repaired old typewriters, slightly newer electric typewriters, mechanical calculators, and sewing machines.
He told the paper although many mechanical typewriters these days are mostly showpieces or home decorations, people want to keep them in working order, and he had as much business as he could handle.
However, he decided to finally retire and there seems to be no one to take his place..
"No, I think I'm the last one. That's about it. Fixing these requires a lot of technical experience," Tiainen said in an interview with HU.
Oh, that was unexpectedly sad. Thank you, Kattullus.
I've brought home my great uncle's typewriter, the one with the extra-wide platen for typing up insurance certificates. It's shockingly heavy. Not engine block heavy, but close. It's spent the past 50 years or more in various garages and sheds, and at some point it must have been a nest for squirrels because everywhere, walnut shells.
It's a Smith Corona Super Speed from the 1940s, possibly 1939. Still need to figure out the year. It's not valuable and it's certainly not as pretty as the Underwood (one of the online descriptions points out it's shaped like the head of a beluga whale, which is not untrue), but despite the grime and dust and walnut shells it types rather smoothly.
I'll have to clean it up a bit, see how it does.
posted by mochapickle at 6:59 AM on April 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've brought home my great uncle's typewriter, the one with the extra-wide platen for typing up insurance certificates. It's shockingly heavy. Not engine block heavy, but close. It's spent the past 50 years or more in various garages and sheds, and at some point it must have been a nest for squirrels because everywhere, walnut shells.
It's a Smith Corona Super Speed from the 1940s, possibly 1939. Still need to figure out the year. It's not valuable and it's certainly not as pretty as the Underwood (one of the online descriptions points out it's shaped like the head of a beluga whale, which is not untrue), but despite the grime and dust and walnut shells it types rather smoothly.
I'll have to clean it up a bit, see how it does.
posted by mochapickle at 6:59 AM on April 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
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Happy Monday everyone
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 3:36 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]