Posted on 04/02/2011 1:22:41 PM PDT by thecodont
EVEN by Brooklyn standards, it was a curious spectacle: a dozen mechanical contraptions sat on a white tablecloth, emitting occasional clacks and dings. Shoppers peered at the display, excited but hesitant, as if they’d stumbled upon a trove of strange inventions from a Jules Verne fantasy. Some snapped pictures with their iPhones.
“Can I touch it?” a young woman asked. Permission granted, she poked two buttons at once. The machine jammed. She recoiled as if it had bitten her.
“I’m in love with all of them,” said Louis Smith, 28, a lanky drummer from Williamsburg. Five minutes later, he had bought a dark blue 1968 Smith Corona Galaxie II for $150. “It’s about permanence, not being able to hit delete,” he explained. “You have to have some conviction in your thoughts. And that’s my whole philosophy of typewriters.”
Whether he knew it or not, Mr. Smith had joined a growing movement. Manual typewriters aren’t going gently into the good night of the digital era. The machines have been attracting fresh converts, many too young to be nostalgic for spooled ribbons, ink-smudged fingers and corrective fluid. And unlike the typists of yore, these folks aren’t clacking away in solitude.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"The Typewriter"
Leroy Anderson
Martin Breinschmid with Strauß Festival Orchestra Vienna
Fascinating. I’ve got a 1972 Smith-Corona 10” portable (in it’s case) in excellent condition sitting under a pile of stuff in my attic. I may have to investigate the market for it.
I gave my dad’s old Smith-Carona to my youngest daughter. She also has my turntable and all my LPs. What was old is new again. Love that kid.
***Fascinating. I’ve got a 1972 Smith-Corona 10” portable...****
I’ve still got my old small Smith-Corona portable I bought in 1966 used. It still has it’s metal top with handle. I used it till I got computer savy.
FYI, medical transcription is on life support in America now. In fact, I was recently been laid off when my job was sent to India....but this article brought back some long-buried memories of the "olden days", lol!
Mrs. Prince of Space
I always wanted one of those marvelous IBM Selectric typewriters. That was a wonderful machine.
Oh boy, and I just threw out my old 1970s Smith-Corona two years ago. Glad I still have the 100 year-old Remington portable from my high school days.
Sorry, no dice. Real writers re-write. Once I discovered the sheer joy of software outlining, spellchecking, fonts, and the ease of massive paragraph editing and every level of rewrites, let alone digital storage and a variety of printing options, it was all over.
This article is for dilettantes, not people who actually write.
Typing was the most useful class I took in high school. I learned on an old Royal manual with blank keys.
I am old enough to have actually taken “Typing” in high school. We sat in front of typewriters with our fingers in the home position typing things without looking at the keyboard ... I sucked at it.
I have my own typing style that is totally incorrect, and can maintain 55 -60 wpm on a keyboard. I see no reason to revert to analogue typing.
The IBM Selectric II is the gem of typewriters. My church has one in a back hall, and it even works. I type a service program on it occasionally.
I used to make a good wage typing papers on my old manual machine, back in college, because when the electricity went out and your paper was due, there was Tax-chick tapping away in the soft glow of candlelight.
Fool. If he looked around, he could have had one for about $10.
My friend does medical transcription part time, and according to her, most of the doctors have foreign accents now, anyway. Sad.
I used a typewriter for years and years. Getting a word processor was a Godsend. Typewriters are a novelty item, only to those who never had to actually use them to make a deadline. Gack. If I never have to use one again, it’ll be too soon.
Yeah! Good grief, imagine having to go back to a crappy typewriter! Just correcting a single letter mistake took forever, God forbid you should mess up a whole line by getting your fingers off-center! Especially if you were already 4/5 done with the page! God bless the computerized word processor.
These Rubes are either idiots or Luddites.
In the late 80s, Smith Corona made the best of both worlds : A manual electric with memory disks and a built-in correction ribbon.
Recently though, I have turned the tables on them and I am slowly taking the business away from the Indians who undercut the local transcription folks.
We setup modules so the doctors upload their dictations directly into the EMR systems and it is automatically transcribed. Then we hired some of the locals to error-check and correct them.
There aren't as many jobs as there used to be, but at least we brought as much of it back as we could.
Makes me feel like I accomplished something when I can undercut the Indians and bring the work back home again.
I took typing in HS, but learned on my mother’s old 1920s Remington. I loved the heft and the smack of the keys on the paper, made a mess with the ribbon (an actual, ink-soaked cloth ribbon), and thought my HS Selectric II was a soulless, cheap substitute. However, I’m with the writer who says that computer editing is a God-send to actual writing.
Love the link! TY!!!
Good for you, though, in your attempt to increase the job opportunities for your fellow Americans!
Mrs. Prince of Space
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.