# Typewriter.



## escorial (Mar 1, 2014)

Been looking on Ebay for a typewriter and ribbons..I've never used one before but I was just wondering if anyone on here uses one?


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## Cran (Mar 1, 2014)

Not since the mid-90s, and wouldn't go back to one by choice. 

How mechanical (old) do you want to go? 

I ask because you mentioned ribbons, which reminded me of the early days; the era of dings and manual carriage returns (and out-twisting wrists to ensure the little finger depressed the keys far enough to make an impression) and either all-black or black and red reel to reel ribbons - unavoidable ink stains on fingertips from manually threading the ribbon through the central guide, etc. Corrections made by careful painting of white-out; later by retyping to cigarette paper sized strips of pre-dried white-out.

Then came the early big heavy (!) electrics; light touch, gunfire typing, and the birth of the Return key. Later models offered extra font styles (changeable and spare typesets - "golf balls" were popular). Corrector ribbons an added extra. 

Size and weight improved with electronics - typing on one is similar to typing on a standard desktop keyboard, but with only a one to five line monitor (correctable/editable electronically until committed to paper). Ribbons were contained in cartridges for clean handling and storage. Golf ball typesets gave way to daisy-wheel typesets.


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## escorial (Mar 1, 2014)

The reason Cran is that when I'm on the laptop my attention span can be short and moving from one site to another is the norm..I thought if I sat infront of a typewriter it might make me write more and it just kind of has a look about it that I really like.


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## Grizzly (Mar 1, 2014)

I own own, named him Molloy. It's a whole new experience writing with one, or at least was for me, and i enjoy doing it a lot. Only thing is it's extra loud and is rude to use anytime after eleven. Using it I noticed I rely more than I'd like on italics.
Mine's pretty old, ribbon and all. It's called the Royal Quiet De Luxe and doesn't have the number 1 or an explanation point key. Though it does have a 1/2 and 1/4 key, which is weird.


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## escorial (Mar 1, 2014)

molly...never thought about naming one...Grizzly.....


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## Grizzly (Mar 1, 2014)

Eh, I name everything. If you saw him you'd see he's definitely a Molloy.


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## escorial (Mar 1, 2014)

man if i buy one i'm going to call it Grizzly dude..if it's ok with you dude?


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## Grizzly (Mar 1, 2014)

For sure man! I'd be stoked.


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## escorial (Mar 1, 2014)

cheers Grizzly...just put a bid on one with 14hrs to go ,,,fingers crossed.


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## Grizzly (Mar 1, 2014)

Sweet Mang, hope it works out.


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## escorial (Mar 2, 2014)

been outbid on 3 so far on ebay...thought there would be no problem buying one..weird how things happen sometimes.


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## Grizzly (Mar 3, 2014)

Aww that's too bad. Don't lose hope!


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## Bishop (Mar 3, 2014)

Used one for a while, hated it. I work in IT, and build computers as a hobby, so it might be my undying love of everything computers that conditioned this in me. It was loud, obnoxious, hard to format properly, and making mistakes was a nightmare. There's no word counter, no page counter, no copy-paste, etc. 

That's just me though. You can also get typewriters on amazon, but they're the 80s and 90s style, not the old black looking ones.

Bishop


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## Blade (Mar 3, 2014)

Cran said:


> I ask because you mentioned ribbons, which reminded me of the early days; the era of dings and manual carriage returns (and out-twisting wrists to ensure the little finger depressed the keys far enough to make an impression) and either all-black or black and red reel to reel ribbons - unavoidable ink stains on fingertips from manually threading the ribbon through the central guide, etc. Corrections made by careful painting of white-out; later by retyping to cigarette paper sized strips of pre-dried white-out.
> 
> Then came the early big heavy (!) electrics; light touch, gunfire typing, and the birth of the Return key. Later models offered extra font styles (changeable and spare typesets - "golf balls" were popular). Corrector ribbons an added extra.



OW! Which is why they have pretty well vanished. I could have been worse though. I saw a Popeye cartoon recently with a scene where Olive Oyl is typing away in an office. Every time she reaches the end of a line the cylinder pops out into the air so she has to reach over, catch it, and push it back into the machine. :mrgreen:



escorial said:


> and it just kind of has a look about it that I really like.



Having used an old _Underwood _with the individual bars for each key that's exactly where I would leave it. A later 'electric' model may be tolerable but still crude and limited relative to a modern keyboard.:cat:


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## Grizzly (Mar 3, 2014)

Bishop said:


> It was loud, obnoxious, hard to format properly, and making mistakes was a nightmare. There's no word counter, no page counter, no copy-paste, etc.



It's the lack of spellcheck that got to me above all else. Maybe I'm just more reliant on it than I should be, but I've grown up with the helping hand of the red squiggle-line all my life. As soon as it was gone I was misspelling words left and right.


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## Bishop (Mar 3, 2014)

I completely forgot about spell check, that is such a nice feature. Without it, editing my work would require a dictionary and a lot more spare time, because there's a lot of words that one thinks they know how to spell, but are usually one letter off being corect.


Bishop


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## Cran (Mar 3, 2014)

escorial said:


> been outbid on 3 so far on ebay...thought there would be no problem buying one..weird how things happen sometimes.


It is a perverse quirk of modern society that *obsolete = collector's item.*


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## escorial (Mar 3, 2014)

deffo..Cran


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## escorial (Mar 3, 2014)

Who is bidding on these things...when wasthe last time you read a letter done on a typewriter?


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## Bishop (Mar 3, 2014)

escorial said:


> Who is bidding on these things...when wasthe last time you read a letter done on a typewriter?



Actually, it's a big fad these days to decorate homes with typewriters.

Bishop


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## escorial (Mar 3, 2014)

so people are using them as ornaments..it's a mad world Bishop..ha


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## Blade (Mar 3, 2014)

escorial said:


> Who is bidding on these things...when wasthe last time you read a letter done on a typewriter?


Better yet when was the last time you got a letter at all?:emptiness: I would have to go with Bishops idea on this one. It is very likely that old typewriters are so worn out that decoration would be their primary value.:teapot:


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## escorial (Mar 4, 2014)

bought one..1980's imperial..I must be mad.....just paid 8 quid for a new ribbon as well..I'm looking forward to using it..hope old Grizzly spurs me on to type some poetry and prose.


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## Bishop (Mar 4, 2014)

Congrats! Though it's not my cup of tea, I understand the drive for the vintage. I'm a guitarist, and was privileged with the opportunity to play an actual Les Paul from 1957. There's something about working with a piece of equipment that predates you by more than three decades that's just... alluring.


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## Blade (Mar 4, 2014)

escorial said:


> bought one..1980's imperial..I must be mad.....just paid 8 quid for a new ribbon as well..I'm looking forward to using it..hope old Grizzly spurs me on to type some poetry and prose.



:5stars: Sounds great. 1980 would be reasonably modern. The price you quote '8 quid' (which I read as about $20) is excellent as well. Any idea how much a new unit would have cost back in the day? 

Good luck with it. This is not the sort of thing I would do though I have empathy with the sentiment. On the other hand I do most of my original writing in pencil.:cupcake:


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## escorial (Mar 4, 2014)

paid £10.55 for the typewriter..described as good working order an hey..if it does the job at least I can say I give it a go...might only use it the once..ha


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## Cran (Mar 4, 2014)

Blade said:


> :5stars: Sounds great. 1980 would be reasonably modern. The price you quote '8 quid' (which I read as about $20) is excellent as well. Any idea how much a new unit would have cost back in the day?


For a new Imperial (any model), more than $20 (that's 1980 $ - back of hand inflation adjustment for 2014 $ = multiply by 2.5, add 10% to the result = ~$55), although prices had fallen relatively from the highs of the 1960s for manual models when electrics became commonplace (= affordable) and by 1980 the end of the electrics was on the horizon (hence the price at affordable). Within ten years, dedicated word processors dominated the high end business market.


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 4, 2014)

The down side as I remember was that if you make a mistake or an edit it is down to typing the whole thing again, correction fluids and such always sort of worked and left it looking a bit messy. There was a stge in between typewriters and computers when there were word processors that showed you two or three lines of text that you could correct. You would not be able to access the net on one of them, but most have probably been thrown away, their aesthetic appeal was nil and computers made them obsolete.


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## bazz cargo (Mar 4, 2014)

You could take a look at an early word processor. £20 ish on ebay. All the functions you need and no internet.


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## escorial (Mar 4, 2014)

thats the one..ha


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## Cran (Mar 4, 2014)

The portable manual means it's easier on your fingers (less pressure needed to fully depress the keys) compared with the heavier desktop manuals. Any manual _will_ limit your typing speed - from memory to somewhere around 40 wpm - because punching consecutive keys too close in time will cause jams at the guide. This is not a problem for the "hunt and peck" typist, but for a touch typist (on a deadline) it's irritant value ranks above back-spacing and over-typing (for corrections or weak ink) and below changing ribbons.


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 5, 2014)

Is it true or an urban myth that the reason for the qwerty key board's layout was to slow typists down so that there were not jams? Ironic that we still use it if it was so.


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## Cran (Mar 5, 2014)

Olly Buckle said:


> Is it true or an urban myth that the reason for the qwerty key board's layout was to slow typists down so that there were not jams? Ironic that we still use it if it was so.


It's historical record that the QWERTY key layout was designed to reduce (the ideal was eliminate) key jams by separating most (not all) common letter combinations; the reason why not all was attributed to the design testers, many of whom were telegraphists (transcribers of Morse Code) who needed similar key combinations close together to keep up with real time transcriptions - deciding between two identical dot-dash combinations mostly meant waiting until the following letter codes were identified and then catch-up typing. 

Its popularity and longevity well beyond the reason for its design is similar to other products - cassette tapes over 8-tracks, VHS over Betamax, IBM-compatibles+Windows over Apple - corporate marketing (in this case by Remington, who offered free tuition with every typewriter sold). The difference in wpm between a competent QWERTY typist and an equally competent Dvorak Simplified typist was too small to affect the market for plain English print. Markedly greater typing speeds could only be obtained through using niche keyboard products like stenotype (phonetic symbols; shorthand type); stenosecs and court recorders were highly regarded prior to digital recording in conferences.


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## Blade (Mar 5, 2014)

Hey guy, slow down.:grumpy: In any case the Dvorak keyboard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 5, 2014)

> Markedly greater typing speeds could only be obtained through using niche keyboard products like stenotype (phonetic symbols; shorthand type); stenosecs and court recorders were highly regarded prior to digital recording in conferences.


My friend has a bit over 100 wpm, he used to work for the BBC as a telegraphist (sending telegrams), thought he had a job for life, then came computers and e-mail.

There is a joystick device which Arthur Clarke uses with four keys and a thumb button, different combinations give different letters, they say that is faster once you know it, it does not need a surface to rest on, and 'touch typing' is automatic, the only way it can be worked.


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## Cran (Mar 5, 2014)

Yes, electric typewriters meant competent typists averaged 80-100 wpm, and top line typists worked at 120-140 wpm (I was in the first group; my mother was in the second); the speed record on a QWERTY keyboard (IBM electric) was something over 200 wpm set in the mid-1940s, and from memory was faster than the speed record for a Dvorak Simplified (although it too was over 200 wpm). 

Double those average speeds for stenosecs using stenotype, and halve them for handwriting. 

Telegraphists and accounting rooms laid out like huge classrooms owe their demise to interconnected desktop computers.  

Custom devices have their proponents, and no doubt, their advantages; I'll stick with my ergonomic split-keyboard all the same.


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## Gargh (Mar 5, 2014)

I sometimes wonder what happened to me as a child... I've gone all weak at the knees reading through all this talk about typewriters! I have two; both going dusty in the shed unfortunately. One is electric with a correction function (separate ribbon that erases the error with a patch of white) and makes that typical 80s newsroom noise whilst it tries to catch up with the keystrokes. She was a gift second-hand from a friend, and is apparently called Becky. The other is an old manual portable (with no number 1) that I used to pretentiously tote around with me to write on in the park when I was playing truant. I also have an old green-screen amstrad pcw something-or-other, for which the printer is still working from the same cartridge it had fitted in the 90s. It sounds like it's eating the paper as it spools round. Well... I guess I'm going to spend tomorrow in the shed now!


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## Grizzly (Mar 5, 2014)

I thought QWERTY keyboards where so when the computer started bugging out, you just hold down QWERTY and it helps it along? I'm not sure if this is true or not, sounds a bit silly when I say it. But I've always used it and it seems to work for me.


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## Grizzly (Mar 5, 2014)

escorial said:


> bought one..1980's imperial..I must be mad.....just paid 8 quid for a new ribbon as well..I'm looking forward to using it..hope old Grizzly spurs me on to type some poetry and prose.



Sweet Mang! That's awesome. Have you written anything with it yet? I'll post a picture of Molloy soon. Our typewriters can be friends.


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## escorial (Mar 7, 2014)

no kidda..just moving into a new flat an need to sort a desk an chair with a lamp to type away..soon..ha..arrived yesterday and the ribbons to.


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## Grizzly (Mar 15, 2014)

[Bump.]
Have you been writing much with it? 
This is pretty much what Molloy looks like, without the case and all.


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## escorial (Mar 18, 2014)

It's so loud man and moving the paper up an all that is a nightmare..not recomended..ha


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## Grizzly (Mar 19, 2014)

haha yeah man, I wasn't lying about the noise. It's a bummer you don't like using it. Occasionally I'll write something on the typewriter that I don't think I'd be able to produce with any other medium. I get it though, it _is _a mad inconvenience compared to pen and paper or laptop.


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## escorial (Mar 19, 2014)

you were right man,even moving the ribbon seems like an effort...will use it just don't know when..ha


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## Cran (Mar 19, 2014)

For some, the saying is, "typewriters should be seen, but not heard."


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## escorial (Mar 21, 2014)

had a few goes at it now and i'm getting a bit more comfy with old grizzly.....written seven pages on A4 paper of my novel..man there is some mistakes in those pages but at the moment that doesn't concern me...still at the two finger stage though.


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## Grizzly (Mar 22, 2014)

Nice! You'll eventually get faster, but there's a point where you'll have to slow down cause the keys will jam. 
How's your experience been so far writing using a typewriter? It completely alters the voice I have when I write with it. Weird stuff.


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 22, 2014)

If you use the two finger method you will get used to it and it will be with you for life, there are touch typing courses on line, do one and be able to read what you produce as you go along. A little time spent now will save you an age going back on yourself later.


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## Grizzly (Mar 23, 2014)

Really? On a typewriter I started out just using my two index fingers, but now I use all ten. Or I guess more like nine, because I usually just use the right thumb for the space bar, and my left one doesn't really do much. Maybe my laptop prowess transferred over. Or something.


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