# Question for those who were writing in 1990



## PaperbackWriter (Nov 15, 2015)

My story takes place in 1990.

Which portable machine were you more likely to choose to write on: a word processor or a typewriter? Which brand/model? 

Background on the character in question: 
American, 30 years old and employed as a warehouse supervisor so he may not have a lot of disposable income. Although he's never been published, he still sees himself as a serious writer.


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## J Anfinson (Nov 16, 2015)

We had (if I remember correctly) a Smith Corona similar to or maybe even exactly this one.




I wrote a lot of school essays and terrible stories on it. It was way better than using a typewriter. No need for correction ribbon since it displayed a few lines at a time on the screen and deleted the same as a modern computer. Navigating the document, though, meant holding the up and down keys to get where you wanted to go. There might have been an easier way but I can't remember if there was.


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## Sonata (Nov 16, 2015)

I learned touch typing [and Pitman's shorthand] during a brief but concentrated course after leaving school and before going to university [to help taking notes during lectures and then transcribing them.  I think it was an ancient "sit up and beg" manual Olivetti, probably something like this, although this one looks more modern than the one I learned on...






... which had the keys covered in order to learn how to touch-type without having to look at the keys.  I actually had to hand-write the transcription of my shorthand notes as I did not have a typewriter at home, but later I acquired a rather elderly portable typewriter, also a manual "sit up and beg" one but by 1990 at work I had an IBM Golfball electric typewriter.  When that was replaced by an electronic one I was given the Golfball one to use at home.  I "graduated" to a word processor when I moved to a different company but the first time I ever saw, let alone used a computer was one I had built for me in 2004 or 2005 for home use, having had to retire from work some years previously.


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## Phil Istine (Nov 16, 2015)

I wasn't really writing as such back then but I had a word processor.  It was called Locoscript and came bundled with a machine called the Amstrad PCW.  It wasn't even proper WYSIWYG.  I thought it was brilliant because I could save onto floppy disc (previously I had an older computer with a tape drive) and I had the version with expanded memory (I think it was half a megabyte instead of a quarter).  It had no hard drive.
This was in the UK and they were quite popular here.  I don't know if they reached a similar popularity level in other countries..  The earlier models used 3" discs that only had a 720k capacity.  I think this was an attempt to tie people in to that particular brand.  Later, the company seemed to concede that 3.5" discs were the way forward and ended up complying with the rest of the industry (after those old 5.25" discs became obsolete).  It may have helped that 3.5" could store a whole 144kb  (wow!).*(EDIT: Factual error.  It was 1.44 Mb)*
Programs like word processors were much more hardware dependent back then, each computer brand having its own make of software.  These days it's more operating system dependent, though even that can be worked around by having partitions set aside for different operating systems.
So, if you choose the word processing route in your story, you may also wish to give a nod to the clunky way things were done back then.  CD drives were either in infancy, or still in the womb.

EDIT:  I see you have used the word "portable".  There wasn't much that was portable about computers then, so if portability is a must, you may need to be a bit more creative.  Anything that was around that had something portable about it was prohibitively expensive for most people.


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## JustRob (Nov 16, 2015)

1990 is too modern for me to comment with any authority, but if you mean truly portable, i.e. can be used anywhere without an external power supply, then a compact manual typewriter would probably be the thing within this person's means. Even with a power supply a manual typewriter would save on his electricity bill, so I would opt for a manual typewriter on the grounds of economy. 

Word processors have to have a power supply and to be truly portable that means batteries. Modern lightweight electronic devices were made possible by advances in battery design, so before that we had the "brick" mobile phones of the 1980's. Even though the era of microelectronics had arrived the era of minute batteries hadn't. Modern tiny lithium-ion batteries have changed all that today. Any truly portable electronic devices would most likely have been too expensive for this chap around 1990. 

One also has to make the distinction between "portable" and "luggable". Some compact computers were the size and weight of a small suitcase apparently filled with bricks, as were some "portable" typewriters for that matter, and the term "luggable" was often used by critics attempting to be accurate about them. The presence of a carrying handle didn't prove anything.

The chances are that a warehouse supervisor would have the strength in his fingers to use a manual typewriter, even a cheap one with a heavy key mechanism, for long periods, so I see no reason for him to use a word processor. Of course how much paper he has to buy is another matter, but that depends on how good a writer he is. 

These aspects are all things to be worked into his character, why he uses the machine that he does, whether he anticipated spending so much on paper for all his rewrites or whether the expense of the word processor was really worthwhile. Far from being just a detail in the story, this choice could be a way of summing up his personality and approach to life in general. For that reason it might be worth doing a bit more research into the trends in that era. I would.


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## Deleted member 56686 (Nov 16, 2015)

I didn't really become computer literate until about 1994 so I wouldn't have used a word processor had I been actually writing. I used to (and still do) scribble in notebooks which is something of a leap for someone who has the handwriting of a baboon. I did have a couple typewriters growing up, but to say I used them for any classic writing would have been something of a stretch. Still, a typewriter was nice to have.

PS- If I remember, word processors were quite the thing in 1990 and even earlier.


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## InstituteMan (Nov 16, 2015)

The Smith Corona Jake mentioned or a typewriter would be the most likely kind of portable ways to write in 1990. I did most of my creative writing by hand back then. I used school computers for assignments.


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## PaperbackWriter (Nov 16, 2015)

Phil Istine said:


> EDIT:  I see you have used the word "portable".  There wasn't much that was portable about computers then, so if portability is a must, you may need to be a bit more creative.  Anything that was around that had something portable about it was prohibitively expensive for most people.



In the story, he brings it with him on vacation to the town where the story takes place. I was hoping to have him go there with the intention of working on his long unfinished novel and bring the typewriter or word processor with him. I remember our family had a WP that although it was clunky and unwieldy, it was still fairy easy to move it from room to room or from desk to end table etc.


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## PaperbackWriter (Nov 16, 2015)

JustRob said:


> 1990 is too modern for me to comment with any authority, but if you mean truly portable, i.e. can be used anywhere without an external power supply, then a compact manual typewriter would probably be the thing within this person's means. Even with a power supply a manual typewriter would save on his electricity bill, so I would opt for a manual typewriter on the grounds of economy.
> 
> Word processors have to have a power supply and to be truly portable that means batteries. Modern lightweight electronic devices were made possible by advances in battery design, so before that we had the "brick" mobile phones of the 1980's. Even though the era of microelectronics had arrived the era of minute batteries hadn't. Modern tiny lithium-ion batteries have changed all that today. Any truly portable electronic devices would most likely have been too expensive for this chap around 1990.
> 
> ...



The power supply is something that didn't come up in my research. He would certainly be concerned about his electric bill, although he's also impractical when it comes to certain things like his writing. 

I would definitely say 'luggable' opposed to portable and could easily see him struggling with the machine going up the stairs to the motor inn where he's staying during the bulk of the story. My WP had a handle but I never used it. I always had to get a two-hand grip on it from underneath to carry to from room to room. I'm beginning to like the idea of a typewriter for him. Maybe he found it in his grandparents attic when he was a kid and it became a tool for his daydreams about a better life.


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## Terry D (Nov 16, 2015)

In 1990 there was no way I could afford a word processor. I was still using the portable Brother manual typewriter my parenmts gave me as a high school graduation present (it would have been about 20 years old at that time.)


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## Bishop (Nov 16, 2015)

A world without octo-core processors and wide screen monitors...

What nightmares you all must have faced...






The horror....

The horror.......


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## Blade (Nov 16, 2015)

Terry D said:


> In 1990 there was no way I could afford a word processor. I was still using the portable Brother manual typewriter my parenmts gave me as a high school graduation present (it would have been about 20 years old at that time.)



I would think that most people at that time would be using manual or electric typewriters just on economic grounds. Why pay big $$ to upgrade when you already have a unit that does the job?:cookie: The older technology was likely more dependable in any case.:thumbl:


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## ppsage (Nov 16, 2015)

Bishop said:


> A world without octo-core processors and wide screen monitors...
> 
> What nightmares you all must have faced...
> 
> ...


Very fancy graphics card.


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## aj47 (Nov 16, 2015)

In 1990, I did my stuff in Wordstar.  The computers I used weren't portable, but they didn't have to be.  I had a PC at home and one at work, and I could take my stuff on floppies back and forth. We did have hard drives at work.  I didn't have one at home until about that timeframe.

For me, writing stuff in notebooks until I could get to the computer was easier than using my Smith-Corona typewriter.  The IBM Selectric typewriter models had error correction (and were expensive) but most typewriters did not.  While my typewriter was portable, it also required power.


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## PhunkyMunky (Nov 17, 2015)

I shall introduce the Portable Writing Apparatus! :applouse:


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