Forum / Typewriter
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Ann BogleJul 03, 11:38pmIf you know a thing or two about good, very good, typewriters that are in current manufacture, please share.
IBM Selectric, roller ball type, was my favorite in the past. I liked the electronic version less well, but IBM electronic was better than cheaper models.
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Frankie SaxxJul 05, 09:48am
I do not know anything about modern typewriters. I just wanted to share my deep & abiding love for these:
www.usbtypewriter.com/ -
Ann BogleJul 05, 05:27pm
Wow, what a site, thanks, Frankie.
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strannikovJul 07, 05:48pmThanks, Ann, for the topic, thanks, Frankie, for the link.
Concerning the latter: rather than set up some kind of steampunk laptop, I'm interested in having a typewriter serve as printer (YES, Ann: learned typing on a Selectric III).
"Hard copy" today is not what it was: type bites into paper, whereas to my understanding toner lightly sits atop the paper. (A tech somebody can tell me whether a laser printer actually burns its "bite" into paper: I cannot tell.) I've heard somewhere that, should the planet survive the next fifty years, toner will be capable of simply being blown off a page with a strong exhalation. --while typewritten work will hold up almost as long as the paper does.
The usbtypewriter folks may have separate kits for "conversion-to-printer" instead of "conversion-to-keypad": cursory exam of their homepage did not show.
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Ann BogleJul 07, 09:25pm
Thanks, strannikov. Perspicacious.
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Frankie SaxxJul 08, 09:33am
Strannikov: old school impact (dot matrix) works by striking the paper, if that's what you're after. Bet you could get one real cheap these days.
Toner does sit on top of the paper, and I recall reading about work on a copier that strips the toner using lasers allowing reuse of the paper, but I don't know if it's just an idea or a machine actively in development.
Although it brings up interesting thoughts about the physical book as a permanent object, with increasing reliance on print on demand technologies that are basically fancy laser printers + binding machines.
Though on some level, I question our tendency to see a physical object as more permanent, less fragile, than a digital one.
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strannikovJul 08, 02:27pm
Frankie: yes, printing is not the art it were, either, although welcome standards for reducing acid content in paper have come along.
On the other hand, though, we would seem to be only ONE coronal mass ejection away from discovering how well we'll all fare once our hard drives are all wiped clean. (Not that the very next CME will do the job, just that THE ill-timed ill-placed CME could occur with virtually no warning.)
Lichtenberg, Notebook F26 of his WASTE BOOKS (Hollingdale tr.): "The forests are getting smaller and smaller, the amount of wood is decreasing, what shall we do? Oh, when the time comes that the forests cease to exist we shall certainly be able to burn the books until the new ones have grown." --Don't know how combustible we'd find our digital tomes, though, or how reliable we'd find our digital flues.
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Frankie SaxxJul 08, 03:45pm
Would we even live through a coronal mass ejection that destroyed every hard drive & piece of backup media on the planet?
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Frankie SaxxJul 08, 04:05pm
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strannikovJul 08, 04:34pm
MORE good work, Frankie, grazie!
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Frankie SaxxJul 08, 06:51pm
My powers of procrastination know no bounds!
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Frankie SaxxSep 10, 03:21pm
And...
I finally found a typewriter in the second hand store. An Olympia SM-3 or SM-4 De Luxe
http://typewriterheaven.blogspot.se/p/olympia.html
(except mine is gray)
It's heavy as sin, the case smells of basement, and it needs a good cleaning. Oh, but it types good.
Now I need the USB kit.
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