The IBM Selectric. Still the best keyboard ever made. I could type faster and with fewer mistakes on that keyboard than any since, with the possible exception of the original Mac keyboards.

FTA: For the hipster, a typewriter stands alongside records and tortoise-shell glasses as a technological high point, when machinery still had soul, and aesthetics were regarded as highly as function

Look, I love to Hipster Bash as much as the next Snarky Bastard, but blithely calling people "hipsters" for appreciating something is just Hipster Elitism! I don't use typewriters, but I respect a well crafted machine which continues to work long after it's life expectancy has expired! Does anyone thing their current computer will be functioning sixty years from now or that anyone will use it as an example of form and function?

Or maybe I'm just sensitive because I collect and use classic film cameras.

I still miss my sky-blue Oliveti.
 
It was the laptop my childhood.  Lovely design.

Ennuipoet: FTA: For the hipster, a typewriter stands alongside records and tortoise-shell glasses as a technological high point, when machinery still had soul, and aesthetics were regarded as highly as function

Look, I love to Hipster Bash as much as the next Snarky Bastard, but blithely calling people "hipsters" for appreciating something is just Hipster Elitism! I don't use typewriters, but I respect a well crafted machine which continues to work long after it's life expectancy has expired! Does anyone thing their current computer will be functioning sixty years from now or that anyone will use it as an example of form and function?

Or maybe I'm just sensitive because I collect and use classic film cameras.

Go sip on a latte, hipster-boy.

gopher321: Go sip on a latte, hipster-boy.

I could never, in a million years, wedge my fat ass in a pair of skinny jeans, sir!

I got an old Remington typewriter from my Grandmother when she passed away. The ink on the ribbon still worked after easily ~40 years of disuse


/They knew how to make things back then
//Call me a hipster if you'd like, typewriters are awesome

Snarfangel: (Not sure what the F40 tag is for, unless it was being auctioned off.)


Its a lazy this:
 

Sorry about the shaky image.
My father bought this typewriter at a second hand store while he was in college on the GI bill in the late 40's. I learned how to type on that monster and many a term paper was written on it while I was in college just before the age of the affordable computer. My nieces used to use it when they were small. They thought it was "neat" that when you typed on it the words came out on paper and not on a screen, and their children used to love to bang on it and pretend to be doing something important. The thing still works and the ribbons seem to last forever.

What was so special about British typewriters?

Did they automatically invert "r" and "e" at the end of words and insert an epenthetic "u" after "o" before stem-final "r"?

/Do their text-to-speech readers remove "r"s from the end of words where they belong and stick them at the end of words where they don't?

Nexzus: demaL-demaL-yeH: What was so special about British typewriters?
Did they automatically invert "r" and "e" at the end of words and insert an epenthetic "u" after "o" before stem-final "r"?
/Do their text-to-speech readers remove "r"s from the end of words where they belong and stick them at the end of words where they don't?

Look to your favourite northern neighbour for people that do this as well.

The spelling thing is simple: You bought British typewriters.

/You don't have wandering "r" syndrome, eh.

mr_a: [upload.wikimedia.org image 220x165]

The IBM Selectric. Still the best keyboard ever made. I could type faster and with fewer mistakes on that keyboard than any since, with the possible exception of the original Mac keyboards.

The IBM Model F keyboard is reasonably close, at least as close as we can get on a PC.

My middle school's typing classroom was full of 1940s-era manuals. They were so dusty and poorly maintained that they creaked. But I overcame that obstacle to post a heroic 71 WPM in our classroom competition, making me highly desirable in a universe where seventh-grade girls use typing prowess as a criterion to decide who to french.

My secret was a very strong left hand, and good fine-motor control, which I developed by virtue of the fact that I did not live in a universe where typing skills got you any play.

I do miss my typewriter. I guess I am getting lazy using word processors to produce content these days, but my first works were all pounded out on manual, then later electric typewriters. I learned to type on a manual, and to this day I consider popping into a pawn shop to find a good old typewriter to see if it inspires me.

Of course, anything I produce on a typewriter these days would have to be re-entered into Word, and then converted to various digital formats anyway, so I'm not sure it's worth much more than practice or inspiration at this point.

Still... Sigh, the good old days.

Whoa... whoa... whoa. Hold the phone! You mean we once had a way of printing the words that we were keying in without needing a computer? Does anyone else know about this?

You mean that if I hit the "a" key... an "a" would appear on the paper? And it didn't even need electricity?

That's astonishing!