Who still owns a typewriter?

[ISCS Yoda]

This was a fun thread about the ancient days of computering.

Thread 'The people stuck using ancient Windows computers'

May 18, 2025

BBC article here.
Some comments re using "ancient" Win7 on LVSteve's post about looking for a small, cheap computer made me think this might be interesting. We're surrounded by some seriously legacy software in all sorts of places.

Here's a look inside the strange, stubborn world of obsolete Windows machines.

Earlier this year I was on my way to a checkup at a doctor's office in New York City. As I rode up to the 14th floor, my eyes were drawn to a screen built into the side of the lift. Staring back was a glimpse into the history of computing. There, in a gleaming hospital full...

• oldbrownhat
• Replies: 56
• Forum: The Lounge

• 

QUERY - who still owns a typewriter, whether you use it or not??!!??!!

I have an IBM Selectric (I think that's what it's called) high up on a closet shelf. Hasn't been used in years and years.

 

[Jerry in SC]

We have an old one. Still use it occasionally. I had an IBM Selectric Type 1, a red one like Hunter Thompson used, that I used at work in the 80's. Loved that typewriter. I tried to buy years later when the company was closing its US operations, the guy over the surplus couldn't find it. Somebody knew what it was and took it.

 

[duke2002]

I used a type writer to do print cards with at work. In about 2005 we couldent get ribbons anymore. Had to retire it.

 

[Tom S.]

When I got my Atari 800 the typewriter, like Elvis, left the building!

 

[DARE]

I have one. Belonged to my mother. Available if you want it. Pretty heavy, but think I could live with $100 and I pay the shipping. Did I mention it is electric?

 

[CalifEd]

At work we have 3-4, use it to write multipart checks, fill out Bill of Lading and international shipping documents.
Much better than trying to fill out the fillable PDF documents.

Yea, could write a program and buy (or create) forms but the "bought and paid for, still works" is a powerful argument.

 

[Phenix]

This was a fun thread about the ancient days of computering.

Thread 'The people stuck using ancient Windows computers'

May 18, 2025

BBC article here.
Some comments re using "ancient" Win7 on LVSteve's post about looking for a small, cheap computer made me think this might be interesting. We're surrounded by some seriously legacy software in all sorts of places.

Here's a look inside the strange, stubborn world of obsolete Windows machines.

Earlier this year I was on my way to a checkup at a doctor's office in New York City. As I rode up to the 14th floor, my eyes were drawn to a screen built into the side of the lift. Staring back was a glimpse into the history of computing. There, in a gleaming hospital full...

• oldbrownhat
• Replies: 56
• Forum: The Lounge

• 

QUERY - who still owns a typewriter, whether you use it or not??!!??!!

I have an IBM Selectric (I think that's what it's called) high up on a closet shelf. Hasn't been used in years and years.

Don't have one, but thinking about getting a non-electric one.
I am 69 years old and played with and seriously used a couple when I was a teenager.
I hear they are becoming somewhat popular once again, primarily with the younger Yuppies as interesting older technology.

 

[robertrwalsh]

Yup. Smith Corona wide carriage manual in a suitcase type case on top of my gun safe.

 

[Jimbo41]

In the closet at my inlaws empty house, I think it's a selectric and there are at least a dozen different balls (fonts?) and many boxes of ribbons and carbon paper. MIL had been a secretary at the pentagon decades ago and I think this was all provided because she did some remote transcription work…then one day it was worthless.

 

[Mister Coffee]

IBM Selectric III here.

 

[Rodan]

As late as ~2010 we had an IBM Selectric sitting around in the corner of our substation. It was usually good for a laugh when a new, young Deputy would ask, "what's that thing?"

 

[cp1969]

Ours must've been sold in a garage sale. Probably brought a penny.

At one time, we had an old manual (not electric) which had all black keys, i.e., no symbols on them. It taught me where the keys were on a QWERTY keyboard.

 

[Rule3]

Had one in College, typed many papers late at night

Recent thread on them.

Thread 'The people who still use typewriters'

Mar 22, 2025

Computers and smartphones might be where most writing is done these days, but typewriters still have work to do in the US.

BBC article here.

Mike Marr has been repairing typewriters for more than 20 years and still sees dozens being brought into his shop in Rhode Island every week (Credit: Ernesto Roman)

Pretty much every day, another customer clutching an old typewriter will walk into Mike Marr's shop in Pawtucket, Rhode Island...

... law firm Tomasso & Tomasso...has three typewriters, John [Tomasso] says and...​

• oldbrownhat
• Replies: 62
• Forum: The Lounge

• 

 

[357-RevolverGuy]

If the Internet grid ever goes down these typewriters are going to be worth a fortune.

 

[Tom S.]

If the Internet grid ever goes down these typewriters are going to be worth a fortune.

Why? I was using my computer as a word processor long before the internet existed.

 

[TeamPB]

I don't have a typewriter, but I do have an Underwood:

 

[Golddollar]

I have a Smith Corona electric typewriter that I've had forever. It's sort of nice to have something the hackers can't get at.

 

[357-RevolverGuy]

Why? I was using my computer as a word processor long before the internet existed.

I did too. I still own my desktop from the early 90s. But let's say the grid also includes electricity going down. As I recall there were a lot of manual typewriters out there that did not require a plug to operate. And they were portable, making them the original laptop, lol.

 

[mckenney99]

Somewhere in one of my many moves my old Smith Corona that I used all through college disappeared. I still find I could use one every now and then but they are hard to find around here and there are fewer and fewer shops left that carry them. Since my Chromebook doesn't play well with the BATFE Form 1 on-line forms, I have hand printed out the last 4 sets of forms. They are in black ink and legible so the BATFE doesn't care, but it still bugs me a little bit. Not enough to cough up the stupid price for an old typewriter.

 

[45Smashemflat]

I have a portable manual, two color ribbon. I forget the make. Still works. Haven't needed it lately. Fits in a little case to lug around. Maybe I'll grow a man-bun, buy some skinny jeans, and a pork pie hat, park myself in front of a coffee shop and offer to write people poems.

Nah…

 

[wproct]

I have a Smith Corona portable manual that was bought new for my older sister when she was a junior in high school, so it would have been in 1957. It came with a nice hard case for carrying it or storing it. It was never abused and just like the day it was boughten. Of course it sits in the basement now. I have often said that a lot of what I learned in high school was not going to help me in the future, but developing typing skills I would use daily the rest of my life, keyboarding skills you use every day.

 

[DWalt]

We still have my wife's Remington manual portable she used in college. Somewhere. Haven't even seen it for many years. We once used it mainly for addressing envelopes, etc. Probably would be difficult to find an ink ribbon to fit it today. I also used some portable in college, don't remember what brand. I seem to remember it quit working and I sold it in a yard sale. There are speed typists who can type faster on a manual typewriter than an electric. I once had a friend who was absolute lightning on a manual typewriter. He learned it in the Navy. He transcribed code.

 

[Ingramite]

I could do 40wpm on what we called a "mill". A manual typewriter on 3 carbon copies and damn it, it better look good. Typing was an immediately endearing skill in police work.

I can still hear the sound of a typing pool of about 50 Seelectrics sounding like machine gun fire when the elevator doors opened.

 

[sophie]

I have a Smith Corona portable manual that was bought new for my older sister when she was a junior in high school, so it would have been in 1957. It came with a nice hard case for carrying it or storing it. It was never abused and just like the day it was boughten. Of course it sits in the basement now. I have often said that a lot of what I learned in high school was not going to help me in the future, but developing typing skills I would use daily the rest of my life, keyboarding skills you use every day.

I too have a manual Smith Corona portable. I don't know the age of mine but my dad got it for me and it was used at the time. I had graduated (1959) by the time I got the Smith Corona portable. In high school we used full size Remington manual typewriters. In my class we had one full size electric typewriter, Remington I believe, and we rotated on that electric typewriter and there were about 30 students so we got to use the electric typewriter about once per month. Sure was fun and neat to use the electric typewriter but we sure made a lot of mistakes, not getting to use it very much. My Smith Corona portable typewriter is upstairs in my barn.

 

[ISCS Yoda]

Funny thought - to get anywhere in Naval Intelligence back in the day, you had to pass a typing test! I bet that's gone!

 

[Tom S.]

Funny thought - to get anywhere in Naval Intelligence back in the day, you had to pass a typing test! I bet that's gone!

I doubt it. Keyboards control a boatload (no pun intended) of stuff so I bet knowledge and ability to use the QWERTY keyboard is still very important even if it's not on a typewriter.

 

[bigfatty]

I learned to type in junior year of HS in 1980. Two long rows of tables, each with 12 of those old, 1930's typewriters with those gigantic round key pads attached to large, hinged metal bars arranged in steeply-sloped rows, and the huge metal arm you used to sling that sucker back after you heard the "DING!" to type the next line. I somehow managed to get up to 45 wpm on that thing. When I started working in an office 5 or 6 years later, I was typing on an IBM Selectric that occasionally had to go into the typewriter shop for repair. I thought it was practically space age compared to what I had learned to type on. It's amazing how far things have advanced in the past half century. All that being said, I wish we could go back.

 

[greenwellg]

I got to 55 words a minute on a manual. High school freshman 1965. Ring size was 10.5, thus the large keyboards.

 

[crows]

I did too. I still own my desktop from the early 90s. But let's say the grid also includes electricity going down. As I recall there were a lot of manual typewriters out there that did not require a plug to operate. And they were portable, making them the original laptop, lol.

Honestly, in that scenario I don't think typing anything is going to be a top priority for me. My handwriting isn't that bad for the little bit of non-verbal communication I can imagine me doing.

 

[gwpercle]

I have a Manual Underwood , big dfesk top model .
The power can go out , the net can crash and the Wi-Fi can poop-out ... but I can stilltype a letter with this Tank of a Typewriter .

I also stil have our old black rotory telephone that came with our house, built in 1929, just in case they make a come-back !
Gary