… and typewriters still aren’t obsolete!
What? Wow, I haven’t used a typewriter since the Fat Mac, as far as I recall. I would have thought that an argument could be made for typing through carbon paper, but I haven’t typed through carbon paper in years, either. The few times I’ve used it more recently, it’s been with handwriting with a ballpoint pen, pressing hard to make sure a signature goes through.
Really trying to remember the last time I used a typewriter. Maybe typing essays on college application forms? That may have been the last time, because I certainly didn’t have or use typewriters in college.
-awlabrador
I had a typewriter until about 5 years ago; an IBM Selectric with a wide carriage, plus 4 or 5 different font balls. Man, that was the height of luxury back in the day: being able to change fonts in just a few seconds!
I finally sold it when I realized I hadn’t used it in more than 5 years: that day was over. I suppose there are still uses for them, although I can’t imagine what. Maybe for people who refuse to pay the “ink refill cartridge” syndicate that charges 9 times what it’s worth?
Tom Hanks collects them - mostly the old school non electric kind - and wrote a nice book of stories too:
Work days, 20+ years ago, we still had triple & quad forms to fill out, either manually, or a good typewriter, but once computers came along that faded away… All those old records may be in some saltine somewhere, should all be just recycled… Friend owned a typewriter repair, sales shop for years n years, gave it up, no more HS classroom machines to maintain, he had quite a collection of old timers, donated to a few friends, local museum… No more use, need…
Mom put all four of us through college with her typing. She worked part-time at a law office (9a-2p) and they paid her extremely well, because the briefs and contracts they put before the court had to be done perfectly, no strikeouts, no corrections, no white out, and done in multiple carbons.
It was a rather large firm, there were 5 women in the pool, and she was the only one who worked part-time. She told them “I have kids, I will be home in the afternoon.” They said yes.
Dad’s salary bought the house and cars, Mom’s was banked and paid for college for all four of us.
She typed like the wind, over 110wpm without errors. She used to do my Dad’s scientific papers for publication, and occasionally some of our term papers and book reports. Seeing her convinced me to take one of the most valuable courses I had in high school: touch typing. I wasn’t as fast (or accurate) as her, but I got pretty good.,
Typing, and that Gregg Shorthand were required for some jobs, my wife did 90 wpm, but instead of shorthand used a form of speed writing one of the other ladies in the office taught her… Me, maybe should have taken typing, but was pushing off into electronics, science, so in the end a hunt & peck, even today I have to look at the keyboard, then go back, fix the errors… WeCo electronic switches in the early days used Teletypes for inputs, so no touch typing there anyway, just bang out the commands, wait for the results, etc…
Without a doubt typing was one of the most valuable courses I took in high school.