Whatever happened to your typewriter?

I remember those stencils. We had a play-dough like eraser that was good for cleaning that blue stuff out of the typefaces. Haloid Xerox, I believe it was called.

I just went down in the basement and looked at my old friend. I was smoking back then, when she was in use and she's yellow with nicotine.

I have a somewhat related question that I've been wanting to ask, but I'm not one for starting new threads.

Does anyone know offhand if there is an option in Word for "the typewriter sound"...I used to use ICQ and they had this option, so I know it does exist....word is so...quiet....sometimes it would be nice to hear the clickity clack...my little paper clip buddy doesn't say much.

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I never really owned my own typewriter, we had one in the house, but I only remember using it few times, {mainly to forge school related documents...not kidding} but never enough to get attached to it. When I mentioned that I would like to have a word processor, my parents instead gave me a pc, my dad couldn't justify the price of a word processor alone, vs the price of a full computer.

I have always been more of a notebook/pen kind of guy....I find the whole pc package to be a distraction, especially with high speed internet...during a lull while composing, instead of looking out the window for a few seconds until the right word or phrase comes to mind, now I find myself checking in here...A2K..or any of the other various websites I haunt.

How about the little d-ding! at the end of a line?


Joe(I always thought it should d-ding when I actually wrote something new)Nation

2packs I believe you can buy keyboards that are designd to make a typewriter.

My IMB Underwood is carefully stored in the basement storage area. Haven't used it for about 40 years. Still in pristeen shape with the red and black ribbon ready to go when I feel the urge.

I actually learned to type on an IBM with blank keys. That really helped when I graduated to a computer. The first of which was a TI 99A. I still have that too.

Something like this may be what you are looking for.
http://3d2f.com/programs/4-052-sound-pilot-download.shtml

It sits right by my desk. It is the easiest way to place addresses on envelopes. (My penmanship is lousy).

You don't use Stamps.com ?

I've grown so accustomed to printing stamps and addresses on number ten envelopes, but the other day I had to send a real thank you note in a real fussy little envelope, I had to write the addresss and my return addresss and then look all through the drawers for stamps. (A 39 center and two one cents ones.)

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What about all those other sounds?? 2packs misses the clack click of the keys and above I recalled the da-ding at the end of a line, but what about the other sounds?

The winding knick knick knick knack of putting the paper in, or did you just zzzzzzzip it in?

Then there was always dit dit up or the duh duh down when you were adjusting the paper up or down one line.

How about the sound of yanking the page out midway? That was an angry, red-tinged, yelp that was completely different from the triumphant snatching out of a final, finally perfect, ending paragraph.

Zzazaazzyah!

Don't forget the duhduh of the spacebar or the protesting tack-tick tack-tic of the backspace key.

2packs in right about that other thing too. The typewriter never offered you a place to go when you were stuck. It just sat there -toadlike- waiting for the flies of your thoughts to come by.

I never felt mocked by it as some have related to me but I never felt it offered me any assistance, any help, any aid.

Joe(just one idea, just one, for christsakes)Nation

I had always written it out in longhand. When first I became serious about presenting my manuscripts, I decided to purchase a typewriter. Unfortunately, by that time in history, a good new one could not be found (not in the places I shop). I did buy two. They were utter junk. Which is why I decided to get a first computer.

Big, yellow, lined legal pads were what I used. I think it was because I read that Moss Hart used to go to Coney Island's beach with one, sit down facing the ocean and write Act One at the top. They didn't work very well for me because I would edit and add and re-edit as I typed. Paper was cheap. The final piece resembled the written down one only slightly, maybe the title hadn't changed, although most times that was what was first to go.

I did a lot of thinking as I typed, no, that's wrong. I did a lot of thinking before I typed. I would think out the lead sentence and then start typing and if nothing else came to me I would stare at that lead sentence as if it had betrayed me.

Joe(it would stare back asking "What were you thinking?")Nation

I've the same models as fbaezer - a Monika, got it from my father - which is still in use .... sometimes, and a similar Brother to eBeth's (bought it in the 80's), which is .... no idea.

I loved yellow legal pads. Use to stock up on them. The smaller ones, 5x7, moreso than the 8 1/2 x11. Kept notes on those for years and years before finally breaking down and buying a yearly planner. Combination notepad, address book/calendar.
rambling...

My first typewriter was a gift from my parents when I was in high school. It was a harvest gold Royal. Manual. It saw me through my college years, but it was slow typing. If you typed too fast, the keys bunched up and stuck, and you had to stop and pull them apart, which left black ink marks on your fingers. Errors had to be corrected using Liquid Paper, then you blew on it to make it dry faster. (I had several bottles in different colors to match different papers.) I also used those little cellophane sheets that were covered on one side with white correction stuff. You'd hold it over the mistake and retype the wrong key several times.

After I finished college, IBM Selectrics were common in the offices where I worked. I loved those machines. I always had a half dozen different little silver balls in my drawer, but I preferred Letter Gothic (HATED Courier.) I often had to type the same correspondence 40 or 50 times with different inside addresses and salutations, which must have been the perfect way to build speed. I remember taking typing tests at employment agencies and being clocked at 80-90 wpm including correcting errors.

People still marvel at how fast I can type, but I bet I'm not half as fast as I was then. Nobody really cares how fast you can type on a computer keyboard. (Sigh...another outdated skill.)

I kept the little gold Royal for years, even after I bought cheap Brother electric self-correcting models (through the early '90s, I believe.) Eventually, I sold it in a garage sale to someone who thought it was an oddity. By then, of course, it was.

Nitpicking.. isn't legal sized the same as 8 1/2 x 14? It is in my mind, anyway.

Whatever (a relatively recent word usage gone wild), I like those yellow legal pads.

Well, hey, a lot of the fun of school for me was pencils and paper; oh, and ball point pens, those were neat, except for the ones that spewed ink blobs.

I type like a chicken in a pie tin, but can go pretty fast, under the circumstances.

We had two typewriters. One was hidden in the ceiling of my and my sister's room, the other was hidden among other typewriters at my dad's work. They were hidden because typewriters are like fingerprints- you can match the typed text to the machine exactly and owning one that is matched to a 'subversive' text against the republic would land you in jail.

i used the smaller one often for school later....and i'm under thir...well, fourty.

Um
Mines just a Smith Coronz. It was given to me as a gift from my mother, after spending 8 years Infantry through Canadian Forces

Hello, HellraZor, Welcome to A2k. Do you still have the typewriter?


Eva:
Thanks for reminding me about those little white correction sheets. I don't know why I'm thanking you, but I am.

Dag: as always you bring this myopic American a world perspective.

Joe(hiddden in the attic..oy..american kids hide diaries and girlie magazines)Nation