And they're shutting all the typewriter factories down

Your commitment is lacking.

 

At one paper I was at, a local news writer would make the drive to Indy each year. He'd type his story on an old manual typewriter while the other reporters had their radio shacks.

He'd end up dictating back to us at the office. Usually the column didn't change a whole lot from year to year, but it was something readers looked for. And the old guy enjoyed going down there.

A few people on the board will know who I'm talking about.

 

I do remember typing on manuals in the first newsroom I worked in. Our photographers in that newsroom actually used the "box" cameras to shoot sports action, the kind where you sort of saw the "ghost" image of your subject inside the camera.

But after my first season of writing sports in eighth grade, my sports editor said the one thing I had to do was take typing by the following fall. So I went to summer school for it.

Our school typewriters were those good ones with the "ball." It was actually pretty impressive for that time. And I remember it being fascinating that one week, I never thought it would become second nature, and the following week, it was -- second nature.

 

That's what she said.

 

For the record, his hand writing has not improved.

 

NBC had a brief segment about the death of the typewriter tonight. They showed an old Jerry Lewis movie clip and it felt eerily like an intro for a Lewis obit as they said "late word tonight."

 

Smartest decision I ever made regarding HS electives was deciding to take a typing class.

 

I told this story on another thread, but recently, I went into my local bank and was shocked to see in their office, that they had an electric typewriter. The banker explained they had it in case of a computer malfunction.

Then I went into another bank, and they also had a typewriter sitting in the corner.

 

We still have two electric typewriters at my library. They are in use quite a bit.

 

FWIW, Tom Hanks is crushed, not rushed.

My mom was a legal secretary and typing whiz. I am still and will always be a hunt-and-pecker.

 

I think the last time I used a typewriter was about 17 years ago, when I grabbed the one I got for high school graduation and took it on the road to the juco softball regionals, since no one could figure out why our lone TRS-80 could send. Figured it would be easier to fax it in from the hotel than dictating. Sure enough, the typewriter wrote its last before I was done and I finished up in longhand, using big letters like I did in first grade.

 

I typed all my papers through college on an electric typewriter (well behind the rest of the universe, which had you know, computers, but I have always been slow on the uptake).

I will concur that the backspace erase button was at both a blessing and a curse.