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Tom Hanks on Typewriters

nytimes.com

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Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#81

Post by dredmorbius »

frosting wrote: post #18
Overtonwindow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've just made a very astute point. I've been thinking for some time now that we are reaching a critical mass of technology. An era when people will start to become bored and detached from technology, and yearn for something tangible, and able to wrap their heads around. For me the allure of a typewriter is the fact that I can see how it works, I can fix it myself, and I can tinker with it.

Same with myself and fointain pens, I can fix them, tweak them, and know exactly how it works.

I picked up one myself in the past year, and find that for notetaking it's very much what I prefer these days. There's the old running-out-of-ink problem (this pen lays down a thick line, and even with a refillable cartridge, typically needs filling daily with heavy use, every few days if I'm slowing down).

The writing though is clear and preferable to other implements. Ballpoints are atrocious, rollerballs only slightly tolerable.

Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#82

Post by fit2rule »

news_to_me wrote: post #3

I'm very interested in this phenomenon where people seem to idolize certain outdated, analog technology. It seems to be some reaction against, or coping mechanism for, the increasingly digital world. I have a lot of fuzzy thoughts on it, and I'd like to read a book or an article that unpacks the idea more thoroughly.

I feel a tinge of what you describe every time I look at my collection of old computers, but that tinge falls into the ether when I realize that there is no such thing as an old computer, just old users. Technology doesn't just stop working because its unfashionable - really, technology will continue to work in the physical world, for as long as it is functionally operational.

It is the user who decides how useful something is, and really: its only a decision.

Off to write an email client for my Oric-1 .. ;)

Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#83

Post by carlivar »

Animats wrote: post #34
wccrawford wrote: post #7

>Computer keyboards make a mousy tappy tap tappy tap like ones you hear in a Starbucks — work may be getting done but it sounds cozy and small, like knitting needles creating a pair of socks. I wonder if he's tried a mechanical keyboard? He might like it quite a bit better, even if just for the fact that you can choose your personality of keyboard with your computer, just like he does with typewriters.

As someone who restores older Teletype machines, I get to type on a real mechanical keyboard. It's a strange experience at first. When you press a key, it locks down for 200ms while the mechanism cycles. During this period, no other key can be pressed; the other keys are physically blocked. You can't press two keys at once; that, too, is mechanically interlocked. Efficient typing on these machines requires typing at…

Teletype trivia:

This is one reason UNIX commands are so short (mv, ls, cp, etc.). It would have really added up to type longer commands on the 200ms teletype keystrokes.

Teletype is why the terminal in UNIX is abbreviated tty.

Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#84

Post by flashman »

gregn wrote: post #63

Last year I had a revelation while reading Gore Vidal that all my favorite books almost without exception had been written on typewriters. I immediately went to Ebay and bought two: an Olivetti and a Olympia. I think Mr. Hanks missed one salient point of why bothering to type on an old machine still may play a valuable role to the writer in the modern age----------Silence. I found there is a vast difference sitting i…

The closest I get to this is turning off the wifi while I code (with little breaks to check something on Stack Overflow).

Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#86

Post by taneq »

vacri wrote: post #72
Animats wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who restores older Teletype machines, I get to type on a real mechanical keyboard. It's a strange experience at first. When you press a key, it locks down for 200ms while the mechanism cycles. During this period, no other key can be pressed; the other keys are physically blocked. You can't press two keys at once; that, too, is mechanically interlocked. Efficient typing on these machines requires typing at…

> Western Union expected their Teletype operators to be able to type "blind", with no display or printer to see what they were typing. My aunt taught typing at a girls' high school in the '80s. She was amazingly fast - she bought a typewriter with a memory, and I recall her being finished with a typewritten letter when the page was only one-third of the way through 'printing'. Had to wait for it to finish each time b…

I wonder if this is the reason for a generation of two-finger typists? It's not that "old people are incapable of learning to type", just that they grew up with systems which were physically incapable of handling faster input so there was no point until after muscle memory made it too hard to change?

Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#87

Post by flashman »

carlivar wrote: post #83
Animats wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who restores older Teletype machines, I get to type on a real mechanical keyboard. It's a strange experience at first. When you press a key, it locks down for 200ms while the mechanism cycles. During this period, no other key can be pressed; the other keys are physically blocked. You can't press two keys at once; that, too, is mechanically interlocked. Efficient typing on these machines requires typing at…

Teletype trivia: This is one reason UNIX commands are so short (mv, ls, cp, etc.). It would have really added up to type longer commands on the 200ms teletype keystrokes. Teletype is why the terminal in UNIX is abbreviated tty.

The history of computing is a straight line from economy to abundance.

Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#88

Post by chj »

gregn wrote: post #63

Last year I had a revelation while reading Gore Vidal that all my favorite books almost without exception had been written on typewriters. I immediately went to Ebay and bought two: an Olivetti and a Olympia. I think Mr. Hanks missed one salient point of why bothering to type on an old machine still may play a valuable role to the writer in the modern age----------Silence. I found there is a vast difference sitting i…

You nailed it in the best way I can think of. Owned an Olivetti as a gift, and wrote quite a lot of sheets on it. Thoughts flow more relax, very suitable for creative writing. I loved it so much that even went on to create an app to mimic the typing experience.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/write-only/id590507955?ls=1&...

Here is an interesting story regarding the app. I manually typed one of Hanks' letter (from letters of note) to serve as screenshot, and then after a few months, received a letter from Hanks' lawyer, asking me to take it down. So I took it down, thinking, how did they know. Fast forward about 1 year, then Hanks himself released one app, featuring similar typing experience. This guy really care about typewriters.

Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#89

Post by yiyus »

WalterBright wrote: post #64

At a technical conference a few years back, I decided to give my presentation using hand written viewfoils on an overhead projector. The conference venue had to really dig to find a working projector :-) For years afterwards, people would come up to me and remark on how that presentation stuck in their memory! (I still have a mechanical typewriter. Maybe I won't throw it away after all.)

A friend of mine fell when going on stage for a conference. He broke his nose and there were lots of blood and an ambulance involved. Everybody remembers it.

It's great that you use that technique if it is going to make your presentation clearer, if using the projector really helped your audience to get whatever you were presenting better. If that was the case, congratulations for an original idea. But if they only remember you as the annoying guy who had everybody waiting while looking for a projector, I would not feel very proud of it.

Re: Tom Hanks on Typewriters

#90

Post by arnarbi »

Qu4Z wrote: post #69
roghummal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can really help when the letters are handwritten.

Or when the user agent doesn't have images (screen reader, console-mode browsers, text-only archives in the future).

Or when you only remember phrases from the letter and you want Google to find it for you.
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