> And that typed text is way, way cleaner than any typewriter I’ve seen.
Pedantic point: electric typewriters (which have existed since the 1960s) do type in a way that looks exactly like this.
(In fact, note that the text on the real employee ID card, shown later in the article, doesn't look any less clean! It's just set in a different, narrower font.)
The smudginess of mechanical typewriters comes from 1. them striking (and especially, releasing) at the same speed you're depressing the key, and 2. having many of the keys necessarily approach the ribbon from an angle.
The keys being swung weakly by your fingers, also has the additional implication that the ink ribbons used in mechanical typewriters have to be soft and squishy (so: made of cloth), and use thin inks. These properties ensure a transfer from even a low-velocity impact. But the trade-off is that cloth ink ribbons transfer only a rough outline of what's struck; and thin inks are high-bleed inks.
An electric typewriter, playing out a pre-buffered line with a crisp, predictable report, using linear actuators and a rotating-ball type-head to bang a tape ribbon loaded with high-viscosity ink onto the page, can create text indistinguishable from books/newspapers of the same period, or from modern laser-printer reproductions of the same font faces. They're essentially character-at-a-time letterpresses!
(Also, ignoring electric typewriters for a sec: inks bleed more on thin, cheap paper. But this is [a forgery of] an employee ID card — where, for durability, a nice heavyweight paper or cardstock would have been used. You're always going to get a better-looking result inking such paper.)
> An electric typewriter, playing out a pre-buffered line with a crisp, predictable report, using linear actuators and a rotating-ball type-head to bang a tape ribbon loaded with high-viscosity ink onto the page
The machine you just described is an IBM Composer, except the ribbon was not "high viscosity". Rather it was essentially solid, being a carbon ribbon with a mylar back.
Most electric typewriters were not Composers, so they did not pre-buffer lines. In fact most electric typewriters were not Selectrics so they didn't even use a ball. The IBM Executive for example used swinging type bars just like a manual typewriter, and it produced excellent copy that was frequently used as a master for offset lithography. (Source: Me. I used to own a print shop.)
The presence or absence of swinging type bars, pre-buffering, or balls makes no difference. Carbon ribbons and the repeatability of impression that electric provides are what matter.
Swinging type-bars in general weren't a problem; it was the kind of swinging type bars used in (later) "manual" mechanical typewriters that were. (And also, that's not what I mean by "buffered.")
The oldest (late 1800s) mechanical typewriters were designed simply, with type mechanisms engineered under the assumption of a slow hunt-and-peck typist who would only be pressing one key at a time.
And this worked well, until typing as a skill developed, and people began to activate keys concurrently (with one type-bar potentially beginning to swing forward, before a neighbouring type-bar finished its return.) This caused the neighbouring type blocks on the end of the bars to end up binding together — usually at the end of their bars' travel, causing both keys to remain stuck down.
According to folk history, this type-bar-binding problem was solved in part through the development of the QWERTY layout — moving frequently-successive English-language letter-pairs so that they wouldn't be done using neighbouring keys. Regardless of the veracity of that, this still didn't truly solve the problem — early QWERTY typewriters still end up binding for many common words.
Later mechanical-typewriter manufacturers sought to solve this problem "for real", through internal engineering tweaks. Look up patents from the early 1900s-1920s, and you'll see many of these proposed. But one two-part approach stood out, and became nearly-universally adopted:
1. chamfering and carbon-lubricating the edges of the type blocks on the end of the type-bars; and then
2. allowing the type-bar linkages a bit of horizontal travel.
These two tweaks together, allowed the type blocks on the end of the type-bars to slip past one-another (at least when travelling at differing velocities, or with one rising and the other falling.) And this virtually eliminated binding — but not without trade-offs.
Mechanical typewriters with these fixes, have a slight looseness to the type-bars, and so a slight random wobble in the horizontal placement of type on the page (especially when the key was depressed slowly). And if two neighbouring keys are depressed in quick succession, either one or both keys are liable to shove the other slightly, resulting in one having quite a bit of horizontal displacement, and even a slight "edge-on impact" where one side of the type doesn't get fully inked onto the page. These characteristics can be easily observed in type specimens from the early 1900s, to the point that they are often used to date such specimens.
Nobody wanted to use these typewriters for professional typesetting if they could help it; they were just too "sloppy" at that point. (The earlier designs weren't, but the typebar-clash problem was just too bad for any "modern" professional typist of the era to volunteer to use them.)
The introduction of electromechanical typewriters in general, allowed large changes to the type-bars and type, for the same reason that drive-by-wire in cars allowed large changes to the transmission and linkages: without a sloppy human in the circuit, things could be far more crisp. Key-clashes could be solved without mechanical slop; and so the mechanism could be tightened back up.
At first, electromechanical typewriters — having nothing like a memory — were instead wired in a blocking fashion to avoid key-clashes. If you pressed two neighbouring keys in quick succession, the second key would "jam", refusing to depress until the first one returned. Essentially, all neighbouring pairs of keys were interlocked. This made typing on them very annoying — but required no fiddling to unstick, just a very attentive approach to typing, involving watching/feeling for unstruck keys, immediately stopping to re-key them. And the results were very crisp. So these typewriters were one of the first "enterprise hardware" — forced on typists (who didn't like them, but did tolerate them) by companies who wanted clean typed reports.
The next natural step was to turn the blocking solution into a non-blocking / asynchronous one. This was done through one-key buffering — with the typewriter using two loops of analogue(!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-line_memory as registers, to hold alternating key actuations and then play them back out. For most key actuations, this replay was instantaneous, with the electrical linkages to the type-bars being actuated concurrently. But neighbouring keys, again through electrical interlocks, would "put a hold on" their sibling key's replay (if that was the key struck) until their own replay was done. (One could compare/contrast these typewriter mechanisms with pinball-machine mechanisms, both being invented around the same time.)
When digital electronics came along, the delay-line memories were now storing digital serial codes instead of parallel electrical voltages; and the number of bits able to be buffered and refreshed in the delay-line memory increased, so multiple keypresses of neighbouring keys, or the same key, could be buffered as fast as they could be pressed, and then replayed in sequence. (Some early computer TTYs were built using this sort of typewriter platform!)
Some electronic typewriters in the late 1960s also switched from delay-line memory to the just-invented shift-register memory — which made them much more accessible to the mass-market, rather than only institutional buyers.
And now we get to the original IBM Selectric Composer: it used magnetic tape for memory — and didn't immediately replay it, instead buffering indefinitely until you manually trigger replay.
Which, mind you, isn't what made the Composer really good for printing. The thing that did that, was that the buffering allowed it to measure text and then typeset it using proportional-width type. But this actually required you to type everything twice (in immediate mode) or for it to read the magnetic tape twice (in buffered mode) — so really, the advancement here wasn't the memory, it was the compute. The ability of the Composer to accumulate the widths of keypresses, given a loaded table of widths of glyphs for the font in use, into an accumulator register, was what made "online" proportional typesetting possible.
The Composer's use of external magnetic tape, also enabled the use of a cheaper sibling (the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_MT/ST) to input the text and test-print it monospaced; while the Composer would just be used for proportional-type replay. In this use-case, the Composer itself was essentially playing the role of a typesetting machine, rather than a typewriter.
But in terms of printing monospace text cleanly, the Composer wasn't any big advancement. Everything above since the first blocking-key electric typewriter was printing monospace text cleanly. Look at type from (expensive, niche) electrical typewriters from the 1930s on — they'll be crisp†. Telegrams from the period were printed on such machines, and look great.
† Well, okay, there'll be some bleed; those ultra-crisp type edges did indeed only come along with polymer ink ribbons, and those were introduced/popularized along with the first Selectrics. But — presuming a fresh cloth ink ribbon — the type will always be fully inked, square on the page, not smudged, no wobble, no unwanted horizontal offset, etc. Mechanical-linkage typewriters had all of those problems!
It's just that nobody really cared about any of that (other than those companies wanting really clean-looking reports), since nobody was doing offset-lithography mastering using monospace typefaces.
It's only once the marketable use-case changed (with the Composer) that people really started to notice that typewriters had slowly become as good at producing a nice typeset page as a professional publishing house was.
You might be interested in this video about why Gen Z is starting to use typewriters again [0]. In a word, focus. They say they are often too distracted from writing when using a computer as it is easy to surf the web instead of writing your paper, so having a single purpose utility rather than a multipurpose one is actually a boon.
Sounds like we need a single-purpose Linux distro that only runs a word processor. Of course that's not nearly as interesting as using a physical typewriter, but it sure is easier than scanning all those typewritten pages using OCR.
Theres a whole category of products that is just a keyboard with a tiny 3 or 4 lines of text lcd. (google electronic word processor, or Tandy WP-2).
Probably not as popular today as they were back in the early 90s before everyone had a Pc, but I think they're still manufactured.
There were word processors with storage - I can’t remember how they worked but a dedicated typewriter doesn’t mean you can’t also get an electric copy.
I built something similar using a spare ThinkPad x220 I had lying around and a minimal Debian installation. I would prefer something closer to the AlphaSmart Neo line of digital typewriters, though.
Sounds like they need to learn how to deal with this. Turning off notifications might help as well. Eventually typewriter will not work as it's a mind issue and not a tool issue imo.
I don’t think this is true. They might struggle with distractions elsewhere but if they’ve created a ritual out of writing in this distraction free environment they’ve created it will probably always work for them (and maybe better over time). Having the experience of doing things without distraction might also help them ignore distractions elsewhere.
By way of analogy, learning to swim in calm waters helps you learn to swim in rough waters by giving you the experience of what swimming is even like.
For a long time I blamed myself for things being difficult. But self knowledge surely includes knowledge of how conditions affect your nervous system. Totally plausible a given nervous system works better with a typewriter than any networked device. Even like when you have to take a break from the thinking you will be more productive pacing or taking a walk on the grounds than flipping over to y combinator.
Make it easy to be good isn't just a parenting precept, it works to manage yourself as a mature adult as well.
I read an anecdote once that novelist Jonathan Franzen writes on a laptop which has had the WiFi card removed and Ethernet port glued shut. He's pretty successful so whatever works imo.
As someone who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of two and have dealt with it my entire life I gotta completely agree with you. The quest for quiet is impossible. You will never have completely stimulus free environments. The way our bodies work competes against this whole idea. If you're in a dark room your eyes adjust. If you are in a quiet room your ears basically have a compressor built in. Everything that was in the shadow or in the quiet will eventually make itself known. Thrive in noise, thrive in distraction, thrive in chaos.
Edit: but one thing that is incredibly important is partitioning your workspace. Perform work where work should be performed and keep that separate from where you automatically do leisure activities or seek out pleasurable distractions.
That feels a bit like saying you disagree with farm automation so you fired your oxen and pull the plow yourself now.
There's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm empathetic to the people that feel like they can't focus in commercial operating systems, but their only option is to adapt or fall off. Making MacOS or Windows into a usable and non-distracting environment is basically the only way I have been able to make money in the tech industry. If I told my boss I was switching to a typewriter for efficiency purposes, I'd be gone before the end of the day.
It doesn't even need to be code; I simply can't turn in work physically. If I type out my project notes or Kaizen report in a typewriter, I'll be asked to make a digital copy next. This isn't just programming, everywhere you go is digital-first and would vastly prefer a digitized copy from the start as opposed to OCRing a photo of my typewritten document.
Again - for personal use, go crazy. Nostalgic stuff is fun! This is not a solution for 90% of the workforce though and I would argue that relying on a typewriter for isolation is harming your professional prospects. Apply to any job and compare the reactions you get bringing your typewriter to the first interview with the reactions you get from bringing your laptop.
It's not a strawman at all. The parent claimed "The typewriter is them dealing with it" and I am listing all of the different ways a can typewriter impair you personally.
If you don't care about the way people perceive you, how productive you are, how accessible your work is or how error-proof your product is, maybe a typewriter is for you. I cannot imagine a practical application (even casually) where you would benefit from a typewriter over a word processor and inkjet printer. I say this as someone with a typewriter not 20 feet away from where I'm standing now; they suck.
You are still missing the point of why they use a typewriter. With a word processor on a computer, I can easily start browsing TikTok instead of writing my paper. Not so with a typewriter. Of course, it has its own cons compared to a computer as you state, but to say there are no "practical applications" is wrong, as evidenced by the fact that people do in fact use typewriters as I've stated. If it were not practical at least in some small way, they wouldn't be using it.
> With a word processor on a computer, I can easily start browsing TikTok instead of writing my paper.
Is that a personal problem, or a computer one though? Many people (myself included) have zero issue ignoring Twitter and Instagram while we work. In fact, typing on a computer is much easier than using a typewriter for a number of reasons:
- Don't need to buy ink ribbons or paper to continue typing
- Don't need to stop and switch out stamps to change your typeset
- Can infinitely reproduce a single document as many times as you want
- No white-out or paper strips required when you make a mistake
I don't know if you've ever used a typewriter before, but it should simply be common knowledge that it's the slower and more distracting way to type. Every second you spend using a typewriter instead of getting comfortable with a computer is wasted effort. Every time you take your typewriter apart to make a simple change, that's time you could be spending writing uninterrupted on a digital medium.
> Is that a personal problem, or a computer one though? Many people (myself included) have zero issue ignoring Twitter and Instagram while we work.
Then it's not for you, continue using a computer. It's a personal problem solved by the use of a single purpose technology rather than a multipurpose one, as I've initially stated.
I have used a typewriter and while it can be slower than a computer, some wasted time is better than wasting all one's time because one can't focus and distracts themselves instead. Sounds like you still simply don't get it, and I'm not sure how I can explain it further as I've restated my points several times now that those who use it can't focus when writing on computers.
I don't get it. I also have a typewriter and would rather use Vi to type a term paper than even entertain the thought of switching out LATEX typesets. It's a no-brainer, it's far, far easier to dumbify your computer than it is to modernize a typewriter.
Creative writing can be better accomplished with a typewriter. Imagine yourself in a cabin in a forest, with no electricity. That's extreme, but you get the idea.
Also, having a physical copy of your work >feels< safer.
And amazingly, people did that for a century or so before word processors came along...published books and magazines, too. And before the typewriter, there was pen on paper. People really were creative before computers!
Nah, if you don't set up on a train station platform and do all your work from there you simply have a mind issue and should learn how to deal with distractions
Career writers have been using "dumber" text editors and computer systems to better mentally isolate their work for decades. It's not even an attention thing.
People need all sorts of excuses to just calm their mind and say it’s some disorder.
But I’ve literally never met someone who genuinely tried meditation and it didn’t help them.
I used to run a meditation group at work and the dozen or so people who consistently showed up reported that it changed their life. And I’m no expert I just do breathwork and concentration on a single object like a red dot sticker.
They rather use medication or spend money buying gadgets and toys.
Oh well. Not my problem when the solution is literally built in.
Don't get me wrong, I do believe that behavioural approaches should be tried first. On the other hand, framing the failure of behavioural approaches being the result of not making a genuine attempt is harmful. It may dissuade them from finding more effective treatments for their particular case, or at the very least delay them seeking help.
Medication isn't something they just hand out to anyone who asks. The reason it exists is because there is a large body of scientific research that all points to it helping treat disorders such as ADHD, whether you believe it or not. Meditation may also provide benefits, although there is less scientific evidence today that it does.
>People need all sorts of excuses to just calm their mind and say it’s some disorder.
Get off your high horse. My brain is literally, physically, developed wrong. It's broken. I need treatment, medication, therapy, not a fucking meditation tape. Not that meditation is bad or wrong or worthless, because I used to like it, but it's not medicine.
Do you also insist people with bad vision just try looking harder? Maybe squint a little bit more? Who needs glasses, the fix is built right in!
I am in my 20s and I use a typewriter somewhat regularly to journal. I was raised on computers, getting the jumble from my brain onto paper is faster with a keyboard than a pen/pencil and paper. And a typewriter is nice and analog - no screen, no lights, no battery. I'm disconnected, focused, and performant.
but I'd really like to bring my own keyboard and have the e-ink display at a more ergonomic height. Combine that with Vim, and that'd be something I'd use
You might enjoy some of the full-fledged e-ink tablets (with folio keyboards, iPad style) on the market right now. Some even run Android, so you could definitely find a way to run Vim.
I was just looking at some today but the biggest downside right now is that they're pretty expensive for what you get.
It's kind of surprising that there are no "typewriter OS" based on Alpine Linux, but it's always has to be paired with hardware sales to go past prototype stage as a business, and even then the viability is dubious.
I used to love doodling and drawing, but as soon as I start to write my hand cramps up. I take hand written (short notes) for work and I struggle to read them a month or so later when the context is gone.
I also really struggle to spell, and will consistently get common words wrong.
BUT on a keyboard I can type almost as fast as I can think - and I can also spell 90% better - I don't know how it happens but it is like the words 'flow' out of my fingers when i type - and I can easily spell words that if you asked me how to spell I wouldn't have a clue. Also if you asked me to find you a key on a keyboard I'd have to look - but when I'm typing my fingers just know where they are.
I'm a 44 yo successful man, but I still don't know my alphabet well (for example I couldn't start in the middle or recite it backwards) - but put me in front of a keyboard and I can type all day long (note - I am VERY thankful for spellcheck though!)
I always had similar problems in school growing up. A few things that I've found helpful:
- Try a larger pen. It helps you maintain your grip on the pen without as much effort.
- Try a pen with less viscous ink. If you're used to ballpoints, this can mean e.g. a rollerball. This lets you write without putting much pressure on the page, which at least for me significantly helps to avoid hand cramps. (I use fountain pens these days myself which write with even less pressure, but rollerballs are a more familiar starting point.)
Thanks, I think for me part of the cramp is a mental block - I spent a long time hating writing (and English lessons in particular) and being told I was bad at it/lazy.
but as soon as I could type my essays I loved English and writing.
No it hasn't. Just 1.5 years ago I tried all the latest OCR tools, including AWS, GCP and Azure services, and none of them could consistently and reliably read a receipt printed at a store.
I was OCRing documents with ABBYY or Tesseract in 2000s if not a little bit earlier. I have been OCRing text documents with my phone for the last 6 years or so, with Prizmo.
The iPad, with the Apple Pencil is pretty much there. It’s actually amazingly good. I have terrible handwriting, and it doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.
If anyone ever tried using a Newton, there was a series of Doonesbury comics[0] about its awful handwriting recognition.
I got pretty good at writing with the Newton, but it was me adapting rather than the Newton understanding my natural handwriting (which is fairly neat given my parents are both teachers).
Yup, iPad and Apple Pencil do an amazing job, either with the built-in Notes app or several third party apps. Even better with a screen protector like the Paperlike that gives a little tooth to the screen to make it a bit more like writing on paper.
Oh, I personally don't currently use them. This was in the past, starting from playing around with my Dad's manual typewriter. Took typing course in 8th grade on a manual. Owned a Smith Corona electric in high school. Used IBM Selectrics for school newspaper, etc. I'm old. :-)
Yes, used in the past. I don't currently use them, though I think they are cool mechanical marvels, especially IBM Selectrics. Those were way too expensive to own personally, but were common in offices. My personal typewriter was a much cheaper Smith Corona electric.
For a comment easily disproved by a simple google image search which returns plenty of examples of selectric output where the characters have anywhere to a very subtle but not perfect (like in the badge) alignment, to examples where the characters have "visible at arm's length" vertical and horizontal, and even rotational, issues?
I used to use one, so I was curious. It was hard to find good info by googling, but I eventually came across a presentation which claimed that the Selectric carbon ribbon "consists of a carbon wax coating on a polyethylene base":
> Pedantic point: electric typewriters (which have existed since the 1960s) do type in a way that looks exactly like this.
Wrong. Literally gooogle "selectric type sample" and see dozens of examples of them not typing anywhere near in a perfect line. Maybe machines with very low hours or kept in excellent condition might have excellent spacing, but there's plenty of examples of them obviously not having perfect spacing.
you can also see inconsistent letter spacing, more obvious on some fonts than others, but you can see some characters are connected and others aren't. And no, it's not just the position of the character relative to others on the ball.
As the author points out, these characters have perfect vertical alignment.
Then go look at high speed footage of the 'golfball' in action and you can see the substantial deflection caused by how fast and forceful the movements are. You can see the entire assembly is bouncing around as the rails it's on flex:
To be fair, the specimen shows some misalignment as well, e.g., the "S" at the very beginning is up and a bit to the left, the "Y" is shifted to the right, and there are small irregularities in "NGST", as well. However, I don't think that they add up in a sensible manner.
Notably, the Red Cross invoice is much worse: additionally to what has been noted in the article already, why would you have a hyphen in "Verkäufername"? Also mind the reoccurring use of "#" for "Nummer", which would have been rather unacceptable in a formal German document.
The image provided is so low resolution that this is probably a side effect of the edges of the characters being on the boundary between pixels on the camera's sensor.
Magnify it to full screen and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Now go back and look at the samples I linked to, where you can clearly see vertical misalignment.
I remember everyone in my school system had selectrics when I was a kid, and I assure you, they could produce text that was all over the place. Probably because the ones in a public school saw heavy use / were not properly maintained and serviced to the degree required.
Edit: We can all pretend it's perfectly aligned print, but, regardless, whether purposefully manufactured or genuine, there are obvious misalignments in that image.
Pedantic point: electric typewriters (which have existed since the 1960s) do type in a way that looks exactly like this.
(In fact, note that the text on the real employee ID card, shown later in the article, doesn't look any less clean! It's just set in a different, narrower font.)
The smudginess of mechanical typewriters comes from 1. them striking (and especially, releasing) at the same speed you're depressing the key, and 2. having many of the keys necessarily approach the ribbon from an angle.
The keys being swung weakly by your fingers, also has the additional implication that the ink ribbons used in mechanical typewriters have to be soft and squishy (so: made of cloth), and use thin inks. These properties ensure a transfer from even a low-velocity impact. But the trade-off is that cloth ink ribbons transfer only a rough outline of what's struck; and thin inks are high-bleed inks.
An electric typewriter, playing out a pre-buffered line with a crisp, predictable report, using linear actuators and a rotating-ball type-head to bang a tape ribbon loaded with high-viscosity ink onto the page, can create text indistinguishable from books/newspapers of the same period, or from modern laser-printer reproductions of the same font faces. They're essentially character-at-a-time letterpresses!
(Also, ignoring electric typewriters for a sec: inks bleed more on thin, cheap paper. But this is [a forgery of] an employee ID card — where, for durability, a nice heavyweight paper or cardstock would have been used. You're always going to get a better-looking result inking such paper.)