*I owned one of these devices, so reading Rick Poynor waxing so eloquent about it is really a pang.
http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=3467
"It has been so long since I saw my old typewriter that I had given it up for lost. I lent it to my brother in the early 1990s so he could type up his archaeology thesis. I assumed it had gone missing during his various house moves and I just forgot about it. Then he revealed that it was stored in his garage. It has taken months to extricate it, but finally I have it back.
"What a mixture of emotions a machine can stir. (((This is where it gets really good, though, what the heck, it's on DESIGN OBSERVER so it's hard to imagine it could ever be bad))) I bought my Olympia Monica S in Croydon, south London, from an office supply shop when I was 20. It was a decisive moment. I wanted to write and a typewriter was the essential tool of the trade, an instrument every bit as vital as a paintbrush is to a painter or a guitar to a guitarist. Longhand was never an option. Acquiring a typewriter, particularly if you had no plans to become a secretary, was a sign of identity, a declaration of commitment and intent.
(((He's right, but to hear this said is like hearing a banker describing the days of the gold standard.)))
"After two failed attempts to teach myself to touch-type on another machine, investing in my own obliged me to get serious and stick with the exercises for a month until I had disciplined my fingers to find the keys without looking.
"Examining my Olympia again, I'm struck by how powerfully its form and image embody and express the idea of writing, as does almost any typewriter. Like the telephone at an earlier phase in its development when it still had a distinct earpiece and mouthpiece at either end of a handle, the fully evolved typewriter is a 20th-century industrial archetype. It feels inevitable, almost elemental, like one of those object types, such as a chair or a fork, that simply had to exist in this universe of forms. Even now (but for how much longer?) a typewriter is the icon to show if you want to convey the idea of a dedicated literary life. The title page of The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction — just out — shows a portable typewriter on a desk with other writing paraphernalia. Turn the page and the caption reads "The essential equipment of a cult author, as collected by William Burroughs." Burroughs receives the longest entry in the book. The ultimate cult author — the ultimate writing machine.
(((I've got a keyboard under my mitts, but the activities performed on it are wide and various: linking, uploading, cutting, pasting, pulling down menus... And now I've got a mobile. In theory – well, no, in fact – I can blog from a mobile. People type on these gizmos with the tips of their right thumbs, alone. That is gonna be a scary technological transition.)))
(((I outlived the typewriter, and I may also outlive "computers," too. That would be very interesting.)))
"I did quite a lot of unpublished writing on my Olympia, (((me too))) but by the time I became a journalist in 1984 the PC had arrived. Word processing's advantages were obvious and I was happy to upgrade. You can't just brush the keys of a manual typewriter. You really have to hit them. That character has to arc through the air on its metal stalk and thwack the ink on to the paper. Correcting errors is messy and boring. Redrafting is worse. Typing can be an unglamorous slog.
"I operated PCs and later Macs at work and bought a Compaq portable computer the size of a small suitcase for a ridiculous sum and used its tiny green screen to "keyboard" the text of my first book...."
(((Quite likely you've never used a typewriter. So it's hard to understand this explanation. Okay, try to imagine explaining a "desktop computer" to a guy who "types" via Google Voice Recognition talking into cloudy air.)))
(((This just in: a typewriter-computer mashup conversion. Note that it is named "Sterling." Gosh, don't that beat all.)))
