Now, at this point, I am compelled to take a small diversion and explain just what a teletype is — for those of you, like me, who are too young to remember them. (I will graciously omit comment on those of you too old to remember them!) Teletypes have been around since about the 1930s or so, but the ones I have in mind are the ones that were used to interact with computers in the 1960s and 1970s. Instead of a keyboard and monitor, you’d have a keyboard and printer. Believe it or not, surplus teletypes were the interface of choice for teletypes even in the later years because they were so much cheaper than video terminals.

So anyhow, back to the plot. Teletypes operated at speeds ranging from about 40bps to 110bps, but it seems that the most common protocol was Baudot-coded 50cps 5N2 serial format — that is, 5 data bits, 2 stop bits. Amazingly, the serial UART in modern PCs is still capable of communicating with these devices (though it may take some circuitry to tweak the voltages), and at least one person has made it work with Linux.

So I zip on over to eBay to look for teletypes. What do I find? NOT A ONE! A few manuals, and apparently there is a GPS named the teletype. And some company that has something they think *might* be compatible with a teletype, but they don’t know.

eBay has sorely let me down. An antique geeky item should be right up their alley, and zilch. They can sell everything from cars to advertisements on some guy’s bald head, but not a teletype? C’mon!

So anyhow, I am afraid I will have to improvise. Perhaps I can find a dot-matrix printer with a serial port (or, I guess, a parallel port would do too) and an unbuffered printing mode. Then the trick would be getting keyboard input. Perhaps I could rig up a pty to do this, input from /dev/console, output to /dev/ttyS0. It would still be old, but not quite the real deal.

So if any of you have a working teletype you’d like to get rid of, do please let me know. I’ll send you a photo of the printout of me getting lost in Colossal Cave.

Oh, and for those keeping track at home, I guess you can add this to the list of old technologies I’m interested in: Gopher, typewriters, teletypes… they’re all alike, right?

An avid typewriter collector had just driven 80 miles to pick up a rare Royal
Grand typewriter he had finally found after years of searching. As he drove
home with his prize, it was dark and he was becoming sleepy. He decided
to pull off the highway to get some coffee. He had barely tasted his first
sip when, much to his horror, he realized he had left the Grand exposed on
the back seat of his unlocked car. He jumped up and ran into the parking
lot to his car, but saw he was too late. The window had been smashed...
and there were two more typewriters beside his prize!

I certainly won't be writing every blog post on a 1944 typewriter, but I'm
still writing about this thing, I thought it would be fun to use it again.

Today I cleaned some of the old gunk out of the type, so hopefully the
text is a bit clearer today. Also, I've set the margins to limit the width
of the text so I can post at a higher resolution.

The Internet, of course, harbors communities around just about every
imaginable topic, and typewriters are no exception. I have learned about people that have over 300 typewriters stored up in a basement. I also read of one person that had accumulated perhaps a dozen working typewriters and wanted to downsize. He donated some to a local daycare, where they proved to be immensely popular with the children and the parents that read their work.

That seems to sum up the appeal of old technology, whether typewriters, care, or Coleman lanterns. The technology may be finicky, maybe the engine doesn't always start right up in the winter or the lines on the page are rarely perfectly straight, but the machines are intuitive enough that most can grasp the basic operation without the need of a manual -- and certainly without needing some toll-free tech support person on a different continent. Plus, these things often seem to outlast not only their inventors, but often the companies that build them as well.

In a sense, it reflects the attitude of an earlier society. Today, many people buy the cheapest item on the shelf at Walmart, never stopping to consider whether it will be the cheapest long-term value if a plastic piece breaks off after a couple of months. Sometimes, it is difficult to even find higher-quality items today. If only America wouldn't be short sighted, not just in its purchasing habits, but also with its government policies, we might be a happier and less fearful nation today."/>

flickr page

Since then, something unexpected has happened: I’m getting interested in using manual typewriters.

I’ve been busily tracking down ribbons (Nukote BW277 doesn’t work on it, even though their website says it does), typing paper (business-supplies.com has it at a decent price with free overnight shipping on most orders over $50), and various tidbits of knowledge (such as: what does the lever numbered 0 to 6 beneath the right ribbon spool do?)

Today I went to a local office supply store. Not OfficeMax or OfficeDepot — they do carry ribbons for typewriters of this era, but not the right ones for my particular machine. But the store that has been owned by the same family since it opened in 1899 on Main Street, where it remains.

And, surprise, they had the ribbon I need!

It seems that typewriters are experiencing a certain resurgence in popularity. People that have computers — and perhaps never knew a world without them — are buying typewriters. Because of interest, novelty, or even usefulness. There are quite a few typewriter repair shops that still exist, most of them happy to work on typewriters up to a century old.

So why am I excited about it?

Part of it is the fun of making a really old piece of technology work.

Perhaps part of it is knowing that I’ll be typing at a machine that was built the same year as D-Day, the year when the first German city fell in World War II. Part of it is knowing that this 40-pound machine was built to last, in an era before planned obsolescence. And, to a certain extent, it has outlasted its manufacturer.

Part of it is curiosity: will I write differently on a typewriter than a computer? It seems that most people that have tried both say that their writing is different on a typewriter, and often better. Perhaps it is the difficulty of editing that forces more rigorous thought up front.

Christopher Watkins wrote:

[Manual typewriters] just plain shame me into working. As with any fine instrument, they’re made to be used, their very design bespeaks this, and there’s been many a night I’ve caught one of my typewriters glaring sternly at me from the shadows, implicating me in a grand failure to honor their structural destinies. Chagrined and challenged, I dutifully sit down to see what I can do to contribute to the machine-age legacy I’ve been called on to uphold. . .

When you sit down to write a song at the piano, you’re going to write differently than if you have a banjo in your lap. And if one instrument isn’t bringing the magic and the muse, maybe another will. Typewriters are the same; they make me write in a different fashion, and also provide an alternate trigger for inspiration. And as an electric guitar is different from an acoustic steel-string guitar is different from a nylon-string classical guitar is different from a national steel resonator guitar; so does each individual typewriter differ. My Underwood is different from my Royal is different from my Remington is different from my Corona is different from my Hermes. And if one isn’t giving me the juice, another might.

Brian Drake added (emphasis mine):

Or you print out the document again because someone misplaced it. Misplaced it! When we were on typewriters, let me tell you, no one misplaced a hundred-page contract! That meant another two days of typing, and tying up at least two secretaries to get it done then. . .

Gore Vidal said he could tell when a book had been written on a word processor. I can, too. Sometimes I can see the cut-and-paste.

I’ve worked as a professional proofreader and copyeditor, and I can attest that the computer has not led to better writing. What it has led to is more writing, acres and acres of it. Books have grown fatter and fatter while their content grows slimmer and slimmer.

These seem to resonate well. More typewriter essays here.

And perhaps a typewritten blog post or two, once I try out my new ribbon.

• Support for paper as wide as 13.3 inches
• Printing clear to the left and right edges
• Continuous imaging, not based around dots or pixels (therefore, no DPI measurement)
• Audible warning tone
• 2-color RK (red and black) printing
• Ink cartridges cost $3.49 at Office Depot
• Professional font built in, ideal for business or personal use
• Very low electricity consumption. Can run for extended periods of time without being plugged in.
• Programmable hardware margins and tabs, remembered across jobs in NVRAM
• Print speed up to 0.48 pages per minute at average complexity, but this can be doubled or tripled by using the instant copy feature (requires carbon paper, sold separately)
• Built-in typewriter emulation mode. People that used WordPerfect for DOS might remember this feature, where you could press a key and the letter would be printed immediately on dot-matrix or daisy-wheel typewriters.
• All-metal case and mechanism. Little or no plastic.
• Made in the USA.
• Manufacturer: L. C. Smith & Corona Typewriters, Inc.
• Built in 1944
• Still works

Here are some photos: