Why the Nostalgia around Mechanical Typewriters is Delusion
I've heard podcasts and seen posts around the nostalgia about typewriters. I've heard people younger than me marvel about how it broke open their creativity. I'm happy that they feel more creative, but trust me, it's not the typewriter.
There was a lot about mechanical and even electric typewriters that sucked. I am showing my age when I write this, but geez someone needs to speak to REALITY. Nostalgia is a trap for so many people in so many areas today.
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1. I hated having to use white out or use the white tape to back up and retype over the mistakes I made
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2. Sometimes the typewriter would not backup exactly to where you had typed
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3. Mechanical typewriters could have bent keys
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4. Mechanical typewriters could have broken keys in the keyboard
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5. Electrical typewriters were noisy
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6. I hated having to put new pieces of paper into the typewriter - sometimes the gauges would not make sure that the paper stayed straight
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7. I hated having to start over if you made too many mistakes - and NO - I do know how to type, but sometimes your fingers get out of synch and you type one letter before the other and you have to BACK UP and use WHITEOUT
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8. Have they tried changing the ink spool?
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Don't get me started on this.
9. Even on electric typewriters changing the ink was a pain
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10. Sometimes you would strike the key and it wouldn't hit the ink spool, or for some other reason, it wouldn't type the letter.
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You would be typing along and think you had type "BASKET", but really, the S key wasn't working and you'd get BA KET.
11. The best thing that ever happened to writers was the creation of the word processors.
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Sure there are issues with writing sloppy, but that's not a problem of the tool. That's the writer.
