Believe it or not, my company still sells and services typewriters (as well as renting them for movie props). Also, a lot of hipster types are gaining an interest in these machines with my boss being asked to speak at a typewriter meet-up in a craft beer bar.
Typewriter for iPad review
Science fiction author John Scalzi has reviewed a Bluetooth typewriter and says it's mostly okay. The product in question is the Qwerkywriter/, a Bluetooth-packing keyboard that offers keys resembling those of a manual typewriter. The device works with anything Bluetooth-capable and includes a stand for tablets. Mechanical …
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Friday 20th May 2016 08:56 GMT Mage
But $350?
Mad price. Otherwise interesting if the switches are like an old IBM or Cherry mechanical PC keyboard. Keyboard only good bit on an IBM PC.
I made a custom PS/2 keyboard about 10 years ago by opening a regular keyboard (with two membrane layers under the real looking keys). Then 15c (retail, but not Maplin) miniature switches on matrix strip board / veroboard wired to the IC.
I'd guess, including Asian labour, this costs under $15 to make. I use a USB miniature "server bay" keyboard with USB2go adaptor on my phone, or sometimes a USB 7" tablet cover I picked up for a fiver.
I got rid of the fake mechanical keyboard on my workstation and found an early "Win keys" real mechanical keyboard in the attic, much better for typing 10K words a day. I'd not like stiffer keys.
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Friday 20th May 2016 10:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
I'm advocating for my company returning to typewriters...
.. actually it looks it doesn't understand how to use computers at all. Most of the time you need to print something, and then deliver it on paper by hand. Forcing people so fond of papers to get back to typewriters (no facebook, eh eh) and dial phones would be the well deserved punishment.
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Friday 20th May 2016 15:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'm advocating for my company returning to typewriters...
Forcing people so fond of papers to get back to typewriters (no facebook, eh eh) and dial phones would be the well deserved punishment.
Only if you bent a couple of hammers so they keep tangling, and wired the phones so the dialling would ping the bell for each pulse. Details matter :).
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Sunday 22nd May 2016 04:41 GMT Barry Rueger
Re: I'm advocating for my company returning to typewriters...
The last time I used a dial telephone I actually had to stop and think what to do.
And wow, is it a slow and painful way to enter seven numbers when you're used to speed dial on a smart phone.
(If you think the phone is primitive you should see the mechanical switches at the other end!)
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Friday 20th May 2016 20:27 GMT Herby
Not truly "typewriter"
If it were, it would have the big lever that returns the carriage and indexes the platen up one line. Most of these were actually attached to the mechanical carriage suitable for reaching with your right hand and slinging it across in front of you. Of course it might also ring the bell when you got too close to the edge of the paper as well.
Yes, dial phones are cool as well, and (at least here in the USA) work on most telephone exchanges.
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Sunday 22nd May 2016 20:26 GMT stucs201
Re: Wrong side?
No, not the wrong side. Lever on the left is correct. On a real typewriter you need to get the left of the page back to the typing position to start a new line, which means pushing from the left.
On a side note these levers are why the use of CR-LF as a line separator bugs me. On every mechanical typewriter I've used the lever does the Line Feed before the Carriage Return.
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Saturday 21st May 2016 01:20 GMT MachDiamond
Adding functionality to a tablet
When I was doing more journalism, I met another journalist that carried a full size keyboard to plug into his laptop. It worked great and he commented that he could type much faster and with better accuracy than what was possible using the laptop's keyboard.
Tablets of all kinds are Consumption devices. If you need to Create something, they suck. This keyboard looks the part, but fails on the cost. The problem with shrinking electronic devices is that it becomes increasingly harder to use them for anything serious. I know people that swear that they can do all of their work from their smartphone, but I find that 1/2 or more of the communications from them are exceptionally poor. I often get replies from people when I send several questions that don't make any sense. How can one answer "yes" to a multiple choice question? I blame many of the problems to not having enough screen space. They only see the last couple of sentences and have already forgotten everything that has scrolled up and out of view.
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Sunday 22nd May 2016 04:49 GMT Barry Rueger
Re: Adding functionality to a tablet
The problem with shrinking electronic devices is that it becomes increasingly harder to use them for anything serious.
That's primarily because the software on devices is stupendously bad.
Android is an obvious example, where even text messaging and Twitter is a challenge.
The saving grace is BlackBerry's keyboard software, which can now be loaded to Android phones.
Don't know if it's actually in the Play store, but the apk isn't hard to find.
The predictive text is excellent, and I'll happily write multi-paragraph message without spelling mistakes.
It's good.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
