All About Typewriters

Back To The Future?

Why Typewriters Are Still Around 

You might be surprised by how much use the typewriter still sees. Go into a bank sometime and you will see a number of IBM Selectrics and Smith Corona typewriters around. The reason for their presence is not so much that bank employees can’t figure out their word processors as it is for the paperwork that needs to be done on all the legal forms required in handling your money.

Why, you ask, aren’t these forms online?, Well, for a few reasons. First and foremost is security. Printed forms can include special production processes that if they were created generically on a laser or inkjet printer could be easily counterfeited. Another reason is that any document created on a computer continues to exist long after it is deleted. If you want a truly singular and unique document, a computer is not for you.

Saving Money

Inkjet cartridges often cost more than the printers themselves. Some have noted that computer printer ink is one of the most expensive substances on the planet. If you do the math, printer ink costs about $8000.00 a gallon. If you ran your car on it, a fill up would run one hundred grand and a swimming pool full would run you into the billions. The same fifty bucks you shell out on an inkjet cartridge would produce about ten times more documents if you were to switch to a typewriter. That’s about $450.00 in savings. For any business, those kinds of savings can make quite a difference in the bottom line.

Typewriter Trivia

The first mention of a typewriter in fiction created a theme that would be associated with the device until today. In 1892 a Sherlock Holmes story used a document to identify a typewriter that eventually solved the case.

Mark Twain was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript.

A Chicago Typewriter is a euphemism for the Thompson Machine Gun, Tommy Gun, used extensively by outlaws in the roaring twenties.

The name ‘typewriter’ can be written using only the top two rows of typewriter keys.

Antique Typewriters have emerged as some of the most collectible items offered on eBay. One model once sold by Olivetti and designed by Ettore Sottsas is on display in the permanent collection at the MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, in New York.

The utility of typewriters even reaches beyond their original use. Typewriter Key Jewelry has become quite a popular way to recycle some of the more obsolete models. Typewriter key bracelets and cufflinks have become a common sight in the workplace.