4 ms·
Ask HN: Are There Digital Typewriters?
Basically I want a printer which prints live as a I type with minimal latency.
Is there a product like that. If there is no printer maybe there is a typewriter which hooks upto computer via usb and i can type on my computer using the keyboard I'm accustomed to.
- simonblack 5y agoWhy are you insisting on going back to the 1970s? What you are describing is more or less what my first computer terminal was in 1978: a second-hand ASR33 (https://trmm.net/Model_ASR33_Teletype/ https://trmm.net/Model_ASR33_Teletype/). If that's too big and bulky for you, there was a Brother electronic typewriter in the mid-1980s that could save small amounts of text in its memory for printing later. (https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/85456117 https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/85456117) You could also interface it to some form of computer. These things were superseded by word-processors: Dedicated computers that had screens, keyboards and printers. That enable you to prepare text, fix up your typos, shift text around, and when you were satisfied with it, to print out your final copy. Finally we had general-purpose personal computers that could not only do word-processing, but were just as happy doing financial work and also browsing the internet.
- lifeplusplus 5y agoI want it because seeing something physical being created live would be more motivating and help me write more.
- lifeplusplus 5y agolooked it up on youtube, just seeing it print makes you feel happy for some reason
- simonblack 5y agoThat's where we agree. But where we differ is in using a typewriter versus a word-processor. A few years after I had used nothing but word-processors, I had to use a typewriter again. It felt like I was in a straitjacket. The simplest job seemed difficult and annoying. Every typo threatened either the use of white-out or to the need to throw the paper away and start afresh. Every time I changed my mind about the sequence of words, or the order of paragraphs, meant that I had to throw away what I had written and start again. That was the moment I mentally discarded typewriters into the dustbin of history. I still loved typewriters for what they were physically. But only as museum pieces, rather than something I could use on a daily basis.