3 ms·

I wonder how many HN readers have no direct experience with a typewriter? Probably quite a few. This is a good description. At least some (Royals I think) ther

I wonder how many HN readers have no direct experience with a typewriter? Probably quite a few. This is a good description. At least some (Royals I think) there was a lever on the right that you would operate for CR (carriage return) and line feed. Pull a little bit to the left, and it would feed a single line, pull the remainder, and it would return the carriage, so you could just do a couple of short pulls and advance a couple of lines more precisely than yanking the paper.

ncmncm 5y ago
Yanking was just to get the whole sheet out so you could ball it up and hurl it. The Carriage Return lever was there from earliest times. It was decades later that they got a RETURN key (what they call Enter nowadays) that would do the LF/CR for you. Eventually there was a tape with white ink so when you backspaced, you could white out what you had mis-typed by mistyping it again! Before that, you would overtype a "/" and bull ahead. Or stop and (literally!) paint it over with a little brush. The inventor of the little brush and the fast-drying paint became one of the first female business tycoons. (There were tycoons then, too. And impresarios. Dunno what happened to those.)
- gumby 5y ago
  > The inventor of the little brush and the fast-drying paint became one of the first female business tycoons. Bette Nesmith Graham indeed became a (minor) tycoon from Liquid Paper but died in her 50s. Her son Michael was a member of the Monkees and Bette Nesmith Graham, produced Repo-man. I've met him; he's a nice guy.
School-Cotton 5y ago
I’m 32 years old and have never used a typewriter in my life. So I’d imagine the majority of HN users haven’t either.
- corin_ 5y ago
  On the other hand, HN is full of people who a) type all day for a living and b) enjoy tech history and quirky things. I'm 31 and have used at least 2 typewriters in my life - obviously at no point did I need to for either school or work, but there's something romantic about them and I often fantasise about getting one to write with... though I'm fairly sure it would end up gathering dust as a (possibly pretentious-seeming) ornament in the corner of the room, so I avoid the impulse to buy one.
  - quantified 5y ago
    You could just keep a nice portable one in its case and bring it out for special occasions. Just the idea of a portable. Almost but not quite like a portable piano in my mind.
    - corin_ 5y ago
      That would cover the "pretentious seeming" aspect, but my main reason is that I already have too many things like that which I don't really need, and I don't live in a huge mansion to keep accruing random stuff like that!
      - quantified 5y ago
        Re the romance: enjoy [https://www.filfre.net/2021/10/i-have-no-mouth-and-i-must-scream/ https://www.filfre.net/2021/10/i-have-no-mouth-and-i-must-sc...]

ncmncm 5y ago

Yanking was just to get the whole sheet out so you could ball it up and hurl it. The Carriage Return lever was there from earliest times. It was decades later that they got a RETURN key (what they call Enter nowadays) that would do the LF/CR for you. Eventually there was a tape with white ink so when you backspaced, you could white out what you had mis-typed by mistyping it again! Before that, you would overtype a "/" and bull ahead. Or stop and (literally!) paint it over with a little brush. The inventor of the little brush and the fast-drying paint became one of the first female business tycoons. (There were tycoons then, too. And impresarios. Dunno what happened to those.)

gumby 5y ago
> The inventor of the little brush and the fast-drying paint became one of the first female business tycoons. Bette Nesmith Graham indeed became a (minor) tycoon from Liquid Paper but died in her 50s. Her son Michael was a member of the Monkees and Bette Nesmith Graham, produced Repo-man. I've met him; he's a nice guy.

School-Cotton 5y ago

I’m 32 years old and have never used a typewriter in my life. So I’d imagine the majority of HN users haven’t either.

corin_ 5y ago
On the other hand, HN is full of people who a) type all day for a living and b) enjoy tech history and quirky things. I'm 31 and have used at least 2 typewriters in my life - obviously at no point did I need to for either school or work, but there's something romantic about them and I often fantasise about getting one to write with... though I'm fairly sure it would end up gathering dust as a (possibly pretentious-seeming) ornament in the corner of the room, so I avoid the impulse to buy one.
- quantified 5y ago
  You could just keep a nice portable one in its case and bring it out for special occasions. Just the idea of a portable. Almost but not quite like a portable piano in my mind.
  - corin_ 5y ago
    That would cover the "pretentious seeming" aspect, but my main reason is that I already have too many things like that which I don't really need, and I don't live in a huge mansion to keep accruing random stuff like that!
    - quantified 5y ago
      Re the romance: enjoy [https://www.filfre.net/2021/10/i-have-no-mouth-and-i-must-scream/ https://www.filfre.net/2021/10/i-have-no-mouth-and-i-must-sc...]