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What a wonderful essay. I learned to type on a manual Underwood typewriter with a carriage return lever. I don't miss it, but there was something so satisfyin
by aag 1y ago
What a wonderful essay. I learned to type on a manual Underwood typewriter with a carriage return lever. I don't miss it, but there was something so satisfying about moving that lever and feeling the whole carriage move. It meant that I had typed another line, and had made progress. The thing I truly don't miss was not being able to afford a new ribbon, and having to move back over every character and type it again to make sure that it showed up because the ribbon was so dry. Or not being able to undo mistakes.
- jama211 1y agoI wonder if I should make a joke menubar program where every time you make a newline while typing it sounds a slide-ding noise! I might do that…
- i_am_proteus 1y agoThe "ding" is a bell that is mechanically activated when the carriage gets close to the end of the writeable area (in many typewriters, this is a moveable stop to account for variable paper width). So when one types, the bell alerts the typist to the need to return the carriage; typically you get quite a few characters after the bell, either to finish your word, or hyphenate. Which makes it ding-slide rather than slide-ding :)
- j4_james 1y agoThis was also an option on many "Glass TTY" terminals - it was called the margin bell - and even some modern terminal emulators still have that option. The exact semantics vary, but it's usually triggered when entering content around 8 characters from the right margin.
- jama211 1y agoHahaha, good point, you know I knew that but just didn’t think it through. I’d still like to make it though…
- 1718627440 1y agoAs far as I remember it, the bell works on both sides, so you get ding, type..., slide-ding.
- chuckadams 1y agoI remember back in the early 90's installing an extension on every Mac in the school computer lab that made typewriter sounds on every keypress, including that "zzzzzzipDING!" sound when hitting return (or was it "DINGzzzzip"?) It was hilarious for a few minutes, then got old really quick, so it didn't last the day. The Oscar extension stuck around for months though ("I love it because it's trash!"). Computers were just so much fun back then...
- jama211 1y agoHaha true, but they can be fun now too, nothing stopping us writing applications just for whimsy!