What I really need is a typewriter; an electric typewriter

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

At—and I’m not at all sure about this—around 14 years old, I stumbled upon an ad for an electric typewriter. It was an ad in a magazine or something. There was a coupon you could fill out and mail in. A Smith-Corona.

If you filled out the coupon, they would send you the typewriter. If you didn’t like it, you could send it back within 30 days. If you decided to keep it, you could pay in three instalments of, let’s say, $89 each.

Some three weeks later the typewriter arrived. “Robert, what’s in the package you got.” The desire and rationalisation of three weeks earlier seemed oddly absent as I explained: “I ordered an electric typewriter. It should be useful for high school. We can send it back without charge.” I did not know how to type. I did not have the three $89 payments. I really had no idea if typewriters were required for high school (they were not). Wikipedia does state that “The new portable electric typewriters would become an essential tool for generations of U.S. high school and college students.” My parents were not amused.

Ok, if you bring home a stray dog and plead “Can we keep it?”, you can count on a certain amount of sympathy. But a typewriter?

Then, I had no idea that this was just the beginning. Then, it was fascination with a gadget that put letters on paper, that moved an inked ribbon forward, that swung the carriage back and advanced one line with the push of a key: because it was electric.

Memory of this episode is not pleasant. It has not been something that I look back upon fondly with a thought of “Oh, the silly things we did.” I’ve succeeded in moving it to an obscure place in my memory. I can type today and never think of that Smith-Corona.

Then a little while ago, I started to think about type. And I thought about writing where the text is comforted by the type; and about my experience with type, with software for type, with playing with a real physical offset printer (and spreading on ink with a spatula: highly recommended); and an eminent computer scientist that took a years’ long detour into type that had, and continues to have, an enormous impact on how people work and read; and those guys at Bell Labs who wrote roff; and the typing class I took in high school where I learned about the parts of a letter; and about the Smith-Corona.

So, expect a series of articles about my experience with typography. Remember, they all start here.

They let me keep the typewriter. I assume that I paid it off over a year. I learned to type. The typewriter went to college with me so I could type through the night before my term paper was due.

Smooth and creamy paper, a real pen

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

“The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil.” – 1984, George Orwell

Apparently, Winston took his time before finally launching into his diary. So have I.

From time to time, I find myself conducting a sort of inner conversation with myself. Sometimes, the dialog leads to a WhatsApp post. Sometimes, it leads to me talking out loud to myself (known to worry people who hear me). Then sometimes, the conversation ends with me admonishing myself: “You need to write it down, like on that web site you’ve been thinking about for years.”

As much as I love my fountain pens and smooth creamy paper, it’s going to be typewritten. I guess these days, “typewritten” means “written with type” and not “produced with a typewriter.” At least I’m not using a word processor! I’m using a 50 year old text editor invented at UC Berkeley.

Again, Winston:

“For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? … Winston roused himself and sat up straighter. … His eyes re-focused on the page. He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action.”

Yes, of course. The first entry in any decent “diary” has to be:

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER

Remulac, a small town in france

What I really need is a typewriter; an electric typewriter

Smooth and creamy paper, a real pen