Who's used a REAL typewriter? (split fm VAC Spending/Downsizing)

[Rifleman62]

Ever work with a typewriter (and not an electric one), a Gestetner or mimeograph coping machine and human memory?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5klsvETCAs

:christmas happy:

 

[Brasidas]

Ever work with a typewriter (and not an electric one), a Gestetner or mimeograph coping machine and human memory?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5klsvETCAs

:christmas happy:

I've even worked in an OR with a typewriter. I feel pretty fricking old right now.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Ever work with a typewriter (and not an electric one), a Gestetner or mimeograph coping machine and human memory?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5klsvETCAs

:christmas happy:

You're making me feel REALLY old ....

 

[GAP]

Ever work with a typewriter (and not an electric one), a Gestetner or mimeograph coping machine and human memory?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5klsvETCAs

:christmas happy:

They did the job! 

 

[blackberet17]

I learned how to type on a typewriter. Nothin' like it!

 

[dapaterson]

Electric typewriter?  You had it easy.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Here's the kind of typewriter I learned to type with in high school ....

.... and here's the portable typewriter I used to use before I bought my first computer:

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Not only learned to type on a mechanical typewriter and used a Gestetner to print the student paper at school, but had to "re-learn" to be able to use the mechanical modified typewriter we used to have to type messages on message forms in the Navy (had all caps and the special symbols only, but not necessarily in the same place as a standard keyboard). When you made a mistake, you had to  retype the whole message.

P.s.: I still have my old Typewriter. It's in its case in the attic. I just can't find replacement reel of carbon tape for it.

(Good lord, am I that old ?)

 

[FSTO]

Here's the kind of typewriter I learned to type with in high school ....

.... and here's the portable typewriter I used to use before I bought my first computer:

Yep, learned to type one the manual (all the girls in our class got the electric ones. LOL).

One thing I have noticed is that messages today in the military are now these tomes of paragraph after paragraph that say nothing. Back in the day the messages were short and concise.

 

[Occam]

Nothing like using one of these old relics while Morse code is blasting away in your headset at 22 words per minute.  Good times. 

Not.  ;D

 

[expwor]

Typing was a "recommended" elective for Grade 9 (for me that was 1975/76).  Hated the course.  Never got any speed going but at least I learned the layout of the keys (a big thing to this day)
Remember in the classroom, teacher telling everyone "catspaws catspaws" LOL
After the course, went to two finger typing hunt and peck but at least I knew where the keys were...something a benefit when computers came out
I remember we had a one week exposure to electric typewriters.  Sounded like machine guns going off...that was considered modern back then, now it's all dinosaur technology

Tom 

 

[The Bread Guy]

Typing was a "recommended" elective for Grade 9 (for me that was 1975/76).  Hated the course.  Never got any speed going but at least I learned the layout of the keys (a big thing to this day)
Remember in the classroom, teacher telling everyone "catspaws catspaws" LOL
After the course, went to two finger typing hunt and peck but at least I knew where the keys were...something a benefit when computers came out

Same thing happened to me - I don't type with my fingers "based" on the home row, but I sure surprised the keyboarding instructor in college when she said, "you'll never pass the keyboarding class exemption test if you type like THAT"  ;D

 

[DAA]

Learned how to type on a manual one.  Used an electric for a bit but didn't like it and went back to manual.  Then came the "electronic" ones with built in correction tape for the odd error that popped up from time to time and even had the electronic viewing window, so you could put it on delay mode by word or line.  Type away, then hit the return key and off it went.  Then onto a computer.  My first 6 months of using a computer were interesting to say the least.  I would break a keyboard every couple of weeks from hitting the keys so hard or a key or the space bar would just come flying off in midstream.    :nod:

 

[Gunner98]

Yep, learned to type one the manual (all the girls in our class got the electric ones. LOL).

One thing I have noticed is that messages today in the military are now these tomes of paragraph after paragraph that say nothing. Back in the day the messages were short and concise.

I typed all of my university essays on one just like that Tony.  I still don't type properly but at 40 error free words per minute.  I type as fast as I think.

In the mid-1980s all internal correspondence was still hand-written and only a final version of an important order/letter/routine orders/PERs would make it to the typing pool/secretary or clerk.

A lot of the HQ internal direction came on yellow stickies from CO and DCO.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I typed all of my university essays on one just like that Tony. 

Same - my college papers (in a later phase of my adulthood) were the ones I did on a computer keyboard.

 

[medicineman]

I had an old Underwood typewriter for years when I was in Junior High/High School...that thing must have weighed 15lbs of solid iron, lol.  I tended to type my essays in school simply because my hand writing then (and now) sucked.  Took typing class in Grade 8 - most useful class I took to be honest.

MM

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I started on these, remember when you hit 2 keys at once and the arm would bind...

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I had an old Underwood typewriter for years when I was in Junior High/High School...that thing must have weighed 15lbs of solid iron, lol.  I tended to type my essays in school simply because my hand writing then (and now) sucked. Took typing class in Grade 8 - most useful class I took to be honest.

MM

Well, you are in the medical field … with a tradition for bad hand writing to uphold .

 

[BernDawg]

Yessir.. Took typing in Gr 9 (1980) and the class was divided into 2 groups. Manual and electric, once you were good enough you got to use an electric typewriter. Somehow I never made it into that group although I eventually hit 20-25 WPM. I even wrote a couple of papers in Highschool on one. Once I joined the Army I had to hand write everything and my handwriting was/is atrocious so I had to use block letters for all correspondence or it would get sent back (Remember that? Having to write that memo 3 or 4 times because your section commander didn't think the CSM would be able to read it)

 

[jollyjacktar]

Ever work with a typewriter (and not an electric one), a Gestetner or mimeograph coping machine and human memory?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5klsvETCAs

:christmas happy:

You remember the Gestetner in the OR at 20 Ind Fd Bty, of course.  I can remember cranking out RO's on it when I first joined in 80.