| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Gervase |
Recycled tripewriterNot recycling in the strictest sense, but I'm in love...Yesterday the memsahib and sprog managed to liberate a magnificent Imperial tripewriter from the local dump (true to form, she never returns empty-handed from the dump). Two quid, a dodgy handshake and it was in the back of the car before you could say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. I came back from a job and there it was, sitting on the kitchen table, and it was love at first sight. A proper, mechanical thing, beautifully engineered and put together, with every part playing a function, and every function completely understandable. Not noughts and ones, binary coding and hexadecimals - just solid British iron, steel, bakelite and rubber. Marvellous! And the noise...not the stuttering, whey-faced stutter of a computer keyboard, but a proper noise, like a proper motorbike. My first newspaper office had a battery of old Imperials, and to hear them all at full pelt was awesome. This one needs a bit of TLC (and finding a new ribbon may be a problem), but I find I can type faster on it than on this nasty plastic keyboard, and it makes that wonderful clunky noise. Oh to be able to plumb it into the Mac so I can type on it every day (USB conversions, anyone? 
And, as an aside, it made me realise that to make an exclamation mark one has to type a single quote, backspace and then a full point. Three keystrokes (or four if one includes the shift for the quote) in all. These days one can litter one's copy with exclamation marks with just one keystroke, and writing is the poorer for it. Dog's-cocks, we used to call them, and in many newspaper offices they were banned apart from in headlines over 72pt (and even then thought a little vulgar). Sorry, I'm rambling. But the 'new' Imperial is a project in the making, and I'm looking forward hugely to fettling it and actually using it. |
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| sally_in_wales |
ooh lovely. I love old gadgetry
Typewriter ribbons appear on ebay a fair bit, heres one: I got to be the link fairy 
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| Gervase |
Ooh, I feel a bid coming on. Thanks for spotting that. | ||||||||
| vegplot |
I remember pestering my mum for a old fashioned typewriter that was in 'The Barn' in Petersfield. I think it was the first thing I bought. Had it for years. | ||||||||
| hedgewitch |
We used to have an old legal typewriter. Lovely machine. It used to shake the house 3 floors down when the prose was flowing  Had quite a collection at one time, including one with a pre-QWERTY layout. They were all liberated to good homes a long time ago. Now you've made me miss them. 
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| Samantha |
Lucky you - I picked one up at a car boot a few years ago. She is beautiful and a real work of art. | ||||||||
| Mary-Jane |
Jack is fascinated by the typewriter and as a child of the computer generation was amazed to discover that it worked by bashing a metal shaped letter, through an inked ribbon and onto the paper.
We later realised Jack's absolute faith in Gervase's technical abilities when jokingly, Gervase suggested linking the Imperial up to his Mac rather than using his usual keyboard. Just for a few moments Jack stared at Gervase and exclaimed wide-eyed  "Wow, can you do that?"
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| jema |
Work of the devil 
I never could type accurately and producing leaflet masters on a manual typewriter where things had to be letter perfect was alway an incredibly painful exercise. I can appreciate the engineering, but would cheerfully see 99.99% of them melted for scrap, and the remaining examples locked in nice glass cages where they can be admired at a safe distance. |
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| Mary-Jane |
Shame on you Jema...wait 'til Gervase sees this. 
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| dougal |
Am I the only one who presumed the thread would be more autobiographical?
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| cab |
There would surely be a market for retro keyboards that look and feel like typewriters. As a keyboard isn't that complicated a thing, it has to be do-able. | ||||||||
| Mary-Jane |
Well you and Gervase had better get working on it then cab...
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| Northern_Lad |
Re: Recycled tripewriter
Shurely shome mishtake... wouldn't your first office been full of the sound of stylii on slate...?
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| Brownbear |
There's a bloke called Brian Rothwell who specialises in old typewriter ribbons.
0161 763 9535 Though he only answers if you call on a phone with a mechanical dial....
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| vegplot |
Re: Recycled tripewriter
Chalk on slate, stylii on wax p'haps |
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| Northern_Lad |
Re: Recycled tripewriter
Not at all - that's editable. Stylii on slate is permanent. Sort of. |
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| Mary-Jane |
You're all quite bonkers!
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| hedgewitch |
Re: Recycled tripewriter
But very bad for wrapping around your fish and chips the next day. Which is probably why the ancient civilisations didn't go in for chippies much. 
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