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| Underwood Five typewriter. Public domain image. |
I learned to type on a manual typewriter. Just goes to show how ancient I am. It was one of those courses that I took to fill out my high school class schedule when the school wouldn’t let me take the courses I wanted (long story!). After the first couple of weeks, they wouldn’t let us see the letters on the keys anymore so you had to learn to type by touch! My poor little fingers hurt so bad from pressing the keys hard enough to make a good impression on the paper.
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| IBM Selectric "Ball" Public domain image. |
By the time I started my first job a few years later,
electric typewriters were in offices. I
remember when the company I worked for bought its first correcting typewriter –
an IBM Selectric II. It cost about $1200, more than most of us spend for a
personal computer today! It was the model with the little ball that you could
change for different fonts and had a tape for correcting errors. Very cool! I
soon learned to type backwards to correct errors nearly as fast as I could type
going forward. The only problem was that it really messed up your carbon
copies.
Before long, technology gave us word processors and then
personal computers. No longer was the typewriter the indispensable tool of
writers and office workers everywhere. I hear there are still some who prefer a
typewriter to a computer. Not me!
Yet I still have a typewriter—one I bought close to thirty
years ago. It has daisy-wheel font cartridges, will correct errors, and even has
memory to record frequently-used phrases. It is in the garage. Maybe I will try
to sell it in my garage sale next weekend.
So, my friends and family members, do you “hunt and peck” or type by touch? What memories do you have of the typewriter?
© 2012 Denise Spurlock
