Magic Margins, Touch Control, and Shift Freedom - The Royal Arrow Portable Typewriter Typecast
I'm glad people enjoyed the typecast from my Remington Travel-Riter.
Some readers expressed an interest in seeing other examples from my collection. You don't have to ask me twice!
My ribbon supplier is Discount Printer Ribbons and the ribbon I used for this typecast is here.
If you're interested in typewriters and typecasting, http://typosphere.blogspot.com/ is a great place to begin your explorations. There's a blogroll of enthusiasts to explore, and the community is active on a regular basis.
You also might want to check out the trailer for California Typewriter - or catch a screening if it's coming to your town. (Actually, it looks like it's available for streaming now, too!)
And please check out @dflo - she's new on here - but as a zine writer she's been sharing her work for decades. There's some great art on her feed!
Thanks for reading. As always, you can find a complete catalog of my Steemit articles here.
I wrote the stories that got me into college on one of these...
My ex-wife got when she graduated from secretarial school.
Smith Coronas are such comfortable machines, aren't they? I've got that model in coffee-color!
I love the way the hood slides forward. Good action, too, though the linkages are prone to wearing out.
And heavy! It really is a stretch to call it a portable. Did you carry it to school with you?
I brought it but by the early 90's computers had taken over. I went all out and spent $79.95 for one of these babies!
That's wild! Did the monitor actually attach to the typewriter?
Yup! It has really cool green characters and you could correct spelling etc. before printing. You had to hand-feed paper one sheet at a time lol!
I had something like that with a built in monitor and a daisywheel printer in the top. That thing printed slower than I could type, like 3 minutes for a double spaced page. So it took half an hour to print out a 10 page story!
On the plus-side it doubled as an egg-timer.
Sounds like mine. It had a daisy wheel in it. They also made a cheaper version that had a flip-up display that showed 3-5 lines at a time instead of the deluxe version with the monitor.
I so remember those daisy-wheel printers. I had one at college that I would store at my Uncle's place when I went home to work for tuition in the summers! Everytime I came back to school, no matter how careful I was when packing it, I always needed to get a new ribbon connector. I was so happy when the world finally adopted regular plugs instead of those pin plug ribbons!
The mimiograph! I remember that so well! My father used to use one and I expect that the reason I have such vivid memories of it was the smell of that ink. That is something I expect I will always be able to identify even if blindfolded. I did like getting nice warm copies though!
Every time I see a portable typewriter, it reminds me of my uncle. He used to have one, branded Olivetti I remember the mess every time he made a mistake and he used the white "canceler"
Oh - the Olivetti's are wonderfully stylish! Maybe I'll post from my Olivetti Lettera next.
Is your uncle a writer?
funny, I could almost hear the clacking of keys as I read this... super creative way to share on steemit- upvoted!!
Thanks - it's a lot of fun to do, even if it reminds me how much harder writing used to be!
I forgot to scan and share the rough draft pages - all scribbled and marked up with red ink.
that's the best :) its funny now that having proper grammar is easier than ever, we care the least about it in modern times lol
Hey, thanks for the mention! I didn’t see it until now. I started using the Ginabot tonight. Hopefully it will help me catch these sooner! Anyway, I cant wait till I get home this weekend so I can share typing and typewriter related stuff. I have two smith corona electrics! I got them at Goodwill for $5 each. The only bummer about them is they are a later model and take a cartridge instead of spooled ribbons. I am a little nervous that I wont be able to find more cartriges one day (i ordered them on Amazon and it looks like they have been discontinued). I feel a lot more self-reliant when I can just use regular ribbons. I also have this adorable little portable manual. I use it less because with manuals you have to really hammer away at the keys but its too cute to get rid of ever. I forget the brand of it but will surely tell you in a week :).
I'll have to check out that Ginabot.
I'm bad at tracking down mentions as well. The "Steemit More Info" add-on for Chrome puts a "mentions" tab up at the top of your homepage. The add-on is great overall but it can slow down Steemit pages with too much information sometimes so I keep switching it on and off.
I know what you mean about the ink cartridges. I had an IBM Selectric that was amazing to use, but it had these single-use carbon ribbons and it killed me to throw them away after just typing on them once. So I sold it to an accountant while I still had a good supply.
Its this weird contraption. I have had typewriters with a cassette like thing you set in there, but I had never seen this typeuntil I had these. Single use sounds rediculous! And also a lot like the 80s!
Oh - that is an odd one. And not cheap either!
I mimeograph is the same or similar to roneo? I remember that from primary school. I have never thought much about typewriters, except how much I can sell them for(!), but your love for them is enlightening.