UPDATE 7/21/2011 (Hemingway’s birthday, btw): It appears the demise of the typewriter has been greatly exaggerated. See this NPR article for clarification. Seems the plant in Mumbai was producing manual typewriters, but electrics are still to be had from other manufacturers.
Aw you guys, I’m sad! I guess it’s just nostalgia, but it’s the end of an era. Just a few short paragraphs in The Atlantic (although they picked up the story from The Daily Mail) to announce the demise of our clackety friends.
With only about 200 machines left — and most of those in Arabic languages — Godrej and Boyce shut down its plant in Mumbai, India, today.
Well, go click through the little gallery, or head for the nearest antiques mall to pick up one of these old beasts for posterity. I had no idea. Paper books, typewriters… what’s next? I might as well face it, we are living in the future. Just this morning I found out we have a MFP (Multi-Function Printer, i.e., scanner/copier/printer/fax) that has VOICE COMMAND enabled. Prepare yourselves.
D.D. SYRDAL 
Heh heh, loved the image with this post. 🙂 Unsettling!
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Hehe, that was tweeted out on April 19 by @OfficialSkyNet (April 19, 2011 of course being the day SkyNet achieves sentience in the Terminator movies). I printed out a copy and tacked it up outside my cube at work. 😉
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Heh heh now I understand the April 19 Skynet thing on twitter. Didn’t realize that was the day Skynet “activated”. 🙂 I fail in my geek knowledge. 🙂
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Oh God. At this rate I’ll end up running away to a hippie commune. Got a post on Facebook today about the ban on herbal plants and medicines proposed by the EU. It’s crazy!! I’m all for living in the now, except these days the now is starting to get a bit worrying znd the past is so much more comforting!!
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Why is the EU proposing a ban on some plants and medicines? They have bad side effects?
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They keep trying that, the big pharmaceutical companies are of course behind it. Do you follow The Health Ranger? Here’s the article on his site:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030873_EU_directive_medicinal_herbs.html
I think they just voted down something similar in the States here, might have been in North Carolina if memory serves.
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Yes it’s rather tragic.Thanks for the Health Ranger link, will follow. Sorry I got sidetracked with the herbal med stuff (I feel very strongly about it!) I think there is somethink about the end of typewriter manufacturing that triggered that response… It’s funny considering your blog is Digital Dame… how about Luddite Tarot for a tarot blog name 😉 he he he
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Heh, that’s ok, we frequently get off-topic around here 🙂
Mike Adams (the Health Ranger) can be a little extreme at times, but he’s also been dead-on about many issues. For instance when the former head of the CDC took a paid position with Merck Pharmaceutical in the Vaccinations Dept, his newsletter was where I heard it. The MSM never mentioned it that I heard. Kind of explains why the CDC pushes vaccines so hard.
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This makes me sad too! We still have a typewriter or 2 around here, though I think we ran out of ink years ago. I have a friend who still writes on her Brother b/c it is definitely less distracting than the computer. Of course they are obsolete, but why should they be gone forever? a true piece of history. sigh.
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I still remember typing class in high school, learning on those big ol’ IBM Selectrics 🙂 I still have an electric Brother machine, I should see if I can still get ribbons and correction tape for it before it’s too late. I may really go down to one of the antiques stores here in town and see if I can find one of those really old ones, just for fun. 🙂 I’ll let you all know if I do.
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Take a scan of the text and show us. 😉
I can imagine how hard it must have been for writers to only work with typewriters back in the day. Correct mistakes with ink, having to type every new draft.
Without Word’s cut and paste function I’m lost. 😀 And the possibility to save different drafts in different files.
Also remember those electric typewriters. They were a little scary to write with, as they hummed and you could feel the keys vibrating when you hit them. 🙂
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I will, that would be fun to see the difference 🙂
Correction fluid was our friend back in the day! And it used to come in different colors, too. I remember green, yellow, I think there was blue (or am I imagining it?)
I often think about writers like Jane Austen who wrote it all out with quill pens and ink pots. Geeeeeez.
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Heh heh oh the good old correction fluid. I remember using it on handwritten essays in schools, in thick layers on the paper, and people lacquering a nail or two with it when they were bored in class. Stunk badly. 🙂
Can’t imagine writing with quill and ink. Paper, quills and ink must have been quite expensive back then. And you couldn’t waste sheet after sheet on rewrites. 🙂
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That and the mess! Fingertips turned blue or black from the ink on everything (I manage to do this when I pull out my calligraphy pens). Keeping little sand pots to soak up the excess ink… what a hassle! We are so spoiled.
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It does not surprise me that type writer is becoming obsolete because of the every day uses of the computer and writing note pad thingy. It is a shame though there will be no more selling of the typewriter unless in auction or antique. It make me wish I would of never threw away my type writer years ago. Now I totally understand pack rat, lol.
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Hahaha 🙂 Yes, they’re about to become collector’s items. They just dominated the business world for so long, it’s hard to imagine them not being around anymore. Unlike something like the Walkman that lasted a few years and was quickly obsolete, the venerable typewriter ran the world since the 19th century.
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I forgot all about the walk man. I still have one box away and a whole bunch of cassettes. I doubt that be something someone have interest in, but I keep it just in case box away with my many stuff I don’t use any more.
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