darren_cormier's review against another edition
4.0
For those who love typewriters or who grew up using typewriters or fascinated by old machines, this book is pornography.
I grew up using a typewriter and was even able to find a model similar to my own Royal Deluxe in here. (Mine isn't as rare as the one highlighted in the book, but it's still cool to see it represented.)
Also, there were a couple of small typos, which would usually annoy me in the moment, but in this case I found charming, since the type was clearly from a typewriter itself.
Makes me want to add to my collection (currently at one.)
I grew up using a typewriter and was even able to find a model similar to my own Royal Deluxe in here. (Mine isn't as rare as the one highlighted in the book, but it's still cool to see it represented.)
Also, there were a couple of small typos, which would usually annoy me in the moment, but in this case I found charming, since the type was clearly from a typewriter itself.
Makes me want to add to my collection (currently at one.)
michaelnlibrarian's review
4.0
I recently watched the documentary "California Typewriter" that focuses on a typewriter sales and service business that manages to remain in business despite the shift to personal computers. (http://californiatypewritermovie.com) In addition to description of the business, there are different experts, some of whom are well known, who attest to the significance of typewriters, such as Tom Hanks. There is also a fellow who collects typewriters, including a particular interest in some of the earliest models.
This book, which also has a short forward by Tom Hanks, provides photographs and brief histories of 80 of the most famous typewriters in the history of these devices from the first in the 1870s to the IBM Selectric of the 1960s. There is also a short introduction about collecting typewriters and a brief history of the development of typewriters.
The development of typewriters somewhat remind me of the development of bicycles around the same time, except that bicycles were superseded by automobiles fairly quickly compared to typewriters and PCs.
One of the notions put forth by Tom Hanks and others is that typewriters enforce or cause a different way of writing from writing on a PC, which allows such easy editing. I suppose . . . I am more enamored of Mr. Hank's suggestion that having a typewriter to type up thank you or other notes that are then sent by mail is so much more meaningful than sending an email. There is little doubt about that, although I'm not sure if a typewritten note is more meaningful than a handwritten note.
I can't say I was sorry to see the last typewriter in a government office. We probably got rid of the last IBM Selectric-II some time before 2010. There were a handful of forms that were not available as PDFs that could be done quickly with a typewriter, but the last Selectric-II eventually had problems and there was no way to have it fixed.
This book, which also has a short forward by Tom Hanks, provides photographs and brief histories of 80 of the most famous typewriters in the history of these devices from the first in the 1870s to the IBM Selectric of the 1960s. There is also a short introduction about collecting typewriters and a brief history of the development of typewriters.
The development of typewriters somewhat remind me of the development of bicycles around the same time, except that bicycles were superseded by automobiles fairly quickly compared to typewriters and PCs.
One of the notions put forth by Tom Hanks and others is that typewriters enforce or cause a different way of writing from writing on a PC, which allows such easy editing. I suppose . . . I am more enamored of Mr. Hank's suggestion that having a typewriter to type up thank you or other notes that are then sent by mail is so much more meaningful than sending an email. There is little doubt about that, although I'm not sure if a typewritten note is more meaningful than a handwritten note.
I can't say I was sorry to see the last typewriter in a government office. We probably got rid of the last IBM Selectric-II some time before 2010. There were a handful of forms that were not available as PDFs that could be done quickly with a typewriter, but the last Selectric-II eventually had problems and there was no way to have it fixed.
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