My wife (a teacher) said her friend (another teacher) stumbled across an old typewriter in a school storage closet. How it was still there no one knows. I asked her to get a pic of it to see what it was (I'm assuming an IBM Selectric) but we'll see. That got me to thinking: how many of you 80+ wpm speed demons learned on manual typewriters? I did, though I don't think I can still burn out at 80 anymore. Probably 60-65.

I started hunting and pecking in early jr. high for fun, then took typing in 8th grade. We used the manual typewriters that had no labels on the keys -- I don't know if the electrics used in HS were the same. Anyway, my 8th grade typing teacher paid me and a buddy to come up the day before school and set out all the typewriters. In HS I never took the class but I used the class machines a couple of times to type some stuff up. I was in debate and we had to type a BUNCH of stuff. That's pretty much where I got my typing skills. Those skills got me a lot of work as an office temp during summers both in HS and shortly after.

At home, we had a portable manual. Kind of a cool typewriter you could carry around -- sort of the size of the first gen portable computers, though much lighter. But by my sophomore year, I had a computer. Even though my parents bought me an electric at some point, I found it easier to type stuff up on Apple Writer on the II+ and find a printer somewhere. Eventually, I bought a dot matrix for the Apple.

Only used a Selectric sparingly, though I was told by those who used them regularly that they were the Cadillac of typewriters.

So what's your typing/typewriter story?

I actually took a typing class in high school and it was on a manual IBM typewriter back then. My first job during college was actually working in the student loan department typing up lots of loan forms.

For giggles I just took a quick internet typing speed test...79 wpm. I'm a computer programmer so I sit at a keyboard all day - though typing speed isn't critical.

I learned by forcing myself to "touch type" after my dad showed me where to put my index fingers. Unfortunately, I still type Bs with my right index finger, so I'll never be able use a split keyboard. Why can't a B be on both sides?

91AggieLawyer said:

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Only used a Selectric sparingly, though I was told by those who used them regularly that they were the Cadillac of typewriters.

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You were told the truth. The IBM Selectric was/is one hell of an electro-mechanical machine, particularly the self-correcting Selectric II and Selectric III models with the single-strike carbon film ribbon.

I've owned several over the years and have used them in my business. In inflation-adjusted today's dollars, I imagine one would set you back well over $2K if they were still being sold (and if there were still a demand for them).

These days, I'm down to one machine and it's super handy for filling out forms that never made it to .pdf, as well as the odd-sized envelope or two.

Years ago, every decent sized town had a guy who could repair/clean them. I think most have either passed on or are permanently retired.

Many law firms still keep a few Selectrics around. You can still buy refurbished/rebuilt Selectrics on eBay, too.

My dad still has two beautiful Selectrics at home.
Benefit of working for IBM back in the day.

Like I said, I didn't used a Selectric much, but I did use one once at a summer debate workshop and it had some cool fonts. I think it was the first time I'd seen small caps and I liked the look. I think that was the Selectric Orator ball. That and the Courier 12. For a research paper or essay, the Courier was probably better, but for a flyer, the Orator was a good one. Great machine to have choices. It wasn't really until the Apple Mac came out that consumers on the desktop had a similar ability to choose -- for a whole lot more money (computer plus laser).

I took a typing class on an IBM Selectric early in my HS days. I think took an early computer class that was basically typing on a computer, it was completely worthless.

My dad strongly encouraged me to take typing in HS. Best advise he ever gave me.
My dad discouraged me from taking Trig in HS and College because it was not required. Worst advise he ever gave me (especially for an Engineering Major).

Took typing in 8th grade at school where my mom taught before I was born. Typing teacher was her good friend as was my math teacher and the school principal. Asked me not to embarrass here, that did not last a day. But was a class full of royal manual typewriters with blank key caps. Routinely typed 100WPM on timed writings in that class. FF to high school and trying to find elective. Counselor was pushing typing and I told them I already took and they were perfect you should take again. Room full of selectric's with labeled key caps. I don't think anyone in the class learned to type just to find the letter an press buttons. But again I was blowing up the class averages and my dot on the speed poster made the slackers look bad so was asked to skip or dial back so they did not look bad. That is when I learned to fix selectrics, would watch official repair person and then fix others that were optimized before they arrived. Still have a few of the helpful tools IBM had made to facilitate that.
Currently have a Royal portable manual and a Brother daisy wheel with spell check sitting in the closet in the office.

I was forced to take "keyboarding" in either late middle school or early high school due to my schedule.
Hated it at the time, as others have said turned out to be extremely helpful

Some of my friends still write their books on electric word processors. A niche market has actually developed for t older models of these. Alphasmart Neos and Smith-Corona Electric word processors are two of the more popular ones. If you want to get really fancy there are the new Freewrite machines. They are modern versions of the earlier portable electric word processors that us e-ink displays.

The Freewrite

Digital Memo Pomera

I think the Flowo is concept only at this point.

My Dad had an old typewriter from the early 1960s that I used to peck on as a kid.

But I learned in High School on an IBM Selectric. We actually had two Olympia Electronic Typewriters that everyone got to use for a week during the year.

I took a 6th grade typewriting class in the mid-90's that used electronic typewriters. Most were fairly simple machines, but there were 2 IBM digital typewriters and the teacher would reward good behavior with getting to use those.

Last time I tested my speed I was around 120wpm.

We had an Apple IIC growing up so most of my typing was on that. We got to use the typewriter only when it needed to be typed instead of written. I don't remember the model we had, but it wasn't a ball style, it had striker arms for every letter, and the arms could get jammed up if too many came up from the same area at once.

By the time I actually took a typing class, my terrible ways were already set. I'm better now but the home row still eludes me. My left hand types properly but my right is all over the place

We went through some dark ages of dot matrix and ink/bubble jet printers before laser printers became commonplace and finally matched the quality of an IBM Selectric.

lb3 said:

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We went through some dark ages of dot matrix and ink/bubble jet printers before laser printers became commonplace and finally matched the quality of an IBM Selectric.

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True, but back in the early 1980's there were at least two 'other' impact printer lines out there that were capable of giving Selectric 'letter quality' print.

They were the Xerox Diablo models, which used a 'daisywheel', and the NEC SpinWriter models, which used a print thimble.

When equipped with carbon film ribbons, those models gave pretty damn good results.

We used NEC SpinWriters, but I'll admit that even with the carbon film multi-strike ribbon, the quality was still not quite as good as with the Selectric single-strike ribbon.

I understand that NEC had a printer setting whereby it would advance the ribbon an entire character (as the Selectric did) between characters, but we never felt it necessary to do that, as the print was super high quality anyway.

There was also an interesting device that I recall seeing advertised in my old computer magazines in 1980 or so. It was some type of 'contraption' that you would affix to the top of a Selectric keyboard. It contained solenoids that would then 'press' the keys and turn the Selectric into a computer printer.

My, we've come a long way, although I still keep a SpinWriter around. It is nails on multi-part carbon/carbonless forms, such as when you want to do old school checkprinting.

I haven't used it in several years, however. I haven't needed to. Things change.

At one point we had a Brother electric typewriter that was pretty decent for home use. We also had a Commodore VIC 20 with a floppy drive and some rudimentary word processing software. It came with some interface that you could connect to the Brother typewriter to use as the printer. The first time we used it it printed about one line of text then locked up. It never worked again.

In my garage I still have the next Commodore we bought, the +4. I am trying to figure out what to do with it. It may still have the Montgomery Ward price sticker on it.

adrian's digital basement

Burdizzo said:

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At one point we had a Brother electric typewriter that was pretty decent for home use. We also had a Commodore VIC 20 with a floppy drive and some rudimentary word processing software. It came with some interface that you could connect to the Brother typewriter to use as the printer. The first time we used it it printed about one line of text then locked up. It never worked again.

In my garage I still have the next Commodore we bought, the +4. I am trying to figure out what to do with it. It may still have the Montgomery Ward price sticker on it.

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I had a Brother typewriter, as well. It kind of wiped the words onto the page. No impact. I think it used heat to sort of iron the letters onto the paper. And it would wipe them off, too.

There's an IBM Electronic Typewriter 50 on a stand next to my desk. It looks a lot like a Selectric 3 but inside it's very different. I was able to get it to work but it would still stick and skip around some; unfortunately there's next to no information on these things available so it may just be desk art instead of something I can actually use.

The Fife said:

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There's an IBM Electronic Typewriter 50 on a stand next to my desk. It looks a lot like a Selectric 3 but inside it's very different. I was able to get it to work but it would still stick and skip around some; unfortunately there's next to no information on these things available so it may just be desk art instead of something I can actually use.

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Do you work at A&M? That was the last place I saw something like that... 20 years ago.

Ddp

No, but my mom was a secretary at SWT while going to school in her 20s and 30s, and that's probably why my parents got this. It's cool and I remember doing a few papers when I was in grade school on the thing but it's way too obscure. They should've gotten a Selectric instead.

My parents also had an (electric) IBM Selectric, as well as a true (non-electric) "manual." I took "Keybording" at Kingwood High Sophomore year 1984. Was boring AF, but I learned the basics.

Fast forward many more years. I'm a psychologist that does psychological evaluations on kids in CPS. The one thing I always detested was coming back home and retyping my interview notes. At one point many moons ago, I said screw this, I started typing it out as I went, and figured they can wait while I type. Now, when I do them, I type the interviews in full sentences, correct spelling, correct syntax, ect at a rate probably faster than handwritten.

Edit to add: probably 5 years ago, I bought a used manual (non-electric) typewritter for my now 15yo daughter who wanted one for some reason. She only used it a handful of times I think..

My freshman year when I was at Baylor, I did pretty much all my papers in the debate squad room as I was on the squad. We had IBM PCs -- the original ones, or XTs, I believe -- which required a slight learning curve against the Apple I was familiar with. We had access to MS Word (DOS, obviously), Wordstar, and I believe one other one which I can't recall the name. I tried Wordstar as I heard a lot of good things about it but I couldn't get up and going as easily on that as I did on MS Word, so I stuck with that. We kept our 5.25 floppies in a case as the computers had no hard drive!

The lab had 2 printers -- a dot matrix which most of us used and another printer that had typewriter like print. It wasn't the Selectric ball style but I can't recall if it used a wheel or the standard electric typewriter function. Anyway, I had never seen that style of printer before or since. I had trouble with it a time or two so I just stuck with the dot matrix.

One night a grad student friend of mine and I were in there working on documents and I had just finished my stuff, probably around 10pm or so. We chatted for a few minutes and then I started to leave. He still had a couple of hours of work. I had no more walked out of the room and the building power goes out. Long story short, my buddy realizes that 3 hours worth of work was GONE! He had not saved his file or even printed out any drafts.

WordPerfect? That one was pretty mainstream until the mid-'90s.

The Fife said:

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WordPerfect? That one was pretty mainstream until the mid-'90s.

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Maybe. I didn't start using WP until the late '80s after I was trained on it through a temp agency. After that, it was game over. I always thought (and still do) that WP5.1 was the best piece of software ever written. It did everything I wanted with no issues, no crashes, and once you learned how to use it, it was a dream to use. It ALMOST made you want to keep using DOS forever.