I have a typewriter! Hear me typewrite. It goes click clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickBING. KACHUNK! SHUNK click click click click click click click click ...
A few weeks back I got a new esoteric ergonomic keyboard (a "glove80").
It reminded me that I learned to type on a mechanical typewriter from 1930, which I inherited from my grandmother.
I was inspired to write a post "My Life In Keyboards," running from 1930 to the glove80, describing all the memorable ones I've used, with photos.
ASR-33 Teletype, IBM 029 card punch, VT05, DECWriter, Knight Keyboard, Space Cadet, Symbolics, [and then decades of blah interchangeable IBM PC clone keyboards], Logitech split, Keyboardio, glove80.
This would be highly meaningful for me, but not for anyone else, so... won't do it.
Still, it's a reminder of how different and distant the world I grew up in was. Almost nothing was electronic; some things were electromechnical; almost everything was just mechanical.
This strikes me as the sort of thing that I would write thinking that nobody care and then would blow up and get a bajillion hits FWIW. I think the sense "this would be highly meaningful for me and nobody else" is about as misleading as the sense "this is boring and obvious and nobody would read it".
And yeah, one of the thing that sortof struck me about interacting with this device is just how very mechanical it was. Nothing I interact with is like that, and I'm not sure it ever was. I definitely grew up after the transition to electronics.
At some point about a decade ago I started using the catchphrase "Why is everything a computer??" (said in a despairing tone of voice). I think this started after I had to reboot the controller on my boiler in order to get hot water, went to read my book and discovered it was installing updates.
And like not literally everything is a computer. My coffee grinder I used this morning is a machine that probably has no actual computers in it. It might not even have a microcontroller. But it's definitely an electric machine with minimal mechanical components other than some gears connecting the motor to the grinding blades. But it definitely doesn't have anything complicated or mechanical in it.
My washing machine has the particularly egregious sin that it's got a dial that isn't a real dial. You turn it, and rather than physically updating the position of an indicator, it causes an LED display around the rim of the dial to update (on a slight lag, for which the manufacturers have my undying enmity). Even the basic mechanical parts have been replaced with computers-with-more-steps.
It's not entirely bad. There are good reasons we're doing this, and it does in many ways make cheaper, more powerful, and more reliable machines. But I can't help but feel something of value is lost.
A few weeks back I got a new esoteric ergonomic keyboard (a "glove80").
It reminded me that I learned to type on a mechanical typewriter from 1930, which I inherited from my grandmother.
I was inspired to write a post "My Life In Keyboards," running from 1930 to the glove80, describing all the memorable ones I've used, with photos.
ASR-33 Teletype, IBM 029 card punch, VT05, DECWriter, Knight Keyboard, Space Cadet, Symbolics, [and then decades of blah interchangeable IBM PC clone keyboards], Logitech split, Keyboardio, glove80.
This would be highly meaningful for me, but not for anyone else, so... won't do it.
Still, it's a reminder of how different and distant the world I grew up in was. Almost nothing was electronic; some things were electromechnical; almost everything was just mechanical.
This strikes me as the sort of thing that I would write thinking that nobody care and then would blow up and get a bajillion hits FWIW. I think the sense "this would be highly meaningful for me and nobody else" is about as misleading as the sense "this is boring and obvious and nobody would read it".
And yeah, one of the thing that sortof struck me about interacting with this device is just how very mechanical it was. Nothing I interact with is like that, and I'm not sure it ever was. I definitely grew up after the transition to electronics.
At some point about a decade ago I started using the catchphrase "Why is everything a computer??" (said in a despairing tone of voice). I think this started after I had to reboot the controller on my boiler in order to get hot water, went to read my book and discovered it was installing updates.
And like not literally everything is a computer. My coffee grinder I used this morning is a machine that probably has no actual computers in it. It might not even have a microcontroller. But it's definitely an electric machine with minimal mechanical components other than some gears connecting the motor to the grinding blades. But it definitely doesn't have anything complicated or mechanical in it.
My washing machine has the particularly egregious sin that it's got a dial that isn't a real dial. You turn it, and rather than physically updating the position of an indicator, it causes an LED display around the rim of the dial to update (on a slight lag, for which the manufacturers have my undying enmity). Even the basic mechanical parts have been replaced with computers-with-more-steps.
It's not entirely bad. There are good reasons we're doing this, and it does in many ways make cheaper, more powerful, and more reliable machines. But I can't help but feel something of value is lost.
Thanks! Incf'ing the probability of a post about this :)
+1, would read this
You guys are feeding my bad brain, which is jumping up and down and saying “YES‼️”
But what if this actually your good brain, David...?
Get thee behind me, Satan