S/O Manual Typewriter

I was given an electric typewriter when I graduated from high school in anticipation of all the essays I would be writing in university. It was probably the best gift I ever got and I still have it. My kids liked to pull it out once in a while when they were younger to try it out - they thought it was pretty crazy when they discovered that there was no delete key.

Oh yes, I remember those.
And the adding machines where you push the number keys then pull down the lever handle on the side to make it add.....

I used these on my first job and then some.
I never could get very fast on the manual typewriter. You had to type at least 40 wpm to get a job anywhere, but I could not get much faster than that.

I also learned to type on a manual typewriter, but we used those plastic correction strips to fix errors. I used to carry a little box of them in my bag to use during class.

When I was a kid my grandma gifted me her old manual when she upgraded to an electric. I loved typing up mysterious letters and "clues" on it while playing Nancy Drew.

I learned actual touch-typing in school on an electric, though this was also the age of learning on computers.

I learned on an electric typewriter. I remember in typing class they took pit the correction tape. There was also a correction tape strip you could slide im and go back and re-type the mistake letter and it would bring it up.

Being a dinosaur, I learned on a manual, used carbon paper and had to erase mistakes with the eraser brush. Even in those days I was a 100+ wpm typist. Remember how hard it was to change the ribbon? At my first real job (1978) I remember being SO excited when they bought a self-correcting Selectric! Because this was long before personal computers, I made quite a bit of money on the side by typing term papers, theses and dissertations for students. The rate for the technical dissertations was the highest due to how tedious they were.


My grandmother had an old one of those in her small grocery store. It was how I practiced my math skills when I was young. No idea what happened to it, but I would love to have kept it.

yes - learned on a manual typewriter - my dd21 has a manual typewriter we found for her some years ago at a thrift store - it's a pretty Smith-Corona

I remember all of those things, and I too received an electric typewriter as a gift for HS graduation. What's even more wild is that years after I thought I had seen my last typewriter, I started working for a church in 2006 and they still owned and USED a typewriter for parish records! I was flabbergasted.

Yes, I remember using those things!  Did anyone else have to tape a file folder to the top edge of your manual machine prior to taking a typing speed test?  You slid your hands under the folder and waited for the start bell to go off.  Then the room was filled with the strange "rat-ta-tat-tat" sound of knuckles slapping against the folders all over the room.  This was done to teach us to look at our copy, not our keys, while we typed. It had to remain until you passed a set speed.  I could type without looking, but the distraction of that file folder really bugged me and slowed me down.  I couldn't wait to earn the right to remove mine.

I was so happy when the electric typewriters came out.  I was once at a job interview where they set me up to take a written exam and a typing test.  I remember the thermometer was broken and I've never sat in a colder room.  The typewriter was a very old grey manual machine.  By this time, the majority of businesses had been providing electric machines for years.

I turned in my finished exam and waited while they graded it.  The office manager came out and said I had the highest combined score of any of their applicants and she said the job was mine.  She started to give me a tour of the building, apologizing for the frozen room.  She said no one would work in that room until the thermostat was replaced.

Then she took me into the room to meet the coworkers.  They were all using manual machines!  I asked why they didn't use electric typewriters.  She said the owner felt they were an expensive unnecessary luxury.   I thanked her for the job offer but said I was going to have to turn it down.  I told her that I wasn't interested in using a vintage typewriter for an 8-hour day because they made my hands and arms ache after only an hour.  The other women in the  room applauded.  I guess it was a hot topic for them.   The manager probably thought I was a spoiled brat for wanting an electric typewriter to accomplish the job but I wasn't about to risk carpal tunnel for them.  And if the owner thought having modern tools was a luxury, I imagine he was a tightwad in all areas.

I did enjoy slamming that return arm and and hearing the bell.

In high school and for half my freshman year of college I used a typewriter for all those term papers, including footnotes and quotes and bibliographies. But once I had access to a computer lab and word processing, I never looked back. however, I did find a cute vintage (1930s) typewriter in a thrift shop last year, and I've had fun cleaning it well and getting it back in working order. It definitely takes some strength in the fingers and wrists! I like setting it out on a table when we have family gatherings and seeing what random things people type into it. Sometimes we get weird disjointed stories going, or haiku, limericks, faux proverbs -- it's a fun thing to have around.

Kinda. But I may be older than you think. I was an early adopter of word processing, as I was a dual major -- Literature and computer programing. So I was a little ahead of most English majors in terms of jumping into tech whole- heartedly. I remember my English profs being hesitant about accepting papers that were printed on dot matrix printers (understandably-- terrible quality), so I had to hold out for the printers that had daisy wheels and nice type fonts, but then some profs didn't like justified type and I had to spend time figuring out settings that would disguise or minimize my word processing "cheat". Also, switching to endnotes vs. footnotes was apparently a huge big deal, but I was using Wordstar or Wordperfect or something like that, and footnotes were miserable to format. By the time I was a senior, the English department was offering word processing skills classes and feeling very progressive about it. But freshman year, I was breaking new territory and it was quite the battle.

Yes to all of those things. In our typewriting class, we put the covers of the manual typewriters over our heads so that we could not see the keys. There is a picture in my yearbook somewhere of us doing that. I believe it was 1975. Anyway, I got to 90wpm, and LOVED it. I still have two manuals that I use. Used one the other day for labels in fact. LOVE them!

I first typed on a Royal manual but actually learned to type (like you are supposed to, not just hunt and peck) when I got to high school. Those IBM Selectric were some fancy technology back then.

When I graduated high school my parents gave me a Smith Corona electric typewriter that I used throughout college and beyond.

I still have the Royal and Smith Corona as well as an ancient black Underwood that belonged to my mother when she was growing up. I have it on display.