Archive for April 20th, 2010:

The ongoing debate about digital media vs. traditional publishing and ebooks vs. paper books got me all nostalgic about past digital transitions. Do you remember when you got your first personal computer? I think I was a junior in college, and I inherited my brother’s IBM PC. It used those 5.25″ diskettes, and I had to type DOS commands. I had a dot matrix printer! Before that I used what I believed to be a very fancy electric typewriter—a Swintec. I tell you I was the envy of my dormmates. And when I learned to type? A summer class in high school on an IBM Selectric. See? I bet you’re feeling nostalgic, too!

No matter which decade we are in, it seems there are always people who have vintage and retro sensibilities. About 15 years ago a friend and I regularly corresponded by U.S. mail via letters typed on manual typewriters. Even then it was rather retro. I used my father’s portable Hermes 3000, a sleek green typewriter with smooth keys. It should still be in my house somewhere (it better be, or someone, ahem, cough, husband, will be in big trouble). I also have an Hermes 3000 with cursive script that I picked up at a garage sale for $10 some years back. I was really surprised to discover that these typewriters now sell for hundreds of dollars, but I guess that is just evidence that no matter how many newfangled gadgets there are, there will always be value in the good old stuff.

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