I first typed on an old Underwood manual typewriter; they have just like it in the Smithsonian. It had a red and black ribbon and the keys didn’t strike very evenly, but it WAS a typewriter and it wasn’t every family who even had a typewriter. It had been my grandfather’s, although it was shared by all the family.
Gordy, my grandfather, also had also had an “adding machine.” It had lots of buttons for each number, a crank and a paper tape. He was a bookkeeper by profession and this was a tool of the trade. He also had a small pocket calculator that would add and subtract. You put a stylus in a slot and pulled it down to get the answer.
My junior year in high school I took something called “personal typing.” I was in the “advanced academic” diploma program, so I took typing as an elective not a real “core subject.” It was always a race to get a typewriter with letters on the keys. The people in the regular typing class (who were planning to be secretaries) were OK with those typewriters without letters on the keys, but our college-bound skills not up to the same standard.
In my senior year, I had my own green Smith Corona manual portable. I had to type term papers and the old Underwood was too much of a relic. That was a great little typewriter and it served me well for a few years.
When a senior in college, it became clear that I needed to have an electric typewriter. I got a blue Smith Corona electric that was the big brother to my little green portable. That was nice typewriter and lasted for many years. Our son, David, was a bright little guy and started typing on it at age 3. He knew the letters and the words, but didn’t have the coordination to write them by hand. So, at age three, all of his correspondence (mostly thank you notes to grandparents) was typed by him personally.
In the late 1970s I needed a better typewriter, so I got a Brother with a erasable ribbon built in. I would have loved to have a Selectric, but they were too expensive. My father was, however, given a Selectric as a retirement gift and when he passed away I inherited it. I still have it, but it doesn’t work anymore. I just hate to part with it.
As a college librarian for a few years back in the late 1960s, I dreamed up a new kind of typewriter that someone could use in a library. It would have a keyboard, a screen like a TV, and a place on the bottom that would print out the copy just like a photocopy machine. Steve said that one day there would be such a thing.
Steve brought our first home computer into the house in about 1981. It was a Northstar and very expensive. But he, as an engineer, needed it. He tried to sell me on using it as well, but I was resistant. But he pushed me and pushed me and eventually I gave in.
I was working at Chesapeake Academy in that same time frame and quickly saw the value of computers to the school, both for administration and instruction. I led an effort to bring in computers. We rented Atari 400s for the students and bought an Epson QX-10 for administration. I figured out how to do databases, accounting, and correspondence on the computer. I even set up a library catalog using the mailing list software. Those three programs – a spreadsheet, word processing, and database management became the basis for my computer skills. In time, I bought myself a Morrow portable that had a tiny screen and looked a lot like a portable sewing machine.
In the meantime, however, I had been doing work in publishing and was the owner of something called a Compuwriter Jr. It was used for setting type, which was then printed out photographically and pasted onto boards with hot wax. I used to change the belts and pulleys every time I wanted to change the font. You could only see one line of type at a time and if you made a typo, you had to cut and paste the “fix” in using an Exacto knife. I taught David how to use this machine and he actually, at age 12 set all the type in the 1983 Severna Park Directory.
In 1989, I bought an Atari ST (David was selling them at Toad Computers at the time) and resolved to teach myself this new thing called desktop publishing. It was a lot like the publishing I had done in the past, but all electronic. I put out the first issue of Chesapeake Living, an Anne Arundel County newcomer’s guide, doing all my own design work using a German program called Calamus.
In 1994, my publishing firm, Bay Media, Inc., made the transition to Windows and bought new computers and software called Pagemaker, by Aldus. That was version 4.0. We just phased out version 7.0 in favor of Adobe’s (who bought Aldus) new industry standard, In Design.
I got my first laptop computer in about 1996 and that changed everything. I am on my fourth one now and probably about ready for a new one. My Dell Latitude, fortunately under warranty until recently, is on its third keyboard (have worn the letters off and twice and I still like to have letters on the keys).
I also had an Atari Porfolio. It was an amazing machine. It folded up to be about ½” high and 8” long and about 4” across. It could do calendars, spreadsheets, databases, and word processing. I loved it!
In time, it gave way to the Casio equivalent that was a bit smaller and more compatible with my desktop computer. I could type on the go and merge my calendar.
Then along came the Palm Pilots and I had a Visor. Honestly, I never got the hang of that script you had to write in with the stylus. The Visor was black and white and I couldn’t see the screen too well, so a couple of years ago I bought a Palm Zire with a bright colored screen.
Meanwhile, of course, I had started carrying a two-way pager and a cell phone, along with the Zire. I had to have a big purse just to contain all of my electronics. Enough was enough and when the cell phone and pager both died last year, I decided it was time to do something radical!
I bought a Treo 650 and life is good again. I only have the one piece of equipment to carry and it small enough to wear on my waist. I can use it for everything – and yes, I can sync it to my desktop computer and my laptop. I can even leave the laptop at home and keep up with my email while traveling using the Treo. In one handy little device I have the functionality of a typewriter, a telephone, an adding machine, a camera, a record player, a tape recorder, a computer and more. Imagine the size of the box it would take to hold all this stuff in 1957! And, of course, now I have learned to type with my thumbs! Wouldn’t my typing teacher be amazed!
But a part of me still longs for a simpler time when typewriters were for term papers; the telephone was black and sat on the hall table, and you could leave the house without an electronic leash. I guess those days are gone until senility hits; then all I will need will be a button to call for help.
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