Who'd've thunk it? No more typewriters. Mashable (one of my favorite blog sites) reports today that the last typewriter manufacturer on earth is shutting down production.



I remember very clearly getting my first Smith Corona electric typewriter as a graduation gift from high school. I pounded the pete out of that rickety machine. I learned how to touch type and yearned for a fancy IBM Selectric with the nifty ball instead of the keys that would get tangled because I typed too fast. I typed my first short story (for a class) on the kitchen table, the typewriter clacking and bouncing as I began what is now a trend–composing in my head and then doing a marathon writing session near deadline. Little did I know (though my mother did) that this would become not only a habit, but a paid one.



I do mourn the loss of technologies–Kodachrome, floppy disks. They were the vanguards, the harbingers of today's electronic world. My first computer was a 486 with 4 MB of RAM (yes, 4 Megabytes) and a tiny hard drive. I was excited that it used 3.5 inch floppies, instead of those outmoded 5.25 inch ones. I learned how to edit my config files to load apps into high memory, to tweak the settings enough so Mom and I could play our FPS games (we loved Doom!). Fast forward some 15 years and I'm writing on a 3 year old iMac with 4 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive, and external 1 TB hard drive…and this is just simple model.

Would I go back? Nah. Computers/word processing made it much too easy to write. But I still look back just a little fondly on the machines that started it all for me. RIP typewriters…you made it easy…at least mechanically.