I’d love to see a comeback of the IBM Selectrics, spent many hundreds of hours using them, great machines. The only thing “electronic” about them was the motor!
I would state this....if you removed all computers from every single US gov’t office, went to simple old-fashioned IBM-limited memory typewriters, gave each person his own “memory-stick”, and limited email/browsing to one module unit for each twenty-five people, you’d get more real production and less time with people facebooking and googling throughout the day.
The Germans may discover that no one in Europe makes typewriters anymore. I believe there’s two or three companies in China, and maybe one in Mexico still making them. I know you can buy a brand-new typewriter for roughly $120 off the GSA site (I had to buy one five years ago for my unit).
I’d love to see a comeback of the IBM Selectrics,”
Did you ever use the IBM Executive? No way today’s generation could ever figure out how to type on one of them, especially if you found yourself replacing one word with another because they would actually have to be able to add and subtract. Going from an Executive to Selectric drove most of the gals in the typing pool I supervised crazy. Hard to adjust to nothing moving but that crazy little ball!
Reminds me of going from a stick shift to an automatic transmission. Continued to put that non-existent clutch in for a long time.
All electric typewriters, and especially Selectrics, emit a discrete radio signal for each character typed, so you can see the problem. I am afraid manual typewriters are the only solution, and you'd have to control access to the ribbons too.