While typing a response to an OP it occured to me how personal computers have made...

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messaging so much easier. How did we ever get along with typewriters for so many decades? No more white-out or positioning that tape error correct over a "j" that should be a "k", no more pulling the carriage return to start another line, no more snatching the paper out in disgust at another error.

Now we just select a letter/word/or entire paragraph and hit delete instead of starting over for fear of a typed page with too many white-out errors would be frowned upon by higher-ups.

So glad we're past all that. It's so easy to edit what's written right on screen before printing it. And the ability to do that and print is another huge improvement computers have wrouht.

And thank God the word processors era was just ashort term transition that lasted just a few years. They were no picnic either.

I still have an old Underwood manual in my office. It's in good shape and might be worth something at some point. Maybe if "Antiques Roadshow" comes to town.

[Attilatheblond]

1. Hmm, I still miss the sweet Oliveti portable typewriter my older brother got me with Green Stamps

Wish I had never given it away. It was such a safe way to write my most private thoughts. And I could take it to the park cuz it didn't rely on electricity or internet connection.

[global1]

2. I Am So Thankful For High School Typing Class....nt

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4. Me too. Good to have that background with the computer keyboard having the same key layout.

Fact is I had to go back and make correx on this piece...no white-out required.

[Silent Type]

14. Exactly. I can type faster than I can talk, at least on a full size keyboard.

[Chainfire]

15. I am with you on that one. They forced us to take typing in the 60s in my school, and I despised it.

However, it was one of the more important skills that I took from H.S.

My handwriting is dreadful. I typed all of my love letters to my to be wife on an old Royal that would have looked at home in a WWII movie. I still have the Royal and my wife still has the letters. I have been afraid to go back and read any of them.

[Shermann]

3. I occasionally had to do some homework on a typewriter back in the 80's

I took a touch-typing class in school and enjoyed building up my speed and accuracy at every opportunity.

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5. How fast did you get? I never was fast, but at lease I learned the keyboard layout.

So important when computers came in using the typewriter keyboard layout for input.

[Shermann]

7. Somewhere around 60 WPM I think. nt

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9. Pretty fast.

[a kennedy]

6. I loved my Selectric typewriter........I actually use "sent from my Selectric typewriter"

as my closing line for my e-mails.

[Arne]

8. There are some who collect and display the old machines.

Just like the first TV's and radios.
You had to cross the room to turn it on.

[AllaN01Bear]

11. exercise.

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12. Crossing the room to turn it on was a pain in the you know what. Unless you were a parent...

of kids whose job it was to cross the room to change the channel or turn it on/off.

I was one of those.

[Chainfire]

17. And to change the channel and adjust the antenna. ;)

We had an outside antenna that we would adjust with a wrench by hanging out the window and slowly twisting the pole while listening to a sibling relaying the results of the adjustment. One of my fond memories from childhood was my father screaming from another room, "Turn that damn thing down."

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21. Ahhh, memories of boomer childhood. We had ineffectual rabbit ears...never much good.

[AllaN01Bear]

10. i learned how to type using a manual typewriter. then learned using a ibm selectric.

then i learned how to type on a computer using m$ 5.5 . i also learned how to type on a teletype machine . had to really bear down on those keys.

[Chainfire]

16. On the typewriters we learned on, there were no marking on the keys. I wonder if that was typical?

I would be hard pressed to type on the old mechanical machines today, the get up an go in the fingers has got up and went. My wife typed her way through college in some pretty menial jobs. She typed too fast for the IBM Selectrics, she had to slow down so the machine could keep up. It was a miracle to behold when she was on a roll.

[AllaN01Bear]

20. when we learned on the selectric, the teacher gave us a clear keyboard , i e no tape ;

then she covered select letters and functions untill all the keys were covered so we would be doing blind touchtypine .

[keithbvadu2]

13. At one time, the typewriter was the latest technical marvel, the newest of the new to improve our lives.

Someday, a better/easier computer device will replace the clunkers we have now.

We just don't know they are clunkers yet.

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22. Hope so. Also hope it's not AI that replaces us all. It's alreay replaced many jobs.

[Arne]

18. The story of QWERTY is interesting.

Some of it was mechanical where the keys flying up would often cross and tangle.

[ret5hd]

19. ABSOLUTE best use for a typewriter today:

(on edit: i had to take typing as punishment for smoking…man, the nuns at that catholic school were savage…but thank you Sister Jamesetta)