30 Dec
2005
30 Dec
'05
7:26 a.m.
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 00:49:50 -0500
Roger Merchberger <zmerch at 30below.com> wrote:
Rumor has it that Richard may have mentioned these
words:
If you are _writing_ as opposed to typesetting your manuscript
for distribution, the revision history (forced on you by the fact
that you can't just cursor around the page like a little kid
rolling the peas around on his dinner plate) is of use.
Composing your thoughts on a typewriter, in my experience, causes
you to think a bit more before typing. Which isn't a bad thing.
In article <20051229233410.52d5dfd3.chenmel at
earthlink.net>,
Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> writes:
> There's really nothing else to compare to the immediacy of using
> a typewriter. These days everything written is transferred into
> an electronic ether, to possibly be printed someday, more likely
> to just disappear. It's a very 'real' experience to type a page
> of thoughts direct to a piece of paper. And it is something that
> many people no longer experience.
Thank goodness!
Also, there are times when I have to fill out a
form or something else
and its really just *much* more efficient to power on a typewriter and
bang it out in a few seconds...
And then try to find an eraser to rub-out what you fscked up, grumble,
never find the eraser, reload new paper, keep banging, realize you made
another mistake... Ungh. Not to mention when you need to edit said document
2 years later, instead of retyping the whole thing in again.
Typewriters are like cats - I have nothing against
them as long as I don't
have to have one. ;-)
Any _writer_ who can type at 110 wpm is either extremely wealthy
because of all the money he can bring in from his prodigious
output, or writing an awful lot of bad prose. 110 wpm rates are
for secretaries transcribing what other people have written.
That's certainly what they are training people for in those High
School typing classes. The rest of us take the course and learn
what 'home position is' etc. but shrug off the speed competitions.
than it is to turn on the computer,
launch the editor, type in the text, turn on the printer, print it
out, and then power everything off again.
I turn on my trusty 20-year-old Tandy 200 (immediate), the printer's
*always on* and does text, Postscript, PCL6, Diablo, and lord knows what
else, bang on a keyboard *nearly* as good as a Selectric (I will admit they
had a nice feel to 'em, prolly still why I like IBM Model 'M's ;-)
including repairing mistakes, print the sucker out, and hand the copy to
whomever needs it. Much faster than a typewriter *for me*.
Typewriters are the reason I graduated high school typing "36 wpm" instead
of the 110+ I could achieve on a computer - forgetting to set the
double-space was my first mistake in the test, and the secretarial teacher
dogged me on it. If she'd have overlooked that and took the next 6 _actual_
errors (most of which were due to differences in the keyboards between the
Selectrics & a Tandy Model 4, which I used 90% of the time), at least the
damn thing would've said 69wpm. Still not an actual meter of what I could
do, but one helluva lot closer!