22 Jan
2012
22 Jan
'12
6:16 p.m.
On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:41, David Riley wrote:
I certainly never did. I'm looking into getting a
typewriter somewhat
soon, both for teaching myself to type a little better (more
accurately, and separating the keystrokes better) and also because
typewritten recipe cards look so much better than printed ones or my
own child-like scrawl. Smith-Corona's Silent and Silent Super seem to
be general favorites among the portables; anyone have other
recommendations? I seem to be able to find properly working instances
of the above for less than $100 on eBay/Etsy.
I've had two Smith-Corona portables in my life--one, a manual and the
other, an electric (they were also sold under the Sears name). The
electric was okay, but I really got spoiled later by the IBM Model B
Executive. A really wonderful machine--and if you get the prop-
spacing type, the quality of the output is remarkable. Selectrics
aren't too bad either.
One thing that an electric forces you into is a rhythm as your speed
increases. You can only push the mechanism so far until it starts to
fight you until you feel its natural rhythm.
It's odd, but when I started using a computer terminal, my speed went
down. Perhaps it was due to my looking at the letters on the screen
as they appeared (a good typist types "blind"); I don't know. When
you use a keypunch, the "chunk" is your source of feedback, so it's a
good thing they're noisy--and you type blind. If you use one of the
nonprinting punches, such as an 024, you don't even know what you
typed until you run the deck through an interpreter or do an 80-80
listing.
If you want a somewhat different experience (and this relates to
"chording" and "n-key-rollover", try a stenotype machine.
--Chuck