Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 28, 1993 TAG: 9307280043
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CLIFTON HEIGHTS, PA. LENGTH: Medium
He owns Typewriter Warehouse, a clearinghouse for old, manual business machines. Just stepping into the windowless building packed with the heavy steel contraptions evokes an era of carbon paper and eraser dust.
"I hate to say it, but I'm probably a dinosaur. I'm just trying to hang on," said Haig, 62, a former salesman for Remington Typewriters.
In the past 15 years, personal computers with color monitors and modems have made carriage returns obsolete. America's last manual typewriter rolled off the Smith Corona assembly line in 1983. Today, only the Italian company Olivetti makes them.
Yet holdouts endure. Haig says most customers at his suburban Philadelphia store are collectors, elderly people or municipal agencies that process large numbers of typed forms. Haig buys, sells and fixes the machines.
"Some of the people just can't get used to the computers and word processors," he said.
New York Times columnist James Reston and USA Today founder Allen Neuharth both use manuals, and former President Bush swore by one to tap out personal notes.
"Anybody who started off typing on these things, it spurs their creative juices," said Tom FitzGerald, a Philadelphia engineer and editor of The Typewriter Exchange, a newsletter for manual collectors.
He produces the periodical on a computer; doing it on an electric typewriter got too cumbersome.
Manuals "evoke memories of a simpler time, a slower pace," FitzGerald said. "People were producing something themselves, then, and you don't have that directness with a computer."
Today, typewriters gather dust in many offices as secretaries use word processors. Classified ads no longer seek fast typists; they want software proficiency.
The romanticism remains, however. A word-processing font called "American Typewriter," available through national computer bulletin boards, approximates the keystrokes of a manual.
Haig acknowledges technology's benefits but says he relishes his role as a purist.
"You think a computer technician could fix a typewriter? The breed is vanishing," he said. "And besides, a computer gets replaced by another computer in six months. No matter what happens in electronics, I'll still be able to use a typewriter." He lowered his voice, looked at his machines and winked. "Truthfully," he said, "I can't even type. I use a pencil and paper."
by CNB