Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 6, 1995 TAG: 9507060060
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WALTER R. MEARS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
It's easier and faster with the computer, a reality that pushed Smith Corona Corp., the last big-name American typewriter manufacturer, into bankruptcy on Wednesday.
On the computer keyboard, a touch makes letters and then words, no need to push hard. Another touch changes them, still another erases them all without a trace, usually on purpose.
No need to change paper, no need to turn fingers inky blue or black while changing a ribbon. The computer takes care of all that, and at speeds the old ways couldn't approach.
But at a cost.
There was a romance about the typewriter - the clattering keys, the yellow Western Union paper on which traveling reporters would crank out a story and have it telegraphed home. ``Western,'' a newsman would shout when his story was ready, and a messenger would run it to the telegrapher.
Twenty years ago, lightweight portable typewriters in blue, zippered cases were standard equipment for traveling reporters. Climb aboard a campaign bus or chartered airplane and everybody had one.
And for all the speed and efficiency of the word processor, there was a discipline in writing the old-fashioned way, on paper. The words inked there had a permanence about them and, in memory at least, were chosen with more care for the fact that they weren't easily changed. Indeed, because they had to be telegraphed or dictated over the telephone - to a typist - to make their way to a news editing desk, there also tended to be more selectivity, fewer words.
There also was something personal about the typewriter as a tool. Ernie Pyle's typewriter, the black portable on which he wrote his columns about World War II GIs, is on display at the National Archives.
Nobody's laptop will ever compare.
There also were personal styles. There were reporters who could punch out a story with two fingers and do it as fast as any touch typist. They still teach typing skills in school, but the class is now called keyboarding.
Smith Corona's typewriters were being produced in Mexico, not the United States. They were electric models; Smith Corona stopped making manual typewriters in 1983.
Manuals that are left are antiques, collectors' items. Collecting them is as easy as finding a yard sale, or sometimes a trash heap. Royal, Remington, Underwood, Olivetti, L.C. Smith & Corona, those were the trademark tools of another generation.
The modern typewriter was patented in 1868. Six years later, gunmakers E. Remington & Sons put that first model on the market. Mark Twain bought a Remington and was the first author to submit a typewritten book manuscript for publication.
Thomas Edison invented an electric typewriter in 1872, but the first to be put into office use was developed in 1920. Portable models came onto the market in 1909.
They're not extinct yet, but headed that way. And when the epitaph is written, it will be done on a computer terminal.
by CNB