
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 15, 1995                   TAG: 9507170020
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT . . .

TENNIS BALLS no longer are white; they're chartreuse green and neon orange. Almost everywhere Blue Laws are passe, and stores are open on Sunday - except in many downtowns, where fewer stores are left to open. And fins and hood ornaments on cars have gone the way of the Edsel.

So it was bound, too, to come about that Smith Corona Corp., America's last big-name maker of typewriters, would go bankrupt, kaput - an inevitable victim of the computer age.

Sad, in a way. But progress is what it is - progress - and we're not about to join the Luddites in lamenting it. We can't imagine trading a computer for a typewriter, at least as an instrument for written communication and mental application.

On the other hand, old manual and electric typewriters as relics may win good prices one day at antique stores and flea markets. The same probably can't be said of today's computers.

by CNB