Do you have a typewriter?

[Jean in Newcastle]

Do you ever use it?

 

Do your kids know how to use it?

 

This is a poll where you can make more than one response.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Ds uses our typewriter quite often. Dd likes to use it too. It is a favorite with kids coming over to play. We have a teen here today though who had never seen one before. He was fascinated with our "antique" electronic typewriter!

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

You're missing a category, 'my kids use it occasionally'. I don't, the kids do.

But they are also computer knowledgeable, the typewriter is just for fun.

 

Our typewriter is almost 50 years old. Or maybe a bit more. It's definitely pre-electric typewriter. Really old fashioned, like you see in '30s movies..

[Liz CA]

Ds uses our typewriter quite often. Dd likes to use it too. It is a favorite with kids coming over to play. We have a teen here today though who had never seen one before. He was fascinated with our "antique" electronic typewriter!

 

I learned on a manual "Olympia". You had to bang on those keys to make anything happen.

When I switched to my first computer keyboard I hit so hard that the same letter appeared twenty times. :D

We now have a really antique one from the thirties/forties, it's missing a few components and we cannot type on it. I am not sure one could get an ink band for it???

[Mrs Mungo]

We don't have a typewriter. I got rid of the one I used in college quite a while ago.

[NanceXToo]

I don't have one, haven't had one for many years.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I am not sure one could get an ink band for it???

 

You might be surprised. I was very pleasantly surprised when I've looked for stuff like that.

[Jean in Newcastle]

You're missing a category, 'my kids use it occasionally'. I don't, the kids do.

But they are also computer knowledgeable, the typewriter is just for fun.

 

Our typewriter is almost 50 years old. Or maybe a bit more. It's definitely pre-electric typewriter. Really old fashioned, like you see in '30s movies..

 

I really meant to write "We use it occasionally" so that it would apply to all family members. You're so literal!

[Veritaserum]

I have never owned a typewriter. My parents had one, but once we got our first computer (when I was 6), I think they used that instead. I don't think I've ever typed on a typewriter. :)

[TrixieB]

Yes, I have a typewriter. It is an antique, probably from the 30's or maybe before. Its cloth ribbon still has some ink left, but has holes in a few spots. It takes a lot of finger strength to raise the carriage to type caps. One of my dc enjoys typing on occasion, but even a short sentence takes her a while.

[Ellie]

I did have one until I moved to Texas 6 years ago and gave up my umbrella school. I used it sometimes for records or forms (it was an IBM Selectric). I haven't needed it otherwise.

[laundrycrisis]

I grew up in a house of multiple manual typewriters; heard the sound every night almost from birth; and learned to type on a manual. Somehow after my dad passed away I did not end up with a typewriter.

 

This year I was given a beautiful antique Underwood by someone who was moving. I took it to a repair person who specializes in antique typewriters - he examined it and said it is not restorable because the moving parts have rusted together for too many years. I had really hoped we could restore it because our boys were really excited to type on a typewriter like Jacob Two-two's dad !! So now, I want to get us a working typewriter of some sort. I believe they would enjoy typing on it. They do pretend to type on it though.

[Farrar]

We have one that is probably about a century old - it's pre-electric. It's a lovely bookend and looks pretty neat. The kids like to play with it by pretend typing.

[radiobrain]

We have an electric and a "pretty old one".

 

We have lots of "old technology" in our house. My kids will never have a problem knowing what a lot of goofy stuff is.

 

We have: A rotary phone in the basement, turntables with LPs, tape decks, a reel to reel recorder, a 4 track, cameras from a 4x5 that is around 130 years old on up, slide projector, a b&w mac, a fax machine, a radio with tubes, oh, I could go on... and on...

 

We even have a Geiger counter from the 1950s. :D

[IsabelC]

My kids wouldn't even know what a typewriter is!

My parents had one when I was a child, so I did learn to use it.

[KidsHappen]

No, I don't have a typewriter but I would very much like to have a very old fashioned one for decoration.

[Parrothead]

I do not own a typewriter.

[Caitilin]

I don't have one--and even when I was a kid, we didn't have one. One of my very early memories is playing with the computer my dad had (HUGE! with green letters on black, and giant floppy disks...) but we never had a typewriter till my little brother hit the age of "take stuff apart and look at it." That, though, was after I had moved out. :D

[Amy1k]

No. But, coincidently, just today I looked up a Youtube video to show my daughter what a typewriter is.

[Vanna]

We don't have a typewriter but my kids have seen (and marveled at) old fashioned ones.

 

Dh and I were in Staples a few weeks ago and there was a gentleman purchasing an electric typewriter. I read that they are still widely used esp. by senior citizens.

[Paula in PA]

We actually have two somewhere in the house. One is a huge, ancient electric that I had to use until I finally convinced my mom to get a more modern (1984) one that had built-in correction. My dd has expressed interest in playing around with the newer one, but we haven't located it yet.

[Dawn in OH]

No, but my parents still have the one that I was typing my papers on in high school. Wait, that makes me sound really old. We had a computer, but that was back before I had learned how to use any word processing programs, and I knew how to type because it was a mandatory class for 9th grade.

 

Come to think of it, I don't think my children even know what one looks like.