My next keyboard

[mr_sf_applet]

The Luddite in me is really lusting after this.  Larry McMurtry has been using one for over 30 years and gave tribute to it as "one of the noblest instruments of European genius" at the Golden Globes a couple of years back.

[iMav]

Heck, my PRINTER rarely gets use...no way I'd use a typewriter (no matter how old or iconic it is).  

I learned to type on a manual typewriter in high school (9th grade typing class if I remember correctly).  But I don't have ANY nostalgia related to the typewriter.

[xsphat]

What, no backspace? No forward delete? F that!

[mr_sf_applet]

Hey, and when you keep a key pressed down, it does not repeat. And no N-key rollover either.

But no nostalgia at all for the typewriter? Geez, you guys are no fun.  I not only confess to having a lot of nostalgia for the Hermes 3000, I confess to having typed college term papers and a master of architecture thesis on a Hermes 3000. So it's not only an iconic object for me; seeing an image of it floods my memory bank.

I still have that Hermes that got me through formal academia. Only it's in a storage space in Berkeley now, 400 miles to the north. And it's not the orginal one with the rounded shape as shown in the above link, but a second generation one with a boxier enclosure, still metal, that came out a few years after the first version (and with exactly the same Swiss mechanics).

It's in the later versions after these first two, apparently, that Hermes went to a plastic enclosure and started cutting corners (well, obviously they started adding corners literally, as you can tell by the picture, but they cut corners figuratively in terms of cheaper materials and labor and changes to the mechanical design).

 So I have a square metal Hermes 3000, but I would love to get the earliar rounded metal version. I just think it looks so neat:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/fletchergravy/1352994952/

[mr_sf_applet]

Larry McMurtry's public thank you to the Hermes 3000 apparently had a temporary inflationary effect on prices:

http://theredelectric.blogspot.com/2007/08/typewriter-huggers.html

[iMav]

Don't get me wrong...I GET nostalgia.  And if that typewriter does it for you, you should definitely pick one up if the opportunity presents itself.  We'd love to see some pictures as well!

I've often stared at Ebay auctions for Honda CT-70's (my first motorcycle ever).  It would be SO cool to have one of those around.  Now THAT is some serious nostalgia.

[xsphat]

This is it, you are talking to a writer who's moved around A LOT in his life. Typewriters are cool, but they are heavy to lug around from city to city and house to house. I've had a few in my day, a big 1945 Remington was my first, but I got real sick of moving them, so I dumped them.

I get nostalgic, sure, but note – Clicky Alps switches sound like a typewriter, so maybe that's why I like them so much.

I'll will collect typewriters someday, when I can afford to hire movers.