The Weird Typewriter-Computer Hybrid: Smith Corona PWP-3200

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  • Опубліковано 5 тра 2018
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    In this very chill and laid back video, we take a look at the Smith Corona PWP-3200, a word processing typewriter from the early 1990's. There were a number of products like this available, and while they are an interesting bit of technological history, they are really strange.
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  • Наука та технологія

КОМЕНТАРІ • 2,5 тис.

  • @KevinBerstene
    @KevinBerstene 4 роки тому +1551

    File names are "Cool" and "Cool2". Yup, definitely stuff from high school.

    • @GalbreathSQuin
      @GalbreathSQuin 4 роки тому +99

      I have a word processor a recently bought, and some of it's files are named "oh yeah, fuck, sex, i love tom, babyyyyy, bitch", etc. Definately a used to belong to a highschooler!

    • @julianmorrisco
      @julianmorrisco 3 роки тому +33

      Vigorous pumping! Indeed. I did a typing course more than 20 years ago and we had these miracles of modern technology. Of course, there were some IBM selectrix (or whatever they were called) but they were for exams and finishing students. These Smith Coronas were cheap and cheerful and the mainstay of the school. Although WordPerfect and MS word (DOS) were around, these things hit a sweet spot of space, cost, noise (no computer fans) and edit ability. I still appreciate the workflow - work as if you are on a typewriter, but you can edit and fix typos! Nowadays I just vomit whatever is in my head and edit later, just like everyone else. This works fine, but there is some value in the discipline of having to collect my thoughts before starting to write. I managed to get above 95 wpm using one of these, and although I highly doubt I’m anywhere near that today, I never regret having had formal typing lessons.

    • @VarunGupta3009
      @VarunGupta3009 3 роки тому +16

      You mean High sCOOL?

    • @NoorquackerInd
      @NoorquackerInd 3 роки тому +27

      Yeah sure, I'm in high school and my Google Drive is all "bruh" "bruh2" "agh" "aaaaaaaa" "cringe" "turbo cringe" "frick"

    • @njdotson
      @njdotson 3 роки тому +7

      @@NoorquackerInd unnamed document
      But when on my own pc I name stuff "thing" "cringe" "I won't finish this" "wacky image" "why am I like this"

  • @ZeidKhan
    @ZeidKhan 6 років тому +728

    Every time I hear that "ding" from a typewriter, I'm reminded of being a little kid in the late 80's and early 90's, when computers hadn't been spread far and wide yet. I'd have to type up papers and would go to my local library where they had a long table with several typewriters on it. People would just sit there and type up their papers all day long. I had to have a librarian teach me to use one; she was surprised I never had. After I got my first computer, I remember going into the library one day and being surprised that all the typewriters were gone. They were replaced by computers. Except now, instead of young kids (who couldn't afford computers, trying to type up school reports), it was all old people trying to learn how to use a computer. The same librarian who taught kids how to use typewriters for the first time, was now teaching the elderly to send emails.

    • @asnowballinhell
      @asnowballinhell 4 роки тому +33

      I'd forgotten about library typewriters. How could I forget? IIRC, you had to pay to use the typewriters, 25 cents for set amount of minutes.

    • @chen5chs
      @chen5chs 4 роки тому +33

      @@asnowballinhell this is why typing fast is good

    • @miguelcarmona3036
      @miguelcarmona3036 3 роки тому +20

      Okay this was like super cute wtf. Idk It put a smile on my face

    • @drunkgaming3064
      @drunkgaming3064 2 роки тому +3

      Nice story! It reminded me I was thought in school but it was so weird because we also already had computers. My class was like an introduction though, there were women majoring in being a secretary typists and had more lessons.

    • @glennso47
      @glennso47 2 роки тому

      When I hear the “ding “ from the typewriter, I,m reminded of the song by The Boston Pops Orchestra called “The Typewriter.”

  • @designator7402
    @designator7402 3 роки тому +323

    When he wrote "If I start typei word qords words!!" that really hit me

    • @twongi6044
      @twongi6044 3 роки тому +7

      spoken like a true genius

    • @addammadd
      @addammadd 3 роки тому +10

      Why isn’t this a t shirt?

  • @stewie3126
    @stewie3126 4 роки тому +365

    I had something similar to this when I was getting my masters degree, and its practically impossible to understand how wonderful it was to have a way to create a document and then have it typed out. Prior to that I spent more time manually typing, correcting, use white-out and correction tape, then I did doing the paper. And still my papers were a mess. So the speed of this was not an issue at all because it was a huge time and labor savings!

    • @stephengnb
      @stephengnb 2 роки тому +31

      It must have been a very satisfying sound when you were done writing a paper, then hit print and listened to it rapidly type out your paper that you know doesn't need edits.

    • @C_Floor
      @C_Floor 2 роки тому +3

      Stewart Grifin

    • @ohsoloco5113
      @ohsoloco5113 10 місяців тому

      I had one similar that got me through college in the 90's. I couldn't afford a computer, and I despised going to a computer lab on campus.

  • @lucasrossiemc
    @lucasrossiemc 4 роки тому +990

    "That's why it's called the 'Shift' key, because it shifts the carriage down."
    My mind is blown. One of those things you never question the origin of, but when someone tells you, your face becomes a meme.

    • @spicyweasel
      @spicyweasel 4 роки тому +33

      I think the arrow on the shift key shows that the characters above on the key are activated.

    • @squatchhammer7215
      @squatchhammer7215 4 роки тому +5

      Typewriters either shifted the platten (the roller where the type strikes against) or the Corona basket shift.

    • @therealvbw
      @therealvbw 4 роки тому +13

      BBBBUT THE CARRIAGE MOVES UP!
      I own a typewriter..
      This explains the up arrow coincidentally

    • @dhpbear2
      @dhpbear2 4 роки тому +37

      @@therealvbw Back in the days of typesetting, 'Uppercase' referred the the typefaces in the upper half of the printer's type case!

    • @muppetpaster
      @muppetpaster 4 роки тому +7

      Same as upper/lower case.........

  • @timothymclean
    @timothymclean 6 років тому +2068

    500 years from now, some archaeologist is going to cry in delight at finding a copy of Microsoft Works, only to weep in anguish as he realizes some kid with NO idea of its future historical value wrote over it with his school papers, like an artist who scraped the surface off of Shakespeare's first play for some spare sketching material.
    But hey, at least he has a plot summary for _Twelve Angry Men._

    • @TorreFernand
      @TorreFernand 5 років тому +208

      There's a lot of debate in the TV and radio industry over tapes that were recorded over because "We don't need this episode anymore, might as well give some use to the tape. It's not like anyone will watch it in a few decades, right?"

    • @brickman409
      @brickman409 5 років тому +126

      Fernando Torre
      Yeah I think there's some episodes of Dr who that are lost forever

    • @AnonymousGentooman
      @AnonymousGentooman 5 років тому +126

      To be fair, a floppy disk wouldnt survive those 500 years

    • @xaenon
      @xaenon 5 років тому +28

      @@TorreFernand Yup. Virtually all of material from the old Dumont TV network was dumped New York's East River.

    • @xaenon
      @xaenon 5 років тому +24

      @@AnonymousGentooman I'm honestly surprised it works today.

  • @nuclearpsychopath
    @nuclearpsychopath 4 роки тому +107

    Interesting note about the printing speed of the typewriter, which you called a bit slow: If you look at around 9:20 , the typewriter has to reset to each line to type left-to-right. IBM Wheelwriters of around the same period (which also supported floppy disk external storage) printed documents from memory in boustrophedon - that is, the first line was left-to-right, then the second line was right-to-left, then the third was left-to-right and so on. This saved time as the typewriter did not have to reset the carriage all the way to the left each line. Over a long letter I'm sure this would add up to quite some time savings even if the per-character typing speed was the same as this Smith Corona.

  • @NicholasKruegerMBA
    @NicholasKruegerMBA 4 роки тому +486

    The wife and I got through our undergrads at Memphis State in the 90's with this machine.
    It was awful.
    But I recall you could play a very bad version of Tetris on it.

    • @benny_lemon5123
      @benny_lemon5123 3 роки тому +84

      No matter how clunky, horrid, disappointing the information processing tech human kind ever creates, we always at some point find a way to milk even just a drop of novelty from it. Lol.

    • @Patrick94GSR
      @Patrick94GSR 3 роки тому +6

      hey fellow Memphian over here! I just drove through midtown and East Memphis this morning, actually.

    • @rutgerb
      @rutgerb 3 роки тому +11

      Sounds like a LGR thing

    • @ttun100
      @ttun100 2 роки тому +6

      I had one, it was cheaper than a computer and printer and I wrote many college papers and resumes on it.

    • @arfansthename
      @arfansthename 2 роки тому +2

      does it use wasd or arrow keys?

  • @zappawoman5183
    @zappawoman5183 6 років тому +377

    I had one of these! I worked as a secretary for a Private Investigator, typing up reports and bills on this typewriter. I got good at lining up the text because it would tell me how many characters were left. Minimised mistakes as well!
    ETA: The sounds, oh my the nostalgia!

    • @PanAndScanBuddy
      @PanAndScanBuddy 3 роки тому +8

      I'm sorry but it's funny to hear "I was a secretary for a private investigator" and have you waxing nostalgic about the typewriter.
      Like, I know we're all here for cool typewriter facts so I am not passing any judgement when I say this, but it's funny lol

  • @SentientMeatbag
    @SentientMeatbag 6 років тому +127

    16:00 The @-key was used in billing to show pricing for items, for example: 6 eggs @ $0.15 = $0.75

    • @DigitalRX2r
      @DigitalRX2r 5 років тому +40

      6 @ $0.15 would be $0.90 though.

    • @brendancarlson1678
      @brendancarlson1678 4 роки тому +49

      Meatbag gives a volume discount.

    • @GraveUypo
      @GraveUypo 4 роки тому +13

      @ is the symbol for weight we use for cows in brazil. one @ = 15kg

    • @ian_b
      @ian_b 4 роки тому +24

      @@GraveUypo Your cows only weigh 15kg? Why do you have such tiny cows?

    • @ian_b
      @ian_b 4 роки тому +19

      @@GraveUypo I just loved the image of all these tiny 1@ cows running around :)

  • @gryphonsong4082
    @gryphonsong4082 Рік тому +11

    Omg, I would LOVE to have something so simplified. Just typing and printing. No ads, no unnecessary software, and other then the ribbons and corrective tap, no mess! It does exactly what you want. It’s why I had a typewriter, but if I had one that took key drives instead of floppy disks, I’d be set!

  • @MikeRoberts1964
    @MikeRoberts1964 3 роки тому +41

    I had one of these in the early 90s. Ironically, years later I was in a stationary store to buy a replacement ribbon for it and while waiting in line, saw a copy of Tomb Raider 2 in the remainder bin, bought it, installed it on my computer that I'd bought in the meantime and fell in love with video games and started writing by doing Tomb Raider fan fiction on the SC 3200, then started writing original fiction....20 years and a dozen novels later, I can say that it all started on/ because of this machine.

  • @TorreFernand
    @TorreFernand 5 років тому +84

    9:27 I find it hilarious that it "Angrily" types 12 angry men just because it's underlined

    • @deusexaethera
      @deusexaethera 3 роки тому +2

      Yeah, no. It's typing the underline separately, because otherwise it would need a separate set of typefaces for underlined vs. non-underlined characters.

    • @HimanXK
      @HimanXK 3 роки тому +8

      @@deusexaethera right, which makes it come across as angry because it's slowed down and hitting the paper twice per letter

    • @deusexaethera
      @deusexaethera 3 роки тому

      @Alice Eliot: I certainly hope that isn't a complaint about me being un-entertaining, because you're posting on a video about vintage office equipment.
      I'm fun at the kinds of parties I get invited to, because I know things and I don't always say exactly what is expected of me.

    • @_ikako_
      @_ikako_ 3 роки тому +4

      @@deusexaethera do you also correct people when they tell a joke that isn't scientifically accurate?

    • @Milamberinx
      @Milamberinx 3 роки тому +1

      @@_ikako_ what Shawn said wasn't even a correction (even though he started "Yeah, no") he just restated Fernando's comment in a terribly boring way. If he'd managed to impart any information that's not bleeding obvious maybe he'd get invited to more parties.

  • @DrewberTravels
    @DrewberTravels 6 років тому +109

    My grandmother had one of these computer typewriters. Probably not this specific brand, though. One day in grade school I had to write a paper for school and type it. I was at my grandmothers and asked her to use one of these machines to do it. I typed the whole thing out chicken peck style. Once I was done, like an hour later... we couldn't figure out how to get the stupid thing to print. Frustrated my grandmother just walked over to her traditional typewriter she had in the office and typed the thing out in 5 minutes. She said she knew I did it so she didn't mind.

    • @CableFlame
      @CableFlame 4 роки тому +5

      My grandmother had a much earlier model from the same company: a PWP-80. I'll never forget that thing, nor the sound it made when it booted up.

    • @AmberAmber
      @AmberAmber 4 роки тому +5

      Awww Sweet gramas both XO

  • @maxis2k
    @maxis2k 3 роки тому +95

    Aside from it being very slow in some areas, I love these kinds of devices. Something that puts mechanical processes into an electronic device fascinates me.

    • @thegardenofeatin5965
      @thegardenofeatin5965 Рік тому +4

      I have this concept in my head I keep trying to find an outlet for.
      Modern computers, which are millions of times faster than this old Smith-Corona, are used for largely the same tasks as this. People use computers for very manual tasks with just the barest hint of automation, like spell check and whatnot. Word processing hasn't really improved much in the last 20 years, despite Word bloating like a pregnant sow.

    • @blakksheep736
      @blakksheep736 4 місяці тому

      ​@@thegardenofeatin5965 I beg to differ. Different fonts, font sizes, font colours, highlighter colors, page colours, bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, headers, footers, landscape, page sizes, tables, spreadsheets and forever on. Heck, if you told someone at the time of this device a day will come where you can put _videos_ in a text document, they wouldn't believe it, but here we are.

  • @kommstein5692
    @kommstein5692 2 роки тому +22

    love how this is unscripted because of how most of it is based on his personal experience, and not only that, he presented it so well

  • @BenMarvin
    @BenMarvin 6 років тому +87

    Holy crap! My family had one of those. It was the only computer in the house till my brother and I fished an IBM AT and IBM XT out of the dumpster of a nearby business park. They were covered in food waste, but still worked. Although smelled like baked beans when turned on.

    • @willythemailboy2
      @willythemailboy2 6 років тому

      My family had several. I spent a lot of hours on these things.

    • @richfiles
      @richfiles 6 років тому +32

      No one will ever need more than 640 Kilobeans of odor emanating from their PC.

    • @nelsonbrum8496
      @nelsonbrum8496 4 роки тому

      🤣

    • @magusperde365
      @magusperde365 Рік тому

      The AT and XT keyboards are probably worth more now than anything else

  • @TechnologyConnections
    @TechnologyConnections  6 років тому +492

    This video is just pretty chill. I've had this thing in my collection for years and wanted to show it to you. There's not much of a point here, but I hope you find it interesting. There _will_ be a point, though, for next week!

    • @quinius173
      @quinius173 6 років тому +5

      Great video!

    • @mystica-subs
      @mystica-subs 6 років тому +6

      I had a simpler Smith Corona word processor since the early 90s or late 80s.. 2 line LCD display maybe 60 chars wide maybe less... I wrote a lot of school assignments in my life on it and it was tedious as hell to write multiple pages into 2 lines. But it worked! It's so cool seeing this more featureful version. Thanks!

    • @Dallen9
      @Dallen9 6 років тому

      What would have been cool/funny is if you showed of the MS Word version of one of these typewriters.

    • @kelli217
      @kelli217 6 років тому +2

      I am not sure what you mean by "showed off the MS Word version". Can you elaborate?

    • @JasonHalversonjaydog
      @JasonHalversonjaydog 6 років тому +3

      i owned one of those, except mine was a Brother brand. had it back around the mid-late 90's i think it was. the "word eraser" wasnt' exclusive to smith corona, my Brother had that too, just a slightly different name. had a word eraser and a line eraser where you could delete the whole line with one button

  • @kleiton__
    @kleiton__ 4 роки тому +23

    That corona in the title pushed this back into my recommended, hell yeah

  • @someguy2135
    @someguy2135 3 роки тому +22

    Years ago, I worked at a store that sold these things. I sold a personal word processor to George Carlin. I can't remember the brand or model, but it had a cathode ray tube (CRT) display. This was the early days of computers and some people preferred a dedicated machine because of various reasons, including a lack of interest in learning to use a computer. Another reason was to simplify things. Everything was designed to work together, instead of trying to get the software to work with the computer, or the printer to work with the computer, etc.

    • @JrIcify
      @JrIcify Рік тому +1

      Even though I love custom PCs and open software, part of me would love for this mentality to come back.

    • @Dave-dh7rt
      @Dave-dh7rt Рік тому +1

      George carlin was the goat!! Rest in peace!

  • @matthehat
    @matthehat 6 років тому +86

    I have a real soft spot for machines like this - not quite a full computer, but not quite a "dumb" device either. Great video, keep up the good work.

    • @matthewghali2987
      @matthewghali2987 6 років тому +5

      Matthew Harrison (matthehat) if it had a serial port to hook a modem, it would have been perfect to hit the BBSes back then!

    • @Chriva
      @Chriva 4 роки тому +3

      Funnily enough, many of them actually had some horsepower. It was just a matter of dumbing the software down and remove any means of video output.

  • @BlueMastic
    @BlueMastic 6 років тому +132

    The shelves in the background are so much more beautiful than the greenscreen. I really like it!

    • @Elesario
      @Elesario 6 років тому +4

      IKEA at its finest :D

    • @meeder78
      @meeder78 6 років тому +2

      Agreed!

    • @zivizivi2328
      @zivizivi2328 6 років тому +2

      meh too busy and distracting. just like under my desk

  • @rigilpaix
    @rigilpaix 4 роки тому +23

    AHA! A fellow They Might Be Giants fan! I saw two file names, “Palindrome” and “Birdhouse” and wondered, but when you opened Palindrome, it had the lyrics to I Palindrome I!

    • @bordershader
      @bordershader 2 роки тому +3

      When I think about it, it makes perfect sense he'd be a TMBG fan. 👍👏👏

  • @wayneyoung8647
    @wayneyoung8647 3 роки тому +55

    When reviewing items like these, please keep in mind their era and technology level of that era. I had a similar machine and it seemed like magic. I was able to create an entire training program for a restaurant chain on that machine and output the manuscript by myself. No mean feat for the time.

    • @RRaquello
      @RRaquello 2 роки тому +4

      People may laugh at this, but I remember the first time I saw an electronic calculator. It was a Bowmar Brain, and they had them set up in the TV section of Korvettes, a now defunct department store. You were allowed to try out the display models, and we kids thought they were an absolute miracle. We'd stand there for a half hour just punching in and adding and subtracting and dividing numbers, wishing we had one to do our homework with. They cost about a hundred dollars (a hundred 1973 dollars, that is), so were way beyond even wishing for. The dawn of the computer age!

    • @wayneyoung8647
      @wayneyoung8647 2 роки тому +1

      @@RRaquello I remember the Texas Instruments calculator my father bought in 1976 for his contracting business. It was rechargeable and had a case to carry it in. I was allowed to check my homework with it. Great stuff!

    • @RRaquello
      @RRaquello 2 роки тому +4

      @@wayneyoung8647 My brother got a Texas Instruments calculator for his birthday one year, and we all considered it an outrageously expensive present (this was around 1977 or 78), but our parents justified it because he was an accounting student and needed it for school. What we actually did most with it was stuff like figuring out batting averages. The TI calculator also did mathematical and scientific formulas, so it was more advanced than the Bowmar Brain. We spent hours with that calculator and the Baseball Encyclopedia just making up our own categories of statistics and percentages and figuring them on the calculator. I guess an early version of Moneyball.

    • @blakksheep736
      @blakksheep736 4 місяці тому

      ​@@RRaquello and now calculators cost nothing. Sometimes less than nothing. And not in all that long, too. It's great.

  • @stockicide
    @stockicide 6 років тому +31

    It felt so weird when I first discovered that a "word processor" used to be a physical machine instead of just a piece of software. Most people probably assume we jumped straight from typewriters to terminals.

    • @fun_ghoul
      @fun_ghoul 4 роки тому

      Terminals is a funny word to use there. Made me think of the Bell Canada "Alex" thing my uncle used to have back in the day, ostensibly for stock ticker info but...there were also chat rooms and he was a single twentysomething in Montreal. Anyway, the device was weird. Thanks for the flashback.

    • @Solitaire001
      @Solitaire001 3 роки тому +2

      Before getting our first PC at work we had a CPT Word Processor. It used 7" floppy disks that could hold 100 documents, and had a printwheel printer that was so loud that it was put in a sound-dampening enclosure. Due to low amount of memory it had you could do copy and paste or justified printing, but you had to reload the OS to change from one to the other.

  • @AirborneSurfer
    @AirborneSurfer 6 років тому +262

    You used this in high school because you were a retro nerd. I used this in high school because it's what we had! 😜
    Also: keep the jacket. I dig it!

    • @tanya5322
      @tanya5322 4 роки тому +3

      AirborneSurfer I had a similar electronic typewriter in college, but it did not have any removable memory option.
      And those small floppies that looked like a slice of American cheese were still somewhat new

  • @BillReals
    @BillReals Рік тому +8

    Had one of these in college for my 1st year in college, it was cheaper than a computer. It had the uncanny ability to lose your "word processing" documents if you lose power and didn't save it. Finally straw was when I lost a 25 page paper on it because I forgot to save and we briefly lost power. Also, it was slow, like you pointed out. I bought a computer the next week.

  • @bdeschamps1
    @bdeschamps1 4 роки тому +5

    I remember when we got one of these... Was learning English at the time, and was trying to type "what do you want to be when you grow up", as "waddaya" (beepbeep), "wadaya" (beepbeep), "wadaia" (beepbepp)!

  • @Tangobaldy
    @Tangobaldy 6 років тому +408

    This wasn't slow it was an amazing thing to own. By today's standards it's awful but back then it was epic

    • @BertGrink
      @BertGrink 6 років тому +32

      I agree; i bet anyone who owned one of these would be the envy of their peers, back then.

    • @RacerX-
      @RacerX- 6 років тому +49

      It was epic if you didn't have a computer. I remember messing with these in the store and used to wonder how the heck people used these they are so slow. I had a C64 and an Amiga at the time and later a Macintosh so compared to these it was hard to use a WP like this. If you did have a computer it was 1000 times better speed, even the C64.

    • @rimmersbryggeri
      @rimmersbryggeri 6 років тому +15

      Its no slower than an Apple Laser Writer. They were fucking shit toock up way more room and were less reliable than this like all early laser printers were. The other drawback was that a computer with a printer cost more than a car and the screen of a contemporary macintosh was no bigger and black and white. At least any macintosh anybody would have at home. Ibm compatibles were still very expensive to . Just a hard drive would cost more than this whole machine.

    • @RacerX-
      @RacerX- 6 років тому +8

      +tarstarkusz. Yeah I know what you mean. 40 columns was sometimes a pain. But with the right software it wasn't so bad. I did have (and still do) the RAM expander, and with GEOS it was great.
      As for the Amiga it was a no brainer. There was plenty of software in my neck of the woods in California. In my small area, hardly a metropolis, there was no less then 6 places that sold Amiga and software. I never bought software from mail order, and never had a problem finding anything I needed. In fact in the early 1990s the A500 was easy to get in a bundle for about $200 with a tv adapter, word processor, games, and RAM expansion. Of course by 1992 it was a bit out dated but still a much better experience then the likes of this WPS.
      I am not sure why people say that software was hard to find in the USA because it certainly was not my experience. Plenty of software and hardware to choose from. If you look at the manufacturers of add ons and software for the Amiga most of them where from the USA. All you have to do is browse an old issue of Amiga World or Compute! of the time to see what I mean.

    • @TalesOfWar
      @TalesOfWar 6 років тому +8

      I had one of these. THey were a joy to use before computers were more common and reasonably priced. Oh, and when printers stopped sucking (quality wise, they still suck in terms of usability and software lol).

  • @53pittmanjt
    @53pittmanjt 4 роки тому +107

    This makes me feel really old. I remember the huge step forward of graduating from a manual typewriter to an electric, and then to typing Nirvana: an IBM Selectric with (gasp) built-in correction capabilities. Exotica like this PWP-3200 weren't even imaginable. Horribly slow, clumsy, noisy? Yup, but that depends on where you were sitting at the time. Great video. Wish I'd had one then but glad I don't have one now.

    • @PhthaloType
      @PhthaloType 3 роки тому +6

      What makes me feel old was he graduated high school in 2012.

    • @PanAndScanBuddy
      @PanAndScanBuddy 3 роки тому +3

      Imagine typing UA-cam comments on a typewriter! That would be dope. Really feel the weight of the words.

    • @russlehman2070
      @russlehman2070 3 роки тому +3

      Having gone through college typing term papers on a manual typewriter, I can appreciate what a step up even this was. Though it is tediously slow and clunky compared to a modern (or even 1990) PC with word processing software and a decent printer, just the fact that you have some editing capability gives it a huge advantage over any regular typewriter, even an IBM Selectric. With a typewriter, editing usually consists of throwing a way one or more pages and starting over.
      OTOH, that daisy wheel print head looks like it would break if you sneezed at it.

    • @dwightl5863
      @dwightl5863 3 роки тому +1

      @@russlehman2070 To be honest those daisy wheels very durable.

  • @godofcows4649
    @godofcows4649 4 роки тому +17

    If you couldn't afford a computer nor access it in university years ago, I bet this thing would have been a godsend back then

    • @tut2tut2
      @tut2tut2 11 місяців тому

      You're right, it was!

  • @MibaCallabus
    @MibaCallabus 11 місяців тому +2

    We got a word processor like this for Christmas in 94...I was enthralled. We never had a type writer in the house and I'd never used a computer at that point. I wrote prolifically as a kid but all by hand - having a machine to save, edit and print my work was a dream! I think I still have a folder of stories I wrote and printed somewhere...

  • @leogrievous
    @leogrievous 6 років тому +321

    Can you please upload a second video where you let the typeriter print an 10 Page document? I could watch the printprocess forever.

    • @MrOliverock
      @MrOliverock 6 років тому +32

      He should do a 10 hours of video.

    • @DarthVader1977
      @DarthVader1977 5 років тому +17

      let the typewriter* print a* 10 page document

    • @DarthVader1977
      @DarthVader1977 5 років тому +14

      @@MrOliverock He should *do* *10* *hours* *of* *video.*

    • @asailijhijr
      @asailijhijr 5 років тому +10

      @@DarthVader1977 too many asterisks *bolds* the text.

    • @dj33036
      @dj33036 5 років тому +5

      I agree, there's something really fascinating about the way they work and the sound they make.

  • @lixielabs
    @lixielabs 6 років тому +466

    The jacket is back because "because".
    You show them haters, TC. :D

    • @megabojan1993
      @megabojan1993 6 років тому +10

      Fuck the haters. That's what I always say :)

    • @call_me_stan5887
      @call_me_stan5887 6 років тому +11

      i.imgur.com/mPBa8K3.png

    • @youreperfectstudio7931
      @youreperfectstudio7931 6 років тому +8

      The jacket is sexy!

    • @zombiegeek33
      @zombiegeek33 6 років тому +9

      i think he is cute with or without the jacket

    • @youreperfectstudio7931
      @youreperfectstudio7931 6 років тому +10

      Well Naomi Campbell is still sexy naked but is even more sexy with Victoria's Secret underwear on. I think its kind of the same thing but with a jacket in this case.

  • @l.petriconi2647
    @l.petriconi2647 3 роки тому +9

    We had two of these in our family, from Olivetti. I wrote my masters thesis on it in 1999. I was happy with it, although while printing the thesis the printing cylinder became too hot, did not grab the paper anymore and came off somehow. I fixed it with Loctite and reduced the number of pages I printed to avoid too much heat. It was the last time I used the machine.

  • @labrat256
    @labrat256 2 роки тому +5

    I'm going through the Technology Connections back catalogue and I felt the need to whistle the tune of some "strikingly smooth jazz" at the end.

  • @MickeyD2012
    @MickeyD2012 6 років тому +35

    I like the jacket. It gives you an air of professionalism without conceit.

    • @fun_ghoul
      @fun_ghoul 4 роки тому

      I'd say it's more of an air of "You'll need a jacket to enter the dining room, sir."

  • @Cadwaladr
    @Cadwaladr 6 років тому +83

    When I was in college there was someone in one of my classes who had one of these, and this was in 1998, so it was pretty outdated by that point. Also they were trying to print something during class and the professor was not very pleased.

    • @digitalfootballer9032
      @digitalfootballer9032 5 років тому +25

      I was still using mine in 2000 when I was a senior in college. My housemates mocked it ruthlessly, lol. So I would punish them by printing up my reports bright and early in the morning! And as you know, it sounded like a jackhammer.

    • @cat.professor.
      @cat.professor. 5 років тому +10

      I would always end up printing my papers at 3 am and my roommates hated it for me. I sometimes would put a pillow over it to try to muffle up the sounds. Ha ha. @@digitalfootballer9032

    • @marcusdamberger
      @marcusdamberger 4 роки тому

      @@digitalfootballer9032 Serves them right! You should have printed up at 3am like @Cathleen Daniel did!

  • @tubebobwil
    @tubebobwil 4 роки тому +14

    I owned one, it got me through the first couple years of college! Loved it.

  • @WhatCanSmith
    @WhatCanSmith Рік тому +4

    These were awesome...I used to type up dumb spec scripts as a kid and print them out on these...THE PRINTING IS FUN TO WATCH! 😊

  • @saintpine
    @saintpine 6 років тому +23

    Around 1983 I left the old noisy and nerve wrecking Olivetti Typewriter with the rotating ball head and worked on what looked like an IBM compatible, it was an Olivetti wordprocessor with monocrome CRT and wordprocessor dedicated keyboard. One thing I miss was the incredibly intelligent and soft feel of the screen scroll. Unfortunately a few years later I did my military service and had to work on a honeywell bull card perforating machine, the printer was an estreemly fast and noisy parallel head 132 column printer. Practical a drum across the sheet had all the letters and numbers for each of the 132 positions. The drum would roll at a high speed and 132 hammers would hit on the right (or write) time. The same noise 132 manual typewriters would make working together in a small room

    • @tanya5322
      @tanya5322 4 роки тому

      saintpine I can remember taking an intro to computers summer school course ... probably in the very late 1970s, or maybe early 1980s. The class had an Olivetti ... I’m not sure if it was an actual PC or a terminal. I don’t remember much about the printer it was paired with, but I do remember that the keyboard had a much nicer ‘feel’ to it, in my opinion of course. It’s a tactical response that still look for in keyboards today.

  • @Nauctshea
    @Nauctshea 6 років тому +14

    My grandmother had one of these in the early 90's. I remember playing with it a little bit. When my grandparents were living in England for a few years we received many letters typed on that machine. It seemed very professional at the time and the print quality for text was much better than a dot matrix printer.

  • @rydoggo
    @rydoggo 4 роки тому +609

    2 years ago: huh this is cool
    Now: haha "corona"
    Me: no.... stop...

    • @deusexaethera
      @deusexaethera 3 роки тому +23

      The coincidence really isn't that funny, I don't get why people keep saying it. Are people searching UA-cam for any instance of the word "corona" just to make coronavirus-related comments on them?

    • @rydoggo
      @rydoggo 3 роки тому +15

      @@deusexaethera it really isn't funny. I'm saying people need to stop.

    • @deusexaethera
      @deusexaethera 3 роки тому +2

      @@rydoggo: Oh, gotcha. Amazing how easy it is to misinterpret things. I thought you were telling the eerie coincidence to "stop".

    • @locke103
      @locke103 3 роки тому +2

      @@rydoggo it gets old. my hometown is also named corona, a melting pot within new york. super mario rpg, a few enemies had a spell named corona.
      seriously, people can screw off with... whatever this even is. i'd be hard pressed to even call this basic human stupidity.

    • @ashkitt7719
      @ashkitt7719 3 роки тому +2

      This typewriter killed gramgram

  • @solventdonkey
    @solventdonkey 4 роки тому +13

    I remember my mum using a word processor for work and my sister getting one when she was at college as we didn't have a computer. Great video it brought back some memories

  • @ChadWSmith
    @ChadWSmith 6 років тому +134

    In 1992, I was a freshman in High School, and we took "Keyboarding" class on a Word processor / Typewriter hybrid. It wasn't the machine in your video. What we had was a much simpler machine.
    It actually had a normal daisy wheel (not a daisy wheel printer) and it did not have a disc drive. I believe the screen was only 2 or 3 lines tall, and you could only type one line at a time. Once you hit enter, it would print the whole line.
    The next year, we got a room full of computers and idk what happened to those word processors.

    • @MattMcIrvin
      @MattMcIrvin 6 років тому +12

      In the mid-1980s in my freshman year of college, I briefly used an IBM Wheelwriter that was even simpler: it didn't have an LCD, but it had enough RAM in it to store the last line or so of text, and it had a lift-off correction ribbon in addition to the regular ribbon. Those things together meant that even though you were typing directly to the paper, you could delete the last few words you were typing just by pressing a delete key--it would remember what characters to type to make the lift-off ribbon do its thing, much like this gadget here in "type mode". Like this Smith-Corona, it used a daisy wheel rather than a type ball.
      But it wasn't long before I got hold of a computer that could handle a usable word processor (an Atari ST) and never looked back. I'd already gotten used to using WordStar and WordPerfect on my dad's computer at home, so I wasn't going to stand for using typewriters for very long.

    • @olik136
      @olik136 6 років тому +8

      Sad is, that I took a class 10 years later to learn how to type- and they would give us actual typewriters... in 2002..analog, mechanic typewriters... the class did cost money

    • @MrGoatflakes
      @MrGoatflakes 6 років тому +1

      Lol you couldn't pay me to do take that class +Oli K. Unless I was writing a novel or something. Actually no, even then, I'd rather just write it in Notepad++, Notepad has blown up on me too many times when I hit the (16k or is it 64k? can't memba). Is that still even a thing? Lol.
      Actually I'd even rather do a novel in Vi or something horrid like that rather than having the torture of typing on a typewriter or even worse writing it out long hand :x And yes I have even used Vi on a ancient piece of shit SunOS 4 or some crap. In a terminal. Over dial up.
      Hell, I've even done "word processing" on a "TRS-80 Color Computer II" "64kb" (yes I am quite sure they used to say KB or kb not kB and mean 1024 BYTES not bits) "home computer" with a "word processor" "cartridge". Without so much as disc, tape or even printer. So the document would vanish as soon as anyone else wanted to use the computer. What I would do was type in any notes I'd made earlier when I didn't have access to the computer or compose on the computer. Then edit it till I was happy with it or more likely someone else needed the computer. Then as we didn't have a printer or anyway to save work, I'd literally copy it out with a pen and paper. Only to have to type it all in again if it needed further "word processing".
      It was still faster than using my portable mechanical underwood typewriter, which I sucked at, although if I would have thought to use scissors and glue to "cut and paste" actual paper then perhaps the underwood would have won out, because it was the cutting and pasting not so much the typing that saved me real time and made it easier to write and organise my thoughts.
      Because as primitive as it was, 32x16 characters on a screen at a time and MUCH less than 64kb useful memory total for the text itself, not that I ever managed to get that big, that's like a good sized book chapter maybe, and was in grade school, you could do useful work by reorganising disjointed ideas and putting them into a coherent structure by actually "cut and paste"ing and I found it WAY easier to going about my writing that fluid way,
      Although I'd probably just had manually cuntpasted actually longhand and then copy it out neatly when I was done, that's how much I hated using the damn thing. It jammed a lot cause the arms were bent from me and my brothers abusing it from pressing multiple keys at once, before we knew this was bad. And I in any case found it near impossible to get the requisite speed with it to actually form thoughts and put them down onto paper with the mechanical portable underwood typewriter.
      Although I liked the idea of it, and occasionally I would even type manually the "final word processed draft" manually out by hand if I wanted it to look extra spiffy. Fuck what a hideous workflow. Although it was a revolution over writing into an exercise book of actual paper with a pen or pencil, as fucked as that sounds, it's true. Now we have workflows verging on the magical, and equally magical distractions to make sure you get even less done between arguing and pontificating on social media and watching cat videos and leveling your paladin and learning how to program and writing toy programs to make sure "know how to program" without actual ever writing anything particularly useful...

    • @johnfrancisdoe1563
      @johnfrancisdoe1563 6 років тому +3

      Oli K Those fully mechanical typewriters teach touch-typing much better than computers with all their distractions. Except one major issue: They teach you to hit the keys harder, which increases the risk of RSI where using actual computers. Been there, got the bandages.

    • @tinnagigja3723
      @tinnagigja3723 6 років тому +1

      I lived in Iceland, so we had (probably) those same machines under some "teachy-sounding" Icelandic title, so I haven't been able to find them. A failure of my google-fu.
      Who made those things? What are they called? Keyboard trainers?

  • @RMoribayashi
    @RMoribayashi 6 років тому +17

    Back in the day this type of machine was popular in college classrooms that allowed them, even ones that didn't run on batteries (but God help you if someone tripped on you power cord). Both the word processing functions and the printer seemed more than fast enough back then because most people who used them had nothing faster to compare them to. When I first used the DOS version of Word Perfect on an IBM PC in the late 1980's I was astonished just how fast it was compared to what I had been accustomed to.

  • @mikewesthead477
    @mikewesthead477 2 роки тому +2

    Wow this takes me back! I used an early variant of this machine I bought in 1989 to do my college course. As my first ever experience of owning a 'computer' at home it was really exciting. My version of this machine didn't even use a 3.25" drive, but used it's own proprietary disks with just 100K characters of storage per disk! (compared to a dreamy 512K characters of the later machine seen here with the standard 3.25" disk drive.) Yes it was slow, but as my very first experience of word processing at home, it was still thrilling to use. I remember printing off assignments taking forever and the noise of that daisy wheel printer echoing around the house. I also remember how expensive it was to run. The cartridge holding the typewriter tapes were forever running out as the plastic ribbon only had one pass under the daisy wheel. You could buy circulating fabric ribbons but the quality wasn't as good and soon started to fade. Add to this the expense of the correction tapes and the disks and this was not a cheap beast to run! The 100K disks came in packs of 2 for around £10 (about $13) Wow! Nevertheless, this machine served me well for three years before I upgraded to the legendary Amstrad PCW9512 in 1992. (You should make a video about that awesome machine! To give you some idea why machines like these had a market, when I upgraded again in 1993 to my first proper Windows PC with its 386SX processor and 40MB hard drive (yes MB not GB) it cost me around £1000!!! Unbelievable!

  • @julysimeona9756
    @julysimeona9756 3 роки тому +10

    Why am I even watching this? I have never owned or used one of these things.
    The click clacks the machine makes as it types are relaxing though.

  • @Jaymac720
    @Jaymac720 4 роки тому +500

    This is basically Microsoft word: hardware edition

    • @Aragubas
      @Aragubas 4 роки тому +13

      that's why is soo slow

    • @ZaHandle
      @ZaHandle 4 роки тому +7

      Microsoft Words the more reliable version

    • @HomeofLawboy
      @HomeofLawboy 3 роки тому +16

      So like, Microhard Word right

    • @ChaseMC215
      @ChaseMC215 3 роки тому +1

      True

    • @liamsamples2965
      @liamsamples2965 3 роки тому +7

      @@HomeofLawboy Macrohard*

  • @dvdemon187
    @dvdemon187 6 років тому +37

    Last year I actually had to repair two very similar machines from Brother: the LW-200 and LW-250.
    An elderly customer of mine still prefers them to her state-of-the-art office pc when it comes to certain tasks.
    Why? Because: BECAUSE

    • @Xilog
      @Xilog 5 років тому +2

      She just likes to do it the old way

    • @b3h8t1n
      @b3h8t1n 4 роки тому

      I'm the same way with my brother wp1700😏

  • @wranglerboi
    @wranglerboi 2 роки тому

    I'm amazed that you (or anyone) even has one of these machines. This is exactly what I used my first year of teaching! It was unquestionably faster than my hunt-and-peck method of typing PLUS it allowed me to correct errors "on the fly." It was both a time and headache saver since I often had to do many duplicate copies of a single document. Using the standard carbon paper sheets of the time on a standard typewriter meant that even one mistake in the document required retyping EVERYTHING all over again. With this machine, I could type and edit the document into memory, save it to disk, and then type as many copies as I wanted after that--using carbon paper--to perfection! A year later Apple came out with their APPLE I computer (which was quickly replaced by the Apple II) with it's true word "processing" capability--and this machine became an overnight dinosaur. But, either way, these became (for me) a true time saver--more because I only had to correct errors once (on my screen proof copy), and then I could make as many copies as needed, even if they were a week, month, or even year apart--thanks to the document's being saved on disk.

  • @DubleMeano
    @DubleMeano 4 роки тому +6

    This showed up ony newsfeed due to the word Corona. Stayed for the great presentation!

  • @dunebasher1971
    @dunebasher1971 6 років тому +26

    My wife had one of these in the early 90s. It only had a 3-line display and no media drive, but it was fantastic for things like job application forms where you had to fill in your personal statement in a large box. All you had to do was photocopy the form a few times to give you some practice sheets, and you could use trial and error to work up a typed statement that fitted *exactly* into the box.

    • @joeltunnah
      @joeltunnah 4 роки тому +3

      dunebasher1971, funny that we fill all forms now by hand pretty much. But yes I remember filling forms out with a typewriter in the 80’s.
      I suppose now you could scan it in, convert to PDF, and then edit it directly.

  • @JerryEricsson
    @JerryEricsson 6 років тому +6

    When my good wife of 48 years and I wed, she was the proud owner of an old Remington portable typewriter. We used the hell out of it for personal letters and what ever needed to be typed, even my kids used it just a little when they were in grade school. When the end of those word processors was in sight, I purchased a cheaper model that had only one line of text but did have spell checker built in so it made me a much better writer. By the time Workers Comp sent me to college for "re-education" the day of the computer was at hand. I found a third hand laptop computer, a 386 SX with monochrome, that served me through college and got me hooked on laptops. Anyhow thanks a billion for the video, it brought back some great memories of days long gone now.

    • @matthewghali2987
      @matthewghali2987 6 років тому +1

      Jerry Ericsson thanks for the stories, and reminding viewers that not everyone's family could afford a new computer, no matter how much "better" they were. There's so many negative comments in this thread, so its nice hearing a few more grounded stories. Take care!

  • @floridaredneck
    @floridaredneck Рік тому +2

    My S.C. PWP had a separate monitor and the screen on the typewriter was smaller, I guess since I had a monitor, you didn't need it. So you could read nearly a page and easily make corrections with the arrows and back button. It was so neat it made me want to write letters. It was really cool to sit back and watch it type. Sadly, I sent it to a friend when I got a PC and apparently there was a paper clip between the keys and it shorted out when he plugged it in. Things progress so rapidly now that we've become unimpressed with even the most sophisticated stuff. The PWPs were so groundbreaking compared to a typewriter, or at least they seemed that way at the time.

  • @_mikesacco
    @_mikesacco 4 роки тому +223

    "Corona"
    So relevant

    • @Hansengineering
      @Hansengineering 4 роки тому +3

      delete this

    • @Pidalin
      @Pidalin 4 роки тому +3

      I wanted write that when I saw that, I didn't expect someone noticed that before. :-D

    • @josephnevin
      @josephnevin 4 роки тому +6

      @@Hansengineering wish I could but I'm all out of correction tape 😅😅

    • @justuni8735
      @justuni8735 4 роки тому +1

      i wonder why we got this recommendation......

    • @MrGollum1996
      @MrGollum1996 4 роки тому

      Hol up

  • @Misha-dr9rh
    @Misha-dr9rh 4 роки тому +181

    The sound that thing makes when it starts is the manliest thing i've ever heard.
    *(SLAM) (BUZZ) (CLUNK) (BUZZ)*
    If only it was powered by buff beard-wearing men shoveling coal into a steam engine.

    • @acoolerhandle
      @acoolerhandle 4 роки тому +14

      In a way, It could be, considering coal power plants are a thing.

    • @Milamberinx
      @Milamberinx 3 роки тому +9

      I used the typewriter of the secretary in my dad's company a few times, it would have been an IBM Selectric with the golf ball. That thing was TERRIFYING.

    • @qrstasdf6473
      @qrstasdf6473 3 роки тому

      1:15

  • @nickstadler1906
    @nickstadler1906 4 роки тому +256

    Beginning of the video: "This machine is slow."
    Me: "Slow? Ha! Clearly, this guy's never used a manual typewriter."
    Middle of video: (Pulls out an old manual typewriter)

    • @areoants9453
      @areoants9453 4 роки тому +35

      Even better when he actually started typing on it, with moderate speed to boot!

    • @PinoyBowlerGS92
      @PinoyBowlerGS92 4 роки тому +9

      Imagine a virus would get in the “Corona” Typewritter-Computer.

    • @fun_ghoul
      @fun_ghoul 4 роки тому +14

      @@PinoyBowlerGS92 It's not susceptible to viruses, but you could probably type up some grade A hysterical paranoia on it.

    • @locke103
      @locke103 3 роки тому +2

      @@ericolens3 ...not the worst thing i heard from an inept computer user, but it's just made my top five.

    • @PanAndScanBuddy
      @PanAndScanBuddy 3 роки тому +2

      I imagined you pulling out your own manual typewriter like "I'll show you what slow is!"

  • @oppalalaoppala4945
    @oppalalaoppala4945 3 роки тому +5

    I typed "coronavirus" on the search bar, and UA-cam gave me this result !!!

  • @kaygee301
    @kaygee301 3 роки тому +1

    I love how you didn't cut while it was thinking giving us a real sense of how it would be to use it

  • @easterntrees
    @easterntrees 6 років тому +19

    my mom bought a PWP 1400 sometime around 1991 or so. the display works very similar to yours here, but it's much, much smaller--one line of about forty characters is all the user can see at one time when they're editing a document in memory. no media drive is present, and saving is only available to the internal memory with no provisions for export. I have vivid memories of scrolling left for literal minutes while attempting to compose a three-page paper for middle school.

    • @Reziac
      @Reziac 6 років тому +2

      I had one very similar to yours (it was a Brother, don't recall the model number) -- two line screen and 25k of LINEAR memory, so to get anywhere you hadn't set a bookmark (IIRC it could set up to 10 bookmarks), it was scroll and scroll and scroll, and when memory got close to full it got so slow you could watch it pushing bytes uphill one at a time. It had permanent storage (tho no floppy drive) which at the time was fabulous. I used it for a long time after I got a PC because it could print a template that the PC could not (at least not without lots of futzing with advance codes in WordPerfect).
      Eventually the machine lost its marbles and began printing gibberish, and off to the recycler it went. I still have some of the printwheels.

    • @jamestheotherone742
      @jamestheotherone742 6 років тому +2

      Same here. I wrote entire short stories and homework assignments, 40 characters at a time. You have to remember the context of the time. It was a hell of a lot better than typing on paper and having to retype edits.

    • @Xilog
      @Xilog 5 років тому

      I have a rather modern brother actually, I think it was still being made up until recently. No storage, I don't know how much memory, and- no kidding, 1 by 16 display. There's type as you go or line-by line, which you type a whole line (it will refuse to go farther than the limit), and as you type it goes forward to show where you are. And once you're satisfied, hit enter and it prints the line. It actually has some nice features, and I occasionally power it up to see again.

  • @robbiemer8178
    @robbiemer8178 6 років тому +13

    That was fun to watch! I worked at Smith Corona way back when and I worked on the "re-work line". We fixed the PWP boards that didn't pass inspection. I don't remember anything specific about the chips or software, my job was to put the board on a test fixture which would then display something like part # what ever. I would then just replace that. I didn't need any electronic/computer knowledge just had to know how to solder.
    There is a single huge circuit board in these and I remember that the first batch of boards was ordered before the engineers had completely finalized the layout so we spent a lot of time just adding jumper wires and cutting some of the runs on the board.
    At the time, the choices for office work were basically an electric typewriter or a computer and dot matrix printer. These were something like 1/3 the cost of a typical office computer and printer.
    I think these machines were also tested to/rated at one million keystrokes.

    • @joeltunnah
      @joeltunnah 4 роки тому

      rob biemer, no comparison on print quality between these beautiful daisy wheel machines and horrid dot matrix printing. Even my 2018 canon inkjet print quality looks bad next to them.

  • @ZGryphon
    @ZGryphon 3 роки тому +5

    Oh hey, my grandmother had one of these. It was the last in a long series of typewriters she had throughout her life. I might have it in my basement right now, in fact.
    I remember thinking it was pretty cool at the time, and it was a great sort of psychological bridge to the power of word processing for someone who had spent the previous 40+ years as a conventional typist. Switching straight from an electric typewriter to a PC would have been beyond the level of patience she had for technological change, but going from the Selectric to this to a PC worked.

  • @brian9731
    @brian9731 3 роки тому

    My mother who is now 85 was in her prime as a secretary in the 70s and 80s. I remember she had her own manual typewriter, a hefty Remington thing which fascinated me as a child. At work she had a succession of increasingly sophisticated typewriters from manual to golf ball electric to word processor. And the pièce de resistance, a VT100 dumb terminal on connected presumably by some kind of serial data line to a DEC VAX VMS mainframe computer running word processing software. The print-out was collected from down the corridor in the printing room. I honestly don't remember what the printer was in those days but it was probably very noisy and used continuous paper which had to be ripped into sheets and have the sprocket holes ripped off too! These days she has a laptop which bamboozles her regularly but she has just about managed to use Zoom during the current lockdown. Thank goodness for TeamViewer remote support!

  • @staticfanatic
    @staticfanatic 6 років тому +119

    oh man, please tell me you're going to do more of these. LGR and 8-bit guy are great but the more the merrier!

    • @timmowarner
      @timmowarner 6 років тому +30

      If you like this and 8-bit Guy you should check out Techmoan, too!

    • @FoxMulder78
      @FoxMulder78 6 років тому +5

      And VWestlife.

    • @tristanjacobucci
      @tristanjacobucci 6 років тому +1

      My thoughts exactly and don't forget Techmoan

    • @fiatlux8828
      @fiatlux8828 6 років тому +3

      8bitguy is too busy hoarding free shit to make videos that aren't kit builds

    • @BertGrink
      @BertGrink 6 років тому +1

      and don't forget 'Obsolete Geek' and 'databits'

  • @Cotonetefilmmaker
    @Cotonetefilmmaker 4 роки тому +7

    that noise of the thing typing on its own is amazing.

  • @BartonChittenden
    @BartonChittenden 4 роки тому

    When I was in high school, my family had an earlier Smith Corona PWP typewriter that had small entirely self contained tape cartridges rather than using a floppy drive -- each one was 32 or 64K. It also had a green phosphor screen rather than LCD. Thanks for taking me back. Also, nice TMBG reference.

  • @razordu30
    @razordu30 2 роки тому

    My family had one of these as a kid; that rapid fire typing sound takes me straight back to my childhood. I swear I can smell it.

  • @paulsmyers203
    @paulsmyers203 4 роки тому +7

    We had one of those, or a member of its illustrious family. Dark days ...
    Thank you for typing on the actual typewriter - that was a pleasant trip down memory lane.

  • @RandomEskimo42
    @RandomEskimo42 5 років тому +4

    Yay, more TMBG! I don't know why this makes me so happy!

  • @scottrok13
    @scottrok13 2 роки тому

    I only recently came upon an subscribed to your excellent UA-cam channel. The jacket, and the retro jazz Outro are your signatures man keep it up. (Once again thanks for your cross country trip on the train). I used Somethings similar to this in 1991 for a college paper but the disk crashed but my professor gave me an extension and I was able to rewrite the five page paper over the weekend on a different word processor and completed the class. )The next year I bought my first Apple Computer with a laser printer and never look back)!

  • @PELVIS361
    @PELVIS361 7 місяців тому

    I love it! My high school had a few in the mid 90's and I enjoyed them very much!

  • @cjc363636
    @cjc363636 6 років тому +4

    I had a Brother version of this 25 years ago! It worked okay, but my lasting memory is the GRZZZZZZZZ of the 3.5 drive grinding away as it loaded files. Thanks for the memories!

  • @kylehazachode
    @kylehazachode 6 років тому +57

    Lol loading text is still faster than the text boxes in Ocarina of Time.

    • @tf2engineer106
      @tf2engineer106 5 років тому +1

      You’re not wrong

    • @keiyakins
      @keiyakins 5 років тому +2

      Even the printer is faster than Pokemon Diamond and Pearl

  • @Corlock78
    @Corlock78 2 роки тому

    My sister had one of these in the late 80s to early 90s, she used it while applying to college. This was kind of a huge help in filling out college applications, as you could type into the forms, rather than hand write them, and type your essay into the field on the application as well, while being able to proof read everything ahead of time. Up until Acrobat, this was probably the best means of filling out forms with type available. Yes, you could use a standard typewriter, but you couldn't check your work ahead of time. Also, keep in mind, my sister was applying to college in the days before the Common Application, so every college had a unique application. Which made this type of machine very helpful.

  • @IanForsythWestCoast
    @IanForsythWestCoast 3 роки тому

    I remember the exact moment these came out and my office got an early IBM version. I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever experienced. It was REMEMBERING what I wrote! And this early version only allowed you to see and modify two lines of typing. Still, even with these primitive capabilities, it was head and shoulders above the garden variety typewriters we had been using for the last 60 or 70 years.
    Then, because I wanted desperately to be known as an early adopter (even though that term was not in use yet) I bought a unit similar to this one, except it was in two pieces, a tiny for the time “laptop” word processor, and a separate daisy wheel printer. This was so you could take the word processor with you to wherever you felt creative (as long as there was a plug nearby) and then print it when you got home. It was magic, and it would completely change my writing style.
    People who have grown up with word processing don’t realize what it was like back in the before times. With a regular typewriter, electric or manual, if you made one mistake on a page, and only discovered it while proofing the page, you would have to re-type the entire page WITH the correction of course. Most schools, of any level, would not accept papers that showed white-out had been used. Which meant that even if you caught your mistake immediately after making it, you would still have to re-type the page from the beginning, unless you had a really amazing correction ribbon, so the mistake would not be quite so obvious.
    The reason why word processing completely changed your, well certainly my, writing style, was because now I was’t trying to write the perfect sentence with perfect words, grammar, punctuation, and oh yeah, the creative idea we were doing this whole thing for. I could free associate, write what came into my head, fix anything or change anything later, even after printing it. It was magic. And made writing so much more fun and interesting, because the technology now worked for me rather than the other way around.

  • @packardcaribien
    @packardcaribien 6 років тому +46

    I wanted to make fun of the nerdiness of your high school assignment, but Twelve Angry Men is one of my most favorite movies.

    • @wilkgr
      @wilkgr 6 років тому +3

      We used it last year for school, and it's a great movie.

    • @thethrashyone
      @thethrashyone 5 років тому +2

      I was shown that movie in both middle and high school, oddly enough. It is a good movie to be sure. I distinctly remember my English teacher in high school cracking a joke that "if this movie were made today, it'd probably be called 'Seven Angry Men and Five Pissed Off Women'."

  • @AttilaTheHun333333
    @AttilaTheHun333333 6 років тому +10

    I love the shelf in the background. Really nicely decorated!

  • @GoldTegu
    @GoldTegu 3 роки тому +2

    Video editing and charisma have really improved in two years man, proud of you!

  • @tg1018
    @tg1018 2 роки тому

    I love that you used it for actual Homework!! It’s beautifully nerdy 🤓 I love it!

  • @DFX2KX
    @DFX2KX 6 років тому +13

    that sounds when it prints. wow.

  • @Arheisel
    @Arheisel 6 років тому +3

    Great video man, as always!
    I loved the background, you did an awesome job putting those shelves together.

  • @TothefarDale
    @TothefarDale 3 роки тому +4

    I had been mulling the idea of starting a tech channel over in my head, but wasn’t sure about it. When I saw your paper with the date on it and you said that you were in high school at the time, I think it pushed me into the “I’m going to do this” camp. I really appreciate all of your content, and I wish you the beat. Thanks for doing what you do.

    • @gregdaweson4657
      @gregdaweson4657 Рік тому

      Well, how did it go?

    • @TothefarDale
      @TothefarDale Рік тому

      @@gregdaweson4657 I didn't do so. I whiled away my time getting into IT for a living and being annoyed by customers, essentially people being people. I still have a Curta Calculator that I would like to show the world, but I don't know when.

  • @johnphillips8737
    @johnphillips8737 2 роки тому

    Thank for this video! This typewriter got me through college in the late 80"s

  • @TheFavorista
    @TheFavorista 6 років тому +6

    Thanks for uploading this. I vaguely knew what they were thanks to an old Stephen King novel or story, but my family only owned a manual typewriter before our first home computer so I've never seen one of these in action.
    On a related note, we used to have an electric typewriter at work that wasn't a brand I'd heard of before (Swintec), so I looked it up online one day out of curiosity. Aside from that model (which looked thoroughly 80s) still being listed as actively manufactured, they had a menu item for "Word Processors". Turns out, for a mere $1,678.00 (!!!) in 2018 money you can still buy a Swintec 8500C "Word Processing System" with 3.5" floppy disk storage, 60K "Large Working Memory", and an 80-character by 25-line CRT! Amusingly, they also have a bright red warning that "this Product cannot be used to access the internet or to play games."

    • @s0men00bb
      @s0men00bb 5 років тому

      Actual product page with manual(s) included ! 😂
      www.swintec.com/14-8500c.html

    • @Xilog
      @Xilog 5 років тому

      @@s0men00bb Thanks, that's hilarious. I want someone to buy one and keep it in their collection, a brand new 8500c!

  • @bluesonkel
    @bluesonkel 5 років тому +6

    This typewriter at the end triggers the feeling of typing in my brain...... This memory is over 20 years old

  • @digitaljestin
    @digitaljestin 7 місяців тому +1

    I love that you have at least two files from high school containing They Might Be Giants lyrics.

  • @dairuggerxvvoltesfifteen8756
    @dairuggerxvvoltesfifteen8756 3 роки тому

    Thanks for bringing these old friends back to life 🙏

  • @whatistheirface
    @whatistheirface 6 років тому +3

    I've been watching for a while, and just wanted to say its been wonderful to watch your channel and content grow!

  • @realshaoran4514
    @realshaoran4514 4 роки тому +3

    Man, that was a trip into nostalgic land. I was using a mechanical typewriter for my school assignments well into the mid 90s, while my classmates were all using this thing called windows 95... I was so envious of them haha

  • @sergiomendez9231
    @sergiomendez9231 11 місяців тому

    1. I love that you actually used this to write (and PRINT) some high school papers!
    2. That explains the name of the shift key as well as the placement of the special characters! Normally, you would expect a default number or charater to be at the top (we read top down so you would expect the default to be first). In the case of the typewriter, the special characters were physically above the numbers, and so the keys simply matched the physical placement of the characters on the striker.

  • @AT_Videography
    @AT_Videography 2 роки тому +9

    I'll never truly understand the complexity and simplicity of older machines, as I have a personal and school laptop. But I will say, if I showed up to school with one of those amazing word processor/typewriter hybrids. I'm pretty sure people would look at me idiotically, and probably call me stupid. That is, until I race them to type out a three page essay, over my favorite food and beat them by typing one simple page explaining why I don't have a favorite food, printing it out, and turning it in all without leaving my desk. Meanwhile, my competition would type it out, scramble through Windows Print Spool Service (WPSS), break their mouse, punch their screen, scream from frustration, then run to our library, grab the paper, rip it in half running back, re-printing it, running back again, then turn it in. And I'll lbe sitting in my chair taking a nap while they're out of breath and half dead running .75 miles (yes, I measured how far you'd need to run from our english department (at the back left of our school), to our library (at the front center)) one way.

  • @dlarge6502
    @dlarge6502 6 років тому +6

    I would use one of these today simply for how quick it is. Switch on, type out something that needs to be a short letter or an address on an envelope. Much quicker than booting my PC, opening libreoffice typing out the address, switching on the inkjet printer only to find it needs cleaning, using all the ink when cleaning it, spending £30 on a new set of inks, cleaning it some more then finally printing.
    I have actually had that experience with my printer several times. Hmm I could also get a laser printer

    • @stale2665
      @stale2665 5 років тому

      Every time I don't need to use my printer I breathe a sigh of relief. Last time I used it was probably 5 years ago and the ink cartridge's yellow color had dried out or something so I got a new. Haven't even bothered installing the new cartridge. I use the scanner on it a bit more often though. I hate paper, so turning paper into digital files is pretty nice

  • @robertmartindale563
    @robertmartindale563 4 роки тому +13

    The sound of my childhood Sunday afternoons with my Nan typing her stories.

  • @gydeme
    @gydeme 3 роки тому +1

    Man! You have upped your production quality so much in the last two years. The content is just as fantastic as always but I forgot just how far you've made it in terms of production. Awesome work dude, hope you read this some day.

  • @zorakj
    @zorakj 4 роки тому

    My mom had one similar to this - Smith Corona but not this exact version. Smaller screen, basic save and retrieve. We LOVED it. I got one with the typewriter not needing a screen because I got a monitor! And it had spreadsheets - but still not a computer. And you could use the typewrite by itself. Built in printer, lol.

  • @JeffFrmJoisey
    @JeffFrmJoisey 6 років тому +10

    They had one enterprise version of this odd machine where I worked way back when. When they got the machine, they handed me the instruction manual so I could teach the head secretary how to use it. They even added a black & white monitor on a column and arm stand that was part of the setup. It was a strange machine, and cost way less than a PC back then. PC's were a major purchase in the late 80's, just adding k's of RAM cost hundreds of $$. Monochrome monitors cost $200 + !!!

    • @MrDuncl
      @MrDuncl 6 років тому

      That's why Amstrad had a big success with the PCW256. A computer designed with the bare bones required to replace a typewriter.

  • @3PilaresDeOz
    @3PilaresDeOz 6 років тому +20

    That set is beautiful, man.
    Also I think it's better with the jacket.

  • @veda-powered
    @veda-powered 4 роки тому +65

    smith corona... oh so that's why I'm getting this recommendation now

    • @ttkftykyfts
      @ttkftykyfts 3 роки тому +4

      I got in the recommended *now* despite having already watched this video when it was released. UA-cam ?!

  • @faupsy1012
    @faupsy1012 3 роки тому +3

    Love your channel.
    You called that hybrid slow multiple times. I remember people using those when I worked in the financial aid office of WMU in 1987. Only the most preferred employees got them because they were the high tech of the time. That is, they were the fastest thing in 1987 apart from a computer, which were comparatively expensive. Wow, what a memory.

    • @nicholasbodley2238
      @nicholasbodley2238 2 роки тому

      Regording terminology, the carriage carries the paper and moves it sidewise. What shifts is the type bavket, almost sure.