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I had a Royal and an IBM Selectric. I sold both about the mid-1980s. I had planned on keeping the Selectric, but I was moving every few years and I had to limit my things.
Most of my jobs had **ONE** IBM Selectric stored in an out-of-the-way closet, even as late as 2006, but I think the last time I or anyone on the job used one was around 1995 when we ran out of printer labels for envelopes.
I agree that the early 1980s was when computers started being phased in.
It took me about seven or eight years before I was really comfortable composing on a computer. For a long time, I wrote the first draft on legal pads in longhand. Then one day I found that I didn't have to do that anymore. I'll still write outlines on a white board, but I no longer need a paper first draft.
I can't imagine going back to typing on a typewriter. It hurts my hands if I have a 4+ hour session.
Did most people own word processors in the late 80s/early 90s at home? Because computers were not in the majority of Western households until the late 90s/early 2000s.
I built my first computer in 1982. It was a Heathkit H-89. That was back when one had to solder the components onto the circuit boards. One of the software packages I had for it was a word processor that output to a dot-matrix line printer. Home computers didn't really take off until the introduction of the IBM PC-AT in the early-mid '80s. The PC-AT was one of the first with a 16-bit cpu chip, which were a magnitude of power greater than the previous generation 8-bit chips. We can all thank Lotus 1-2-3 for the death of the mechanical/electric typewriter.
In an office setting, I still used a typewriter long after computers came on the scene. So I'm calling the 90s. Not everything could be handled with a computer. Forms, carbons, etc., all still required a typewriter.
As a writer and sometime teacher of writing, I know a lot of other writers from every genre. The vast majority of us still harbor a typewriter in our homes. I know people who collect old typewriters the way people collect old cameras or old telephones. I use a computer all day, every day. But I still consider the IBM Correcting Selectric III with the exchangeable font balls to be the ne plus ultra of the typing experience.
Did most people own word processors in the late 80s/early 90s at home? Because computers were not in the majority of Western households until the late 90s/early 2000s.
I got my first in 86. My husband had a collection of Model 2's (Raido Shack for the more recent). I wish I still had that system. It was a turbo xt. The modem ran at an astounding 600baud. Older ones ran at 300baud and you never had to page down to read something. It scrolled by slow enough you could read it just fine. But that system had a big fan in the box, didn't run like lightening and if it was 95 in the house, wouldn't melt.
The company I was working for (as a programmer) was in active debate about if they should make a network which used PC, or monitors, since some of the suits were sure nobody would ever see the day when everyone had their own sitting in the living room. The tech guys told them they were so wrong.
People still asked sillly questions like what you you even do with a home computer. How things change.
I grew up with a typewriter factory on the end of the street. When I was in elementary school there was also another one 10 miles away. School bus dropped me off at the time of shift change, had to watch for the traffic (by myself, no one at home). Mid 80s the one 10 miles away had shut down but was still two shifts at the nearby place - I was already typing school papers on an Apple //e. Late 80s I helped freshmen move into the dorms and nearly all had typewriters (presumably they had been given) but the college kids didn't actually use them (I worked in the computer rooms full of Mac Pluses, with a limited number of external drives to hand out). Mid 90s the typewriter factory had shut down and moved to Mexico, leaving a distribution center for ribbons. The factory didn't last too long in Mexico either. I had already moved out of the area but the ribbon warehouse might have been gone in 2001 or so. There is still a typewriter in our office for forms and folder labels.
Typewriters were just as if not more common in homes right through the 1960's or so.
Students/high school kids used them to type reports/term papers, wives would use them for everything from correspondence to dinner menus, and so it goes.
Yep. We were solidly middle class and had a "family" typewriter in the 60's. My brother used it so much my parents got him his own. They used Blue Chip Stamps to get it. He used to sit on his bed and balance it on his lap while he typed his school papers. Nearly 50 years later he does the same thing with a laptop computer.
I had to take typing in college because I had a high school boyfriend who convinced me I shouldn't take high school typing. He said I'd be dooming myself to be one more worker in the typing pool and life as a proletariat if I learned how to type. He was cute but, dang, he wasn't exactly a visionary.
Last edited by DewDropInn; 04-16-2014 at 08:52 PM..
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