When did people stop using typewriters? (90s, assassin, assassination, countries)

[spicymeatball]

I remember in 1997 already thinking they were obsolete as we had a computer and printer at home, but I imagine many people still used them then as a lot of people still didn't have computers. Are there countries today where cheap PCs and printers haven't totally ousted them?

[Deezus]

Personally I don't remember seeing anyone use one past the late 80s. I'm sure someone was still using them though... My mom still had one when I was a toddler in the early 80s, but we moved up to an early Texas Instruments computer pretty quick--and then a Macintosh Plus.

[Unsettomati]

It depends on where in the world one is;
Typewriter lives on in India - Los Angeles Times

Cormac McCarthy still uses a typewriter for his writing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/bo...carthy&st=cse&

And Vincent Bugliosi does McCarthy one better. He wrote Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by hand - all 1.5-million+ words of it.

[Huckleberry3911948]

in 1979 the first selectric ibm was connected via cable to a box card reader could read 3 to 4 cards and save into memory.
that was the beginning of word processing. the first real multi station was word star.

[nightbird47]

My ex started with the Model 1, and one day in the late 80's came home with a trade for a word processor. It had a box as large as an early pc box. The screen was black and green. The keyboard was the now standard flat keyboard. It took up a whole table with the printer but it also stored files.

I don't know what the wp setup was, but it gave you the full capability of manipulating files. We used it quite a bit since its word processing system was much better than the one on my turbo xt....

It was 'used' then, so it had to have come from the early 80's. Acutally today, since I spend so much time using word perfect, something which just does that would be useful.

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by Unsettomati

And Vincent Bugliosi does McCarthy one better. He wrote Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by hand - all 1.5-million+ words of it.

Which someone at the publishing company then had to type up all 1.5 million+ words of... Thanks a lot Vincent!

[chirack]

Originally Posted by spicymeatball

I remember in 1997 already thinking they were obsolete as we had a computer and printer at home, but I imagine many people still used them then as a lot of people still didn't have computers. Are there countries today where cheap PCs and printers haven't totally ousted them?

The 80ies were the last decade where the typewriter was in common use. During the 80ies, the typewriter was starting to get replaced and by the 90ies they were replaced by computers. There are countries that use typewriters because manual typewriters don't need electricity and there are probably still oddball uses for them.

Actually the effect the computer had when it replaced the typewriter was kind of huge. The typewriter is very limited(only types) and correcting errors is it's weakness,there are no good ways to correct a typo or edit stuff on paper, only degrees of bad!

In fact you might have type the whole page over again if it has an error. This meant that there were jobs for people who were good at typing(typist or sectary ). With the computer jobs like typist, file clerk and others were greatly reduced in number as companies forced people who before didn't type at all to type.

Before the computer, a manger or other white collar worker didn't type letters or memos. He would have used a sectary to take notes or submitted something hand written(or voice recorded) to an typing pool to be typed. Typing was too much an hassle to tie up your engineers, accountants, lawyers or other kind of worker up with. After the computer(and windows operating system) everybody typed and suddenly companies needed a lot less sectaries and typist. Today, there are very few purely secretarial positions as there were in the past and those left do a lot more than type.

Anyway the transition was from typewriters to "Word Processor" kind of typewriters and computers. The first computers were a little difficult to operate and so the secretary often used it before other people did. With windows(and mac) computers became easier to operate and so everyone used them. The "Word Processor" sort of type writer could store documents in built in memory and had other features like spell check and built in corrective tape, they were cheaper than computers but went out of fashion because computers do more than type.

[dizzybint]

Its strange how noises just disappear, remember when entering and office all you could hear was the clatter of the typewriters...Im not really sure when I first noticed they were declining..

[Osito]

I can't speak for everybody but my mom stopped using her typewriter in the 90s when she got a computer. I did use a typewriter in 2004 to do a job application.

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by dizzybint

Its strange how noises just disappear, remember when entering and office all you could hear was the clatter of the typewriters...Im not really sure when I first noticed they were declining..

That sound didn't dissapear immediately. The one place I worked had all the printers in one room which I was regretfully next to. Having one printing was noisy, having twelve was time for coffee. These were NOT dot matrix, but direct print like a typewriter, just more of them in one little noisy room.

Husband and I did printing for people and we had one woman who wanted her script printed with a 'real' tywriter, and different fonts. We'd print line by line since the printer color and font had to be reset. No wonder nobody else would. She claimed dot matrix was 'unreadable'.

I think today, my fingers used to the ergonomic split keyboard I use, I would be hard put to be able to use a traditional typewriter, though my fingers know the keyboard well.