Weapons of Choice: 1983 Brother EP-20, 1984 Brother EP-44, 1986 Canon Typestar 4
Adjusting Escapement Trip on Smith-Corona Skyriter – Solve Skipping Letters!
Weapon of Choice: “Indy”, 1959 Tower Chieftain III Swapping the return arm from a 6Y to a 3Y Skyriter. I should note here that correctly adjusting the trip point also does significantly “snappy up” the typing action. Having it too low results in a sort of mushy end of stroke. That’s all gone now. :D […]
A Day With Joe (and fellow Typospherians)
Group photo of the happenstance Typospherian meetup at Bill’s, from left to right: Random photobomber fellow, Joe, Bill, Erik and Cameron. Not sure who the random fellow was, he was walking by and stopped to be in the photo. :D Fuzzier photo of us taken by the random guy, from left to right: Erik, Joe, […]
The Return of the Axes
The Machine… The Man, Mr. Butane… Hey, there’s sort of a database for Fender tube amp serial numbers now! What’s this Circuit-Bent stuff anyway? Apparently, these are still popular enough that people rhapsodize on them on the web, and charge $300+ for them on Ebay. Who’d’a thunk? I guess I did pretty good finding this […]
Report from Typewriter Harvest 2018 Type-In
As per usual, I spent my time at the Type-In chatting with folks and occasionally helping the mystified newcomer figure out the carriage return and how to make exclamation points rather than typing anything of substance, but I did try to hit every machine and get an impression off… Some computer generated typewriter art by […]
To Collect and Preserve: An Informative Brochure
I wanted to print up some flyers for the “Cold Hard Type” project to pass out at the next couple of local Type-Ins, and thought “Why stop there? I can make a little brochure/zine to pass out.” So, I whipped up a tri-fold brochure with a bunch of useful info for the new local area […]
Call for Submissions: Cold Hard Type, Typewriter Stories from the Post-Digital World
I’m in, are you? :D
It’s Autumn Type-In Season in Phoenix!
2018 has been a great year for Type-Ins, not only in the Phoenix area, but all over the country. The Revolution expands and catches fire everywhere it touches, and burns with a ferocity that cannot be quenched. The romance, utility and flexibility of the Typewriter Life reaches deep into the soul and connects with that […]
Buddy-L Easy-Writer 300 User Manual and Leafcasting…
Weapon of Choice: Buddy-L Easy-Writer 300 First attempt at Leafcasting: leaf between a sheet of paper and a sheet of Ko-Rec-Type. Hmmn, maybe the toy typewriter with plastic typeslugs wasn’t the best choice… “The leaves here are very small, Makes it hard to type at all!”
Building a new Decade-old Computin’ Machine
I took part of today to go through a pile of old computers to take to Goodwill, which is a thing that always gives me pains because I know they’ll likely just get thrown out, but then who the heck wants beige box Pentium IIs, IIIs and 4s? Someone, I’m sure, but I’ve already got […]
Rainy Day Appreciation of my 1981 Montgomery Wards Escort 550 (Brother JP-7)
Weapon of Choice: 1981 Montgomery Ward Escort 550 (Brother JP-7) This typewriter as offered in the 1981 Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog Nearing the last stand for Manual and Electric Typebar machines offered by Monkey Ward. By 1984, only the electric is offered alongside various electronic wedges, the new Brother Type-O-Graph and a selection of home […]
Twinsie Seikos
TWDB: Milestone nearly reached!
UJTU: TWDB Epsilon Teasers!
Serious Research View (SRV) Typewriter Porn View (TPV) Grid View (GRD) Weapon of Choice: Thunderbird 3, 1966 MW Signature 440T
1966 Monkey Wards Signature 440T: Thrift Score – with User Manual!
Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 3” 1966 Montgomery Wards Signature 440T My other two previous Signature 440T finds: Return Of The Typewriter Bone: 1968 Monkey Wards Signature 440T (Brother) Deja Vu All Over Again – The Twin Brother and some info I found on the 440T: The 1968 Monkey Wards catalog that shows these 440Ts The spring-loaded […]
The Five-Tape Session: on cassettes and why I still use my tape deck
Weapon of Choice: “Little Jake”, 1933 Monarch (Remie Scout, 10cpi Art Gothic face) Last week’s session with The Brother took up 5 tapes, two 90’s and three 60’s, total 6 hours, enough that I had to dip into a fresh tape pack! Example: “Swing World” uses a sample snippet of The Brother in a song […]
Culling the Herd & Trimmin’ the Fat
1982 IBM Selecrtic III 12cpi Single-Pitch, Correcting. He Gone! 1990 IBM Personal Wheelwriter, he gone too! Probably 1990’s to early 2000’s Swintec 8014-8. Off to Greener Pastures. 1987 Brother Professional 90 (CX-90). Got tired of trying to make this into a printer. Weapon of Choice: 1956 Smith-Corona Skyriter – A Keeper! :D
The Case of the Disappearing Ebay Listings, or how to Wrangle Ebay EPN API Feeds
Weapon of Choice: “Joanie”, 1964 Hermes 3000 The current PHP API Feed display ads. Pretty, but a bit flakey lately. You also need to add some request variables to the Javascript call to Ebay’s servers. Attach the above to your call to toggle the return of the SuperSize image url and to tell Ebay to […]
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.
Also testing the ability to *not* auto-post on Facebook, to make sure that works.. :D
Typewriters stored with half-finished thoughts
In this edition of “Is This Weird or Totally Normal?” we present an example of “Typewriter Stored with half-finished Typecast”, a common sighting at the ranch. The volume of unpublished half-finished typecasts is large, and just last week I moved a mountain of such typed pages out of a rubber tub and into a filing […]
UJTU: Folded stipple finish paper, Ghost Chocolate and Epsilon forms like a storm…
The stipple finish paper results in some rub transfer from the ribbon, and at large magnification, an interesting embossed look. “Ephemera”? “Shops”?!? what could those buttons lead to? Weapon of Choice: “Ghost Chocolate”, 1957 Olympia SM-3
StarSent: An Alien Invasion Science Fiction Story for Joe VC Typing Assignment No.18
Synergies flow: the Interrobang, Quomma and Queriod for typewriter lovers!
How to type an interrobang on a typewriter, and some reasons why we should. Much easy, so wild!
Weapon of Choice: 1956 Tower Commander Chad Comello’s Crusade for the Interrobang 99% Invisible on the Interrobang Various ways a computer can make an interrobang
Smith-Corona Skyriters 2Y, 3Y & 4Y – 1949 to 1962
I noticed the other day that most of the Skyriters in TWDB were mis-dated, probably due to the fact that I had “clarified” the numbers into actual ranges instead of December numbers earlier in the year. I had to re-date and clean up the Skyriter listings so they were correct. Doing this revealed some things […]
Yes you can swap the long return lever from a Corsair for the vestigal return arm of your early Skyriter!
My 1956 Smith Corona Skyriter with vestigal return lever… First remove the carriage cover of the 6Y machine – you need to do it to access the one screw that holds the carriage return assembly in the machine. Yep, that long screw at the top of the assembly is all you need to unscrew once […]
Olympia SM-7 Typewriter Reviewed: The Points System Gains Shape…
Weapon of Choice: “Cadwallader” 1963 Olympia SM-7
Converting a TRS-80 Model 100 REX ROM to work in a Tandy 200
Well, I was too broke to spring for the NADSbox and REX200 when they were available, and regretted it for sure when the supply dried up and they couldn’t be had anymore. The NADSbox I can live without, thanks to mComm, but a REX200 was something I really wanted for my 1985 TRS-80 Tandy 200 […]
Inspiration and more reports from the 8th Phoenix Type-In: Brought to you by the Letters PR-10-M
Weapon of Choice: “Mothra”, 1972 IBM Selectric Composer The Quirky Qwerty’s Report Joe VC’s “Smuggling Typewriters to Phoenix” report and first video review of some of the movers & shakers in the AZ scene. Joe’s second video interview from the 8th Phoenix Type-In – This one’s about MEMEME!
8th Phoenix Type-In Report, and an afterparty with the Albuqwerty Type Writer Society
Nice selection of books available at Changing Hands. I didn’t have the “Typewriter Rodeo” one yet, so I got a copy of that one. The typewriters were pretty busy. Although it seemed like there wasn’t much more than 30 people around at once, I noticed that the people seemed to completely change from one hour […]
Leaping to the Defense of the Late 1950’s Underwood Portable
Weapon of Choice: “Tex”, 1957 Underwood Quiet Tab Deluxe (Golden Touch) Richard Polt’s post on his Typewriter Safari, which prompted thoughts on the Underwood Crest. UPDATE: This post came up in the Facebook ATC, prompting a discussion of this typeface, which I called “Slab-Serif”. Turns out the real name of the typeface is “Stymie”, and […]
Second Chandler Type-In Report – Galaxies, Buttons and Commanders, oh my!
On the “Death” of the Typosphere, a Few Thoughts and Ideas
Weapon of Choice: Indy, 1957 Tower Chieftain III Had to prune a few hundred comments when the Beta Testers for Typewriter Database Wanted! post had so many that it stopped loading. The sheer number of comments broke the page!
Cool Night Typing, A Weird Selectric Ball and Typers to Bring to the Type-In – UJTU
Phoenix Type-In for National Typewriter Day, Sunday June 24, 2018 – Even Though NTD is actually on the 23rd
While the Typewriter Day post on The Typosphere blog went neglected after 2014 (but it’s nice to go back and see the videos from 2011), Typewriter Day on June 23rd has still been suitably celebrated across the globe. This year, it appears the Phoenix celebration will happen the day after, on the 24th: I’m a […]