Cult Of The Olympia Report DeLuxe Electric Typewriter
Steven Levy, Wired senior writer and the man who found Einstein’s missing brain, joins us to recollect his gadget-laden life back in 1979. He starts, fittingly, with the last typewriter he ever owned.
In 1979, I wrote all my stories to the accompaniment of a grating hum, which sometimes modulated to a low growl. These, along with the greased metallic Gatling-gun clicks that punched out my prose character by character, were the sounds of my Olympia Report deLuxe typewriter.
Compared to using a word processor on a PC, using the ORD was an earthy process: Hands-on ribbon changes, the smell of ink, and cranking the platen to see what you just typed. Not to mention an unforgiving process—all too often I was faced with the option of swabbing Wite-Out on a typo or an infelicitous phrase, or simply using a pen to cross it out and scrawl a correction in the blank line between double space. But in 1979, an electric typewriter was the tool of choice, and my was the Olympia.
I’m not quite sure how I first settled on the Report deLuxe. I know I didn’t aspire to save my pennies for the high-end of typewriters, the IBM Selectric. Certain professional writers swore by them: These were the clerical Clydesdales with the type-ball, sometimes referred to as a golf ball. You’d press a key and by some magic, the ball would jump forward, revolve and peck at the page—like an indignant woodpecker— with just the right character. You could even swap out the ball for an italic font. The output of the Selectric was very clean and orderly. And the motor hum was low and calm, like soft classical music. You would always come across Selectrics desks of secretaries working for people who made you wait to see them. The Selectric wasn’t for me.
Instead, as best I can remember, one day in the late ’70s I went into a typewriter store to replace the Smith Corona from my college days and emerged with the Olympia, a more traditional typewriter where hitting a key sprung a lever that make a little arm jump up and hit the page. I think it cost around $US300. Its two-tone looks weren’t exactly modern, but not retro. It had a plastic shell, but was pretty solid. It was a “portable,” meaning it came in a case slightly smaller than a cinder block, and not much lighter. It wouldn’t fit in the case unless you rolled up the electrical cord just right, squeezing it into a gap in the plastic.
The Report deLuxe did a lot of things right. It was easy to put in the paper so it wasn’t tilted at a slight angle. And when you had to Wite-Out a mistake and then go back and type over it, it was pretty easy to adjust the platen to find the approximate positioning and type in the correction so it almost looked like you did it right the first time. And most important, when you got excited and started typing really fast, it could handle the flurry, only rarely getting jammed.
Once you bought a typewriter, you held onto it for a while. It wasn’t like a new upgrade or a rival model would come out in a year or two that had you lusting so much you’d ditch your present model. You’d just keep the one you had. It’s not like you were waiting for some sort of spiffed up UI or anything-with an electric typewriter, you just turned the thing on, twirled a piece of paper in it, and started banging away. The trickiest thing you did was set the margin.
When something went wrong, you took it to a little shop when some guy who had been there since World War I put a tag on it and told you to come back in two days. And he would fix it. Every couple of months you’d change the ribbon, a messy process that made your finger look like you’d just been to the police station.
I’m not going to bother comparing the virtues of typewriters to computers when it comes to writing books and articles; you’d have to torture my family to make me go back. Typewriters force you into a linear process of writing-hammer out a draft, revise by pencil, type the next draft… By comparison, I’m writing this post by jumping from paragraph to paragraph, moving things around, shaping and reshaping. It’s almost as if the final draft just emerges, like a photograph in developing solution (if you don’t mind an old film reference). Computers are much preferable, and no scissors and glue are required like in the original “cut and paste.”
But I was quite happy with my Olympia Report deLuxe. Of course, I didn’t go around raving about it. People didn’t talk much about their typewriters. It wasn’t until I had long given up my Olympia that I learned via one of his columns that Ron Rosenbaum, one of the great magazine writers of our time, had a fetishistic relationship with his Olympia Report deLuxe that lasted well into the computer era.
In the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” Nora Ephron created a character based on Rosenbaum who, when had the same typewriter. When he said the name of the model, he added, “Report, as in gunshot.”
I still can hear it.
Steven Levy is a senior writer for Wired, most recently writing about Google’s ad business and the secret of the CIA sculpture. He’s written six books, including Hackers, Artificial Life and The Perfect Thing, about the iPod. In 1979, he had just left his first real job, at a regional magazine called New Jersey Monthly, to become a freelance writer, and had yet to touch a computer.
Typewriter image source at Rider University
Gizmodo ‘79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analogue age gave way to the digital, and most of our favourite toys were just being born.
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
I still have a typewriter, and I suspect that I always will. Granted, I go about 5 years between uses but it's still there, taking up little room so I haven't yet rid myself of it.
On the other side of things, I credit a typewriter with really getting me into technology. I worked in an office when I was 16 and every month we would hook the office computer up to the typewriter that had a parallel port and print to the typewriter. I thought it was the coolest damned thing I had ever seen. A dork was born.
@Nick: * never figured
Nick
That was the same typewriter used to teach typing at my high school... It was an elective class, that came with calls of sissy from the guys heading to machine shop.
kaylix
@stryder100: But you'd think that he'd have learned by now to use a grammar checker. There were at least 3 obvious mistakes that any writer should've caught on a re-read or their computer would've caught for them.
I enjoyed Hackers too. The book, not the movie. Obviously.
My typewriter featured a ribbon with a strip of white-out like stuff in the lower half. That was the best typewriter innovation ever, next to the bell.
we should have a USB Typewriter, one that types on the screen, and types on a piece of paper.. thats innovative right? .. (ttyl, on my way to the patent office)
renet123
The last memory I have of using a typewriter is filling out applications for college.
Making sure everything was lined up correctly. Photocopying the application and typing out sample drafts to make sure everything fit correctly.
When I left home, I left the typewriter behind.
Great piece.
@aec007: in my day, i unplugged my CompSci teacher's mouse. for a CompSci teacher it was sad that she figured that gag out. she would reboot and i would plug it in.
Nick
@aec007: Don't knock the Smith-Corona. I've been commenting using a Smith-Corona for years.
Heh...I learned to type on that exact same model typewriter.
drewls
@OMG! Ponies!: Hard to play Crysis on a Smith Corona though...
God, I loved those Selectrics! The BALL typeset idea was brilliant! for changing fonts.
I leaned typing in school with the old, old, old... old typewriters. The pranks of the day was to remove the carriage return stop lever (usually done for cleaning the rubber drum) and wait for the next kid to press and push the return lever, only to find his entire cariage flying of 4 to 6 feet to the left! HA....! that was so hilarious!!!
Those where the analog days...
:D
aec007
Are typing classes even taught in HS anymore?
rxe7en
I remember flipping up the cap on those 'golf balls' then mashing the keys to get it to fly across the room.
Also - there's something weird in the last full paragraph. "...who, when had the same typewriter."
Sushiwriter
I too cut my teeth on typewriters. First a Royal full-manual typewriter, while in my sophomore year of high school (1980) and then on to an IBM Selectric III: a fantastic machine. Maybe it's a midlife crisis, but I purchased a very good condition IBM Selectric II last year. I bang out the occasional letter on it just for the joy of listening to the machinery hum and whirl and the clack of the ball striking the paper.
AnielaBestia
Nice visit to the past. I was finishing up college in '79 and I had a then very modern Smith Corona electric with a cartridge-type ribbon/film and correction film feature. Aqua and cream paint job, nearly silent motor, but you could tell when it was switched "on". My grandfather took me to the store/repair shop where "our" WWI vet worked and bought it for me. Make a mistake, you swapped the cartridges, made the correction, and swapped them back. Not as easy as a Selectric, but miles ahead of the conventional competition. No dirty fingers, ever. I also used "word processing software", namely a laminated 8.5x11 sheet of paper with a 6.5x9 black rectangle printed on it. You put that behind the sheet of paper you were typing on and your "one inch margins" would be clearly visible through your type sheet. This thing got me through college and I kept using it when I went to work. It was way better than the portables issued by my company. Haven't used it in quite a while, but I still have it to this day. Because you never know...
LoganGeben
I grew up with and swear by (and at) IBM typewriters.
My mom was a legal secretary before she became an attorney and she would get cast-offs from work. We had an IBM Selectric II, a Selectric III (it had cartridges), an IBM Quietwriter, and an IBM MC/ST (Magnetic-Card Selectric Typewriter).
I had to type a student-loan application on a Smith-Corona portable typewriter because an ice-storm knocked out the power in the DC metro area.
Parents, if you want to know that your kid is doing his/her homework, don't get him/her a computer. Use a typewriter.
It amazes me that up until texting became so ubiquitous in today's world, particularly youth culture, I had commented to many people that typing classes will no longer be necessary because everyone will know how to type in elementary school nowadays. Now we just have to teach them how to spell correctly and put together a sentence that actually contains some grammar.
dustin91
i haven't thought about using the ol' typewriter in over a decade. this brought back memories of papers written from the early grades before the "th" were tacked on to the end. (that's where it all went down hill) i still remember the childish things i would do: try to jam the thing smashing as many keys as i could when i would get upset pecking with each pointer finger, using the red portion of the ribbon just because styling didn't matter in 3rd grade, daring my friends to stick their fingers in there while i slammed the keys. i remember grasping finished pages and pulling em out with smug satisfaction only to later find an error and then never being able to align it just right when i corrected it. that still makes me angry. just for this article i think i will bust out that blue beast and type my grandmother a letter just as her's were always written to me. i miss those wonder years.
great, article. really enjoyed it.
Nick
Interesting piece. Levy's "Hackers" was a great read for me, giving me an idea of the history of what was to become my vocation. I'm glad he's still cranking out good stuff.
stryder100
@OMG! Ponies!: Oh, yeah, the old Mag-Card Selectrics! Last worked on one in 1983. Basically an IBM card made of magnetic tape material, only thicker. You essentially had to type everything blind.
My personal favorite was a 1960 IBM Executive typewriter, which was close to their top of the line because it would proportional-space. Found two of them discarded on the street in downtown Rochester, New York in 1984 and hauled them around for years, right up until I acquired my first inkjet printer.
We had 2 IBM Selectric Typewrites here in our office. Those things were serious machines. My dad called them "boat anchors" because they weighed a ton. The last one finally bit the dust not too long ago, but I remember when I was a kid it was amazing to watch that ball move so fast you couldn't even see it and the letters appear on the page. They also had some power behind them and could type through many layers of carbon paper or even carbonless papers. The one secretary said tehy were like a machine gun. Anyway, they were pretty damn cool and believe it or not we still use typewrites in teh office for certain things that I just don't know how you would do without them.
maven2k
whats a typewritter
no_dice