A history lesson: Before there were laptops, everyone had to carry their desktop computers to class. Before there were desktops, they had to lug their typewriters. And before that, everyone just tried really hard to remember stuff. Ask your grandparents!
This video has it all folks. The fastest typist in the world circa the late ’70s, music, pimp suits and the hardships of a man too damn good at what he does.
NYPD officers are fed up! Their typewriters are broken down relics from a previous age, making police work more difficult, stressful and demoralising. To remedy this, the city is spending close to a million dollars. On new typewriters.
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.
Charlie Sorrel over at Gadget Lab found this Chinese typewriter at an art exhibit in Barcelona. It has 2000 characters to choose from, but instead of buttons, you use levers to select those characters.
Yesterday we feasted our eyes on the wristwatch of the great Albert Einstein, today we get a look a personal effect from a celebrity of a very different sort. Behold…Marylin Monroe’s typewriter. One has to wonder whether the essence of these icons lives on in these artifacts, and whether or not using them would somehow magically fuse your life with theirs. If I wore Albert Einstein’s watch, would I come to a more profound understanding about the universe? If I used Marylin’ Monroe’s typewriter, would I get the urge to send tear-stained, hysterical love letters to a dead president? Who knows? [Vanity Fair via Geeksugar via Boing Boing Gadgets]
