1 of 1- Gabby Johnson
- Platen Punisher
Offline - Registered: 21-2-2015
- Posts: 77
Re-inventing the wheel
A report on a new non-typewriter typewriter:
The author of the Atlantic article does make some good points on what you use to write affects what you write.
Perhaps because I keep my computer and my typewriter on different desks in different rooms, I've become quite aware of the differences. I have to keep a dictionary by the typewriter and I've caught myself running into the other room to check a fact online before I commit it to the typewritten page.
As for the "Freewrite," I'll keep my $500 and use my Quiet De Luxe or Selectric and scan the pages if I wish to put my prose online.
- Uwe
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- Registered: 12-3-2013
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Re: Re-inventing the wheel
It was difficult to get through the opening paragraphs of that pseudo product review, and I'll admit that I gave up on it fairly quickly.
Did the author make any any actual revelations? Standalone word processors are certainly nothing new, despite his impression that the Freewrite represents an extraordinary departure from established methods of writing. Maybe it has a few updated functions, but isn't it basically the same type of device as an AlphaSmart or a CalcuScribe? It certainly shares the same heinous looks as the other devices; the Freewrite looks to have been savagely beaten with an ugly stick, and why on earth is its screen so small?
I can't think of a single reason for owning one. For half the price I can buy a notebook that is far more practical, and if you want a distraction free writing platform, you only need to turn its wifi off.
With respect to the influence the medium has on the creation process, he's making an old hat observation. We've been discussing that here for years, and for many writers, myself included, it's the biggest reason that we started collecting typewriters in the first place after spending too many years parked in front of a computer screen.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- JoeV
- Touch Typist
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- Posts: 152
Re: Re-inventing the wheel
Looks interesting, but not being able to move the cursor around and do edits is a deal-breaker, along with the price. I think the Alphasmart Neo was the closest I've found to a paperless typewriter. Too bad they couldn't combine the Neo's OS with the e-ink screen. And maybe a USB slot for saving off the cloud.
- KatLondon
- Key Master
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- Registered: 11-10-2014
- Posts: 995
Re: Re-inventing the wheel
Oh how funny. The after-school project I volunteer at uses Neos, but I had never come across them before, They seem ideally suited to an after-school project (and, by extension, to a classroom), but a non-school market hadn't occurred to me... the kids save their work on the local network, by typing in a file name and pressing enter. Then the teacher prints out all the stories.
I've done some typing on them and they feel fine to use, but the screen is so tiny they're a bugger to read back, edit on etc.
- KatLondon
- Key Master
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- Posts: 995
Re: Re-inventing the wheel
Uwe, why do you say 'pseudo' product review? It more or less does review the product. It does so in a sort of featurish way, which redeems the PR-ish bits rather, though it also makes me feel he might have interviewed one or two people using other non-computer devices. But as a description of a writer trying a lo-fi alternative, and a reminder to the general reader of the way we all now use the internet as a brain substitute (without really even thinking about it), surely it's all right...
My biggest beef was the bit about the design of the thing, where the author mistakes the reason why he thinks it looks 'at home' next to his midcentury fireplace - citing 'cool, dark, cast aluminum' is absolutely pure PR-speak, and has nothing whatever to do with ehy it might look 'at home' next to a midcentury fireplace. It's because it's boxy and has big features that make it resemble a typewriter. And that other (lazy, knowing) throwaway line, about the 'supposedly Bauhaus MacBook', sent me straight (because I am on a computer and was fact-checking) to Google, where I looked up this 'supposedly' thing. I'd never heard this before, though of course Bauhaus was a direct and contemporaneous influence on typewriter design. And lo, I instantly found this very interesting blog postabout how Apple is influenced by not just the principles but the specific practices of Bauhaus, in ways that I'd never thought of before. But I only got that out of it because I looked it up.
In the end though, it's just a general interest magazine article, and the guy has to earn a living... Of course, if its virtue is the personal angle, it is also a bit me-me-me - you sense he could have tried harder to get out of his own space. (Hipster!) But the fact that it could have been more wide-ranging and interesting surely just leaves the field open for someone else to write that better article!
- Uwe
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- Registered: 12-3-2013
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Re: Re-inventing the wheel
KatLondon wrote:
In the end though, it's just a general interest magazine article, and the guy has to earn a living...
I have nothing against someone who is trying to earn a living, and kudos to the review's author for getting paid for that submission (then again, maybe I'm assuming too much in believing that he was actually paid for it).
I described it as a pseudo review because for many years I reviewed specific consumer goods for a living, and by the standards that we were held to, such an article would have been viewed as a fluff piece and never would have been printed by any of the publications that I worked for.
There is no denying that the current standard for writing, especially when it comes to online content, is in a state of constant decay. The piece needed some firm editing, and my reaction to it as an editor was that someone was asleep at the switch by allowing it to be posted as is. Just look at the very first paragraph:
Today, instead of chiclet keys on an Apple laptop, I am clacking at the white, mechanical keys of the Freewrite...
Clacking at? I've heard a typewriter, or even the keyboard of a computer make a clacking sound, but never a person. Maybe he meant clucking... 
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- KatLondon
- Key Master
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- Registered: 11-10-2014
- Posts: 995
Re: Re-inventing the wheel
Well, it's the Atlantic; they pay. It's essentially lifestyle journalism and pitched to the general reader rather than the technophile... Slightly annoying, but, as Gabby points out, just interesting enough.
