The Typewriter That Wanted to be a Computer

[ThePhoneUpdate]

I have an old Cannon StarWriter 30(?) kicking around somewhere, really nice machine and I even still have a few of the little ink cassettes for it!

[Rayburn96]

Awesome video. I had one that my dad used for a long time that he gave me. It was a little older I believe though. The monitor was a monochrome display of course, only except the color was amber and not white. The UI was different though. And everything had to be loaded from a disk, the thesaurus, spreadsheet, everything. Unfortunately, the spreadsheet and thesaurus disks got accidentally formatted. I typed a journal on it for awhile. I wish I still had it. :(

[forallpurposesonly]

Do you need to plug in an external monitor just to use it?

[uxwbill]

@forallpurposesonly It does, although I suppose if you knew enough about its user interface to run it "blind", you probably could use the typewriter mode without it.

[zonemad96]

these little things are very cool im hopeing i can pick one up some where sometime i saw a monitor for one at a little junk shop and it was 40 dollars bwahaha like that will ever happen but still these things are very cool

[727JeffN]

Cool little unit!

[blazerlover25]

very interesting video here uxbill but after watching those lines on the monitor go round and round and round i felt like i was on an endless rollercoaster and was about to toss up the honeybun i just ate sheesh wheres the warning that watching this video might cause due dizziness and if affected dont eat while watching it? great now my room is spinning lol

[uxwbill]

@blazerlover25 The consumption of honey buns or other food or drink while watching any uxwbill production is not recommended. :-)

In all seriousness, I have added a warning to the video. Thanks for the heads up.

[JDMowerGuy1998]

thats the first time i saw on of those

[MyTechtime]

I have a Smith-Corona

[AandD94]

you and the keykeeper need to make more farm videos lol.

[ShroomishGaming]

I Love Those Old Keyboards!

[bamdadkhan]

i love your videos. i can't say this enough.

[andruha11234]

how fast can you type? That looked pretty damn fast! (I'm at about 50wpm)

[uxwbill]

@andruha11234 On average, about 45-65. I've been up to 90 or so at best.

[theedrstrangelove]

There are still such devices being made. 

[Pizzscn]

KINDLE!!!  I love mine

[pepsiru1es92]

Cool Stuff! My family had one of those things in the 90s. It was a brother typewriter that you could hook up to an orange on black screen. I don't think it had any "programs."

[BonhommeRichard91]

I almost bought one of those for my parents around that time but I don't remember why I decided against it.

I had a coworker that could type 110wpm and she always had to wait for the cursor to catch up with the text. Sometimes the buffer would get full too. Was fun to watch since I'm around 50wpm on a good day.

[thebibleisfiction]

my grandmother has 3 of these in her garage

[mikee286]

wow typewriters that have a screen and printer and storage capabilities. technology is really amazing......is what someone probably once said when they brought that home lol

[gmcnewlook]

i remember the ones with the LCDs (i recall my uncle had one) on them, i thought was interesting at the time to get a computer and a typewriter

[MAG315]

That was a pretty neat gadget back in the day.

[nsub6]

I'm going to start by saying awesome video and end with that's the most advanced typewriter Ive ever seen keep em coming :)

[vwestlife]

Some of the very last ones from Brother had a mouse and used the GeoWorks GUI. I don't think the inkjet models were too popular, because they can't type through multi-part forms, and they had the typical hassles of clogged print heads and smudged ink on the paper.

[uxwbill]

@vwestlife I had no idea there were any that ran GeoWorks, although I do remember some that had a mouse. It came as a surprise that ink can still be purchased. I don't intend to get a cartridge due to the expense and great likelihood that it won't be used a lot.

[Ltb0b]

I use to have a typewriter then we ran out of ink.. it was preety heavy

[uxwbill]

@Ltb0b Funny you'd mention a heavy typewriter. I actually pulled a manual typewriter out of storage and put it on my desk at work, because it was so much faster and easier than fiddling with a label printer or working with odd-sized objects.

I put a manual typewriter on my desk at work one day. It surprised a lot of people when they saw that I knew how to use it.

[talldude123]

I had one of these before, and ironically, it was made by IBM, it didn't have as many ports and it didn't have an external monitor either.

[uxwbill]

@talldude123 IBM did produce a few typewriters with small monochrome monitors. These had a very unique stand. If you ever saw one, it would make you say "what?" because the mounting arrangement is so odd.

[talldude123]

@uxwbill Yes, it did have a weird mounting arrangement. As I recall we sold it at a garage sale for $5, it ran out of ink and about that time my parents bought their AST 133mhz, so no use for it

[ncrdisabled]

Yes I have 3 that was found at a yard sell for 5 bucks for the lot my in lays they have 1 that the use every day and has all the family tree on it since it has a 3.5 1.44 floppy disc. 2 of the smith coronas I have also have the floppy drive the last is a one I never heard of a its a Olimpia but it has no floppy drive . All of them hook up to a CGA monitor I have 2 bad monitors but 1 still works as a back up for the in laws.

[Lachlant1984]

I have a 1992 Canon StarWriter personal publishing system that I used when I was in primary school, my school bought one and I had another one at home, this was before my family got a computer, when we did get a computer we used the StarWriter as an LPT printer, it emulated an IBM ProPrinter X24E. I have vague memories of other work processors like this one, they're very interesting devices indeed. I guess these were cheaper than computers, the StarWriter was around $1200.

[joytech23]

Did it succeed at being a computer? because that's really neat!

[uxwbill]

@joytech23 I don't think these were all that popular. My guess is that a lot of them might have been purchased by older people and possibly tossed out later by their families. This one dates from 1995.

[drp0425]

One

[drp0425]

I ment the on that you can see at 0:01

[drp0425]

Is that a kindle

[uxwbill]

@drp0425 Yes it is.

[HappyDiscoDeath]

@uxwbill I have one too, and quite frankly, I freaking love it.

[joshua25fm]

the New York state government just bought a TON of brand new type writers :) I believe that was around 1 year ago if I am not mistaken

[vwestlife]

@joshua25fm As long as paperwork still involves actual paper, typewriters will still be popular in clerical offices, for filling out multi-part forms and making labels. In fact I just had to get a new typewriter for one of the secretaries where I work, because she finally wore out her 1989 IBM Wheelwriter.

[uxwbill]

@vwestlife It's possible to wear out a Wheelwriter?

Wow.

[vwestlife]

@uxwbill I'm sure if I had time to disassemble, clean, and lubricate it, I could get it working perfectly again. The print head was getting stuck during the carriage return, even though the toothed belt that drives it still had good tension. But that's a rare failure. I've seen others which were completely full of dust, hair, paper clips, and bits of paper and labels, and yet still worked flawlessly.

[gmcnewlook]

@joshua25fm doest surprise me, they are still necessary in some places for things, 

[Markworth]

They were always known simply as "word processors" around here. We had one that could optionally use an amber monochrome monitor that it came with. It was kinda cool. I used it for some school projects once or twice.

[milanvdv]

Aaaah the good old lines you are able to see on those old crt monitors.

This was much more interesting than I thought when I read this.

Congrats ;)

GRTS

[Crazybenjiwoo]

my sister had one of these ( later model )

worked for 4 days then never again...