 I have a new keyboard. It does appear to be a little bigger than I was expecting. This is an IBM 6747 electronic typewriter which dates as far as I can tell from about 1986. It appears to be the internationalised version of the venerable WheelRider 6. I picked it up in a Zurich junk shop for five francs which means I paid about 38 cents a kilo. Being a 1980s IBM machine it's very, very serious. It's seriously big. It is seriously heavy. It has a very serious power switch and when you turn it on it makes serious noises. So technically this is an electronic typewriter rather than a mechanical one. Inside it's really just a IBM Model M keyboard connected to a small computer which then prints what you give it via a Daisy Wheel printer. For those of you who don't know, Daisy Wheel printers work by using a solenoid to mash shaped print head against the paper via a linked ribbon. Each letter has its own head, individually sculpted and they come in sets on these replaceable print wheels. I have two, Courier 10 pitch and Courier 12 pitch. The technology is simple, effective but very, very loud. Originally it was the keyboard which caught my eye. It's a classic IBM Model M Buckling spring keyboard and I've been looking for one for a while. So I originally was intending to just rip the keyboard off and use it myself because apart from being a gorgeous thing to type on, these typewriter keycaps with the strange symbols are absolutely awesome. Sadly the typewriter turns out to be in complete working order and I really don't think I can live with myself if I broke it down for parts. So what can I do with this? Well despite being computerized it still thinks it's a typewriter. Press key, receive letter. So let's try writing a letter. It's got automatic paper loading which is great but I do have to set the margins manually which is less great. Lining the address up is easy given that it's got automatic tab stops. It has no italics of course but it does do underlining and automatic word wrap and we're done. The print quality is superb. I have a plastic ribbon in this one which means that there's a perfect ink transfer onto the paper and off the ribbon this does come with an automatic audit log. On the paper the letters are precisely lined up. This underline was made by printing repeated underscore characters in a row. You can't tell. It's easily as good as the laser printer. But of course printers can make copies very easily which typewriters normally can't except this one has a trick up its sleeve. Let's take the lid off. This is a 1980s IBM machine which means it's seriously maintainable. The serious lid just unclips and lifts off revealing the works. In the back is the printer control board which manages the actual hardware and the power supply an old-fashioned linear transformer. These are connected via a well labeled ribbon cable to this computer in the front. Taking the lid off that reveals a microcontroller and 32 kilobytes of battery backed RAM. This is intended for storing text so I load some more paper tell it to remember what I'm typing and retype my letter. Instead of certain key phrases I enter what's called stop code so now I have a skeleton letter. It's no use as it stands but now the right key sequence and the typewriter reprinted automatically. When it reaches stop code it pauses for me to type stuff in manually then it continues because there's automatic word wrapping I can enter as much text as I like and everything still works fine. So with a minimum of effort I now have a professional looking copy of the letter ready to send. I can complain about anything if I wanted to. So what would you use a typewriter like this for today? Not a lot to be honest but there are still some things they're great for. Closely forms an envelope. Putting an address on an envelope is so much easier with one of these than fiddling about with page layouts on a printer. Any office that handles a lot of correspondence will probably still have an electronic typewriter sitting away in a corner. Plus typewriters are so satisfying to use. They're so intoxicatingly violent. My words are literally shaking the world or at least the camera. You can tell that whatever it is I'm writing it must be very, very serious.