Despite it being the 21st century (or later depending on when you
read this), many would say that they have never touched a typewriter (Q46335 on
Wikidata), let alone used one. This
is a great shame, as there is no greater feeling besides maybe your
first kiss or seeing someone trip over a banana like in a cartoon than
using a typewriter.
The concept seems simple, but the moment you look at how the letters actually get pressed into the paper, it becomes surprisingly complex. It seems simple from the outside: you press a key, and it then triggers a spring to move what is called a bar that has the indent of a letter on it that will press itself against a long and inked-up ribbon that then in turn presses itself against the paper. But wait, there's more! So you're not always using the same ribbon; a small dial moves the ribbon so you're never hitting the same ink spot more than once. As well as this, the typewriter moves the paper to the left by one letter, so you don't type over what you just wrote... it's really an amazing bit of mechanical work, and there's even still more to your average typewriter, but what matters here is that thanks to it being a metal machine, it can be loud. Very loud.
The clinking and clanking of it is wonderful; you would think that being quiet should be best, but no, once you start to hear the noise, you want to carry on typing; you need to carry on this symphony of click click clicks. It's something that you truly don't know what you're missing out on until you try it for the first time.
Typewriters come in all shapes and sizes; some are nice and small, others are beasts. Personally, I have an Olivetti Lettera 35. It works like a dream, but it is quite big and very heavy, but even still, it's quite sleek in the way it looks, and the olive color of the body, despite being a plain color, makes it stand out.
For hunting the perfect writer for you, however, well, eBay might be your best bet. Typing in just «typewriter» into the search will show off pages upon pages of results; some are overpriced, others might be underpriced; it's all a matter of hunting out the perfect one for you that matters most. Obviously, if you're new to the whole typewriter scene, get one that you know is working; you don't want to mess around with something you know very little about, as you'll be stuck for hours not knowing what to do.
Once you've decided on the typewriter for you, and it's being mailed to your address, you need ink for it, or rather a «ribbon». This is either going to be one solid color (like black) or one color above another (mostly black and red). The two-color ones are unique, as a lot of mid- to late 20th-century typewriters allow the ability to press down a button, and you're now writing in a new color.
Once you get your ribbon, inserting it into the writer for the first time might seem stupid hard, but there are some good videos out there to help you (even a video by Tom Hanks!), but still, even once you're an expert at changing the ribbon, you're going to get ink on your fingers. Just the nature of the beast. Just rub your hands together, so the ink disappears; it's quite simple.
Then all you need to do is wind your paper in, and boom, you're writing.
Finding resources online isn't that hard, but
This page was last edited on 2026-09-25 02:04:49.
All original text, code, images and content on the MDKwiki is CC0 1.0 - we have a Git and an RSS feed that can be followed.
Let there be peace on Earth.