USB Typewriter

Wendell · 09 Aug 2013, 19:57

I'm surprised I've not heard of this before. Somebody has kits for converting your old mechanical typewriter into a USB keyboard. You can even send it in and they will do it for you.

http://www.usbtypewriter.com/

Muirium · 09 Aug 2013, 20:42

First I heard of this. Thanks for pointing it out The video says everything.

Hipster written all over this idea, whether that is good or bad is up to you. For what it's worth, I like the music!

mr_a500 · 09 Aug 2013, 21:38

I heard about this a few years ago. At the time, I thought it was an awesome idea and even considered getting the converted green Olympia they were selling. Then I remembered how awful it was typing on manual typewriters.

Wendell · 10 Aug 2013, 19:24

During the years I used a Selectric, I also kept a portable manual typewriter that I used for writing rough drafts. Although the Selectric (and the other electrics before) was great to type on, the motor noise was distracting and I always felt rushed sitting before it. The manual allowed me to sit and contemplate in silence.

Since switching to computers, my main unfulfilled wish has been for a silent machine. I've spent a lot of time pursuing silence as they do over at www.silentpcreview.com.

Muirium · 10 Aug 2013, 20:17

I used to bend over backwards to make things silent, too. The day SSDs displaced idiotic hard drives and ARM seized the future from fan-happy Intel was sweet indeed. The future: just as quiet as the past. Finally!

And then I hook up a buckling spring to it.

mr_a500 · 10 Aug 2013, 20:33

I too have a hatred of computer fans and loud hard drives. My Amiga 500 with flash drive was utterly silent. Then I got an IBM server with 10,000 RPM SCSI drives and my head nearly exploded. It got slightly more quiet with a PowerMac G5 and SSD, but now that's dead and I'm stuck using a "wind tunnel" G4 with fans that randomly rev in annoying patterns (just heard the damn things do it again while typing this). It drives me insane. My next computer MUST be silent.

Muirium · 10 Aug 2013, 20:53

Wind tunnel G4? You poor bastard! I had one of those miserable gits for a while, until it choked on its own entrails, as they all ultimately do. A free G5 from the local Freegle / Freecycle / Name of the Week / ecocommunists fortunately took its place. Still takes buckling spring to force the background sound into its rightful place.

mr_a500 · 10 Aug 2013, 20:57

Muirium wrote:Wind tunnel G4? You poor bastard! I had one of those miserable gits for a while, until it choked on its own entrails, as they all ultimately do. A free G5 from the local Freegle / Freecycle / Name of the Week / ecocommunists fortunately took its place. Still takes buckling spring to force the background sound into its rightful place.

Nah, buckling spring isn't loud enough to go with a silent computer. Beam spring is better. I'm thinking beam spring plus Mac Tube (Darth Vader trash can) might be nice.

Muirium · 10 Aug 2013, 21:09

Ah, Lord Vader's waste paper basket. A fine little thing from what we've heard. Perhaps I'll have one in another 10 years…

The one and only beam spring keyboard that I've tried was quieter than the XT and AT Model F's I compared it to, side by side. Goodness, if that was ever a keyboard to win me over despite its size! The XT is no small beast, and the beam spring just dwarfed it in all dimensions but one: the sound. Beam spring felt and sounded so subtle compared to buckling spring in all its reverberating Model F glory. Beam spring is downright elegant, in fact, so long as you close your eyes!

Playing with one keyboard doesn't make me an expert of course. But the reason I want a beam spring now is for its refinement, not its sheer force of presence. Model F seems to have more of that, in twang and glory!