Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter

Thinking about efficiency is a reliable way to buzz-kill creative inspiration.

Editing is only more work with my typewriter (Olympia Traveler Deluxe with British layout) if I write something worth editing and am willing to do the work of editing it.

When it comes to self-expression (a somewhat better term than creativity) the writing is important. Not having the mental burden of possible OS updates, battery, cable and file management, etc. makes a typewriter workflow efficient for some of my work.

Sure, I wouldn't use a typewriter for ordinary business transactions or surfing the web or commenting on HN. Instead I use it when I don't want to deal with those habits.

For clarity, I only have one typewriter, not a collection. It is the fourth in the last five years bought at a thrift shop. The first was a 6 CPI SCM 12. [1] It was replace by a Spanish Keyboard Hermes Baby I bought on eBay. Then an Olympia Deluxe with Script font given to my beloved.

If you are looking for a typewriter:

+ maybe think about the case. Does it stack well? Can you stack stuff on top of it? Because at some point you will probably want to free up the space where your typewriter sits or transport it or store it.

+ check the typeface. The Olympia with script typeface was a bargain, but it is script. The 6CPI SCM was a surprise. Can you live with the typeface?

+ are you handy? Typewriter service is basic millwrighting. You will want decent flathead screwdrivers and some time on Youtube.

[1] If I come across another SCM with 6CPI for the right price I will have two typewriters. 6CPI changes the way I write and matches well with images...I got the Hermes Baby because I wanted a small font. It was too small and the way the text looked on the page turned me off. The Olympia is good enough, which is good enough.

For those who don't know: a flathead screwdriver should be flat. Almost all taper to the point and that makes for a bad screwdriver that will cam out and ruin the screws.

>Thinking about efficiency is a reliable way to buzz-kill creative inspiration.

on the autism spectrum are systems thinkers, many liking to think precisely about efficiency, we are very creative about it and it makes us happy (read Simon Baron-Cohen's The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention)

you're a buzzkill

Among the systems I system-think about are systems that produce self-expression and systems that produce creative work.

Lots of people like to think about efficiency because thinking about efficiency is easier than doing work...and avoiding work is one of the definitions of efficiency.

Or to put it another way (and in the context of writing), thinking about efficiency doesn't put words on the page and what's in our heads is not the result of our creative acts.

Efficiency arises from the work, not vice versa. Self-expressive work arises from inspiration. The friction of inefficiency is often a symptom of important self-expression.

No, as an autist, this guy is right. I’ve “systematically”thought about it a lot and creativity is something that must be done the long and hard way. You can be creative about efficiency but not efficient about creativity.

Having grown up at a time where I was forced to use typewriters and listen to vinyl LP records, I don't wax so nostalgic over those old technologies. As soon as I got my Commodore 64 and my Star Gemini 10x dot matrix printer, I never used a typewriter again!

Vinyl took a little longer to get off of as I had (and still have) a fairly significant vinyl collection.

Can I ask, do you find that the benefits that other respondents are claiming (maybe younger respondents) are artifacts of a wishful thinking? Is it possible that the benefits are somewhat real, but come with downsides? I'm not leading in any one direction, but I am curious if the experience is more objective or subjective.

I'm not younger and listened to records and used a typewriter. I have a typewriter because it creates an environment that is not a computer. Unlike a phonograph, a typewriter is an entire ecosystem less commodity supplies (a phonograph is useless without the activity selecting and acquiring and storing records).

I don't recommend getting a typewriter. If someone wants to try one, they will do it. And if someone doesn't they won't. They are not for everyone and there is no moral distinction between those two groups.

Could be a couple things:

1. ASMR. Typewriters make a nice sound as you type. A lot of people like it. With regards to vinyl LPs, while growing up a friend of mine always remarked how much the static reminded him of a crackling fire. He felt like you were listening to music beside a fire.

2. I grew up in a time when these were simply the tools we had. I'd already learned how to be mindful about doing work - the tools forced us! I learned how to write and compose without the benefit of a computer. I learned photography at a time when I processed my own film and made my own prints in a darkroom. I know that experience has greatly affected how I approach digital photography. Younger people might simply be getting a thrill learning what I learned decades ago. Maybe they appreciate a completely different approach to achieving the same thing? With an entirely different workflow? That might give them new insights.

There are still aspects of the old that I like and prefer. For example, I still prefer books over screens. I still write notes on pen and paper and later transcribe them to my computer because I've learned I'll retain the information better if I actually physically write it down. When recording music, I prefer to use Audacity because it's like using the computer as a giant R2R and I get a more natural sound. I still shoot digital cameras in manual mode (or semi-automatic depending on the situation) because I like to control the different technical aspects of the shot. Stuff like that.

I'm with you on the vinyl, and I was with you on the typewriter until a few years ago when I was looking through a museum and they had a typewriter that could be used by the guests. It was a little older than the typewriter I had to use as a kid before getting a computer, but not radically different.

Typing on it was at first nostalgic, but I quickly realized I was typing way more steadily and efficiently (far fewer mistakes) than I do on a modern keyboard. After continuing to use it I realized there really is something important in the physicality there. There's also a lot of value I think in the "distraction free" nature of the typewriter. It's not going to deluge me with notifications about email and slack messages I'm constantly receiving.

That said, I do think I'd get very frustrated if I had to type on it when tired or rushed as mistakes are far more costly on a typewriter than a modern computer. It's certainly not the panacea that nostalgia makes many of us think it will be, but I do think there's real benefit in it.

Hmm YMMV. I like it even slower for writing fiction, as in handwriting.

But the most important part is probably not the slowness but the distraction-free environment. Get a DOS machine with WordPerfect and it will work as well. But don't run DOS in an emulator that you can alt+tab away from and doomscroll...

An old 486 DOS laptop is great for this!

For those who want a hardware+digital writing-focused experience, I'd recommend the Kingjim Pomera series.

https://artvsentropy.wordpress.com/2023/08/12/retro-writing-...

We bought a Pomera DM250 a few months ago while in Japan. It's really sleek and feature-rich compared to western-built writing-only devices which are limited, more expensive, and bulky. It opens up directly to a word processor; runs Linux under the hood.

You can buy them via ebay as well if you're not in Japan.

While I love typing on typewriters, it doesn't compare to writing with a good fountain pen loaded with excellent ink. But more and more, for writing that I intend to end up is some where in the digital void, I have found myself writing writing using WordStar, running DR DOS 7.0 on a ThinkPad T23, using a clone of an IBM M13 keyboard.

So, for my major writing projects it is: * Outline, snippets, and drafts with a fountain pen. * Writing, re-writing, etc. on WordStar. * Typeset (i.e.: prepare digitally) on my regular systems. This is the only place I get distracted.

I always hated the feeling of the fountain pen scratching the paper while writing, but I only used it for school when I was very very young, and probably it was a crappy fountain pen.

Some of the nicer fountain pens just glide over the paper -- you can look for reviews on several fountain pen forums, and on the fountain pen subreddit. I personally like several of the ones from Pilot. Also, Sailor pens will give you feedback that feels more like a good graphite pencil (so not scratchy, but not glass smooth either). Another good option is the Pilot Varsity ones, those are disposable (and priced as such), but for something built to be cheap price they sure do write good.

For me, a fountain pen has fulfilled this function, but in my teens I had a typewriter collection. I still wonder where they all went...

Ditto for the fountain pen. For the past few months I've been trying to switch off the computer as much as possible and do as much writing as I can by hand. I can concentrate a lot better and I enjoy the physicality of handling a good pen and actual paper.

I've loved fountain pens and ink for years. Used an iPad with an Apple Pencil (which are great) for a couple of years, and then recently came back to fountain pens and pencils. I missed them so much!

What pens have you/others been using? I like the TWSBI 580.

I use a Lamy 2000 and find the shape, balance, and weight to be perfect.

Different inks can transform the writing experience; Aurora’s Black ink is very wet, and in my Lamy, writing with it is effortless.

I also enjoy writing with dip pens. The Sailor Hocoro (1) works with fountain- and dip-pen inks and has a smooth-writing steel nib. I use it when I want to write out some passage or quote in another color. India ink is the blackest black and I love it for that, while walnut ink is a pleasingly light sepia.

1: https://www.gouletpens.com/products/sailor-hocoro-dip-pen-se...

All through university and for several years afterwards I had an Online Vision Classic, which served me very well. Unfortunately I lost the first one at some point, and its replacement had various issues. So a couple of months ago I decided to go for a really good pen, and got an Otto Huth design 04. It looks great, lies comfortably in the hand and has an excellent nib.

If you want to try something wild: take a side project and do your programming on paper.

Type the code in and run it if you must. But go back and write in pen and ink.

It sounds weird. Programming languages have a lot of funky syntax. You’ll find the impulse to either find short-hand or else you will start structuring the program such that you can keep (parts of) it in your head.

When I was learning Python on Udacity’s Python course, I worked out solutions to the problem sets on paper. That’s when I do my best, 100% focused thinking: with a good pen and a nice notebook.

It’s still the most enjoyable programming experience I’ve had.

Lisp dialects are usually nice enough to write on paper. Because whitespace between list elements is never important in classic Lisp, you can break lines wherever it makes most sense visually to do so. Plus, the referential transparency means that you can write on loose sheets without any specific order (although many Lisp compilers do read top-to-bottom in practice).

ML and Haskell-like languages are also good, although you can usually forget writing the terms and just construct everything in types.

I know what you mean, its the same reason I do not have a kindle or buy e-books in general: With a physical book I take the time to sit down and read what is written, but on a screen I find myself skimming through to get the key points.

Sometimes, efficiency is the least important thing.

I love my kobo for the fact that I can carry it with me everywhere, but navigation is so slow that I'm not tempted to switch books or even quick scan them. I only have to charge it every 3-4 days (heavy readings sessions). I only use it for fiction and text heavy books.

It has my whole library on it and I open it everytime I'm waiting for something.

Owning a record player and a vinyl collection helps me reconnect with music and keep the inspiration up. I went digital for quite- years actually- but after the initial joys of discovering and collecting digital i found that my interest in music started to wane. It only came back after investing some time in my vinyl collection again though buying&selling.

I think it is healthy to keep a good part of ones life analog, detached from a computer screen or mobile device.

Van Neistat (Youtuber) uses typeweriter exclusively for writing, because it helps him focus, and also it seems to magically enhance his creativity. (He is one of the most creative person I've watched on youtube.)

[Manual Typewriter vs. The Computer - Van Neistat - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iViMlNj_Ca4)

Thank you for this one!

I have a Monica and while I like typing on it I couldn't imagine writing anything substantial with it, the physical effort required to hammer down the keys hard enough is already quite fatiguing, even for someone enjoying mechanical keyboards. There are a few more modern electrical typewriters that I would consider for serious writing duty.

This is somewhat compounded by the fact the QWERTY layout itself is an inefficient legacy remnant of typewriters, whereby the most utilised keys would have a tendency to stick together if placed side by side, so QWERTY was envisaged as a way of spacing out these keys across the keyboard. Not for ergonomics or efficiency, but as an engineering workaround.

There appears to be some disagreement on whether that is true, for example, in this paper: https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433...

You need some time to switch from computer keyboard mindset. Even though it's the same thing, typing on a typewriter is completely different experience and the way you type is different. You have to place your hands differently, and get some muscles in the fingers since you have to hammer that key. Especially for ring finger and small one - they are the weakest. But as you type more you become better at it, works for basically everything else in life.

reminds me of when I used a film camera. Looking back a the shots I took... I would just take ONE photo. Group photo with 30 people? One picture.

Nowadays I take a ton and pick the best, because they are "free", but suspect I might think less about composing.

I think there is something to be said for the need to get it right. Maybe it makes you more mindful.

In June I "accidentally" (I certainly never saw it coming...) got back into film photography. I bought a Lomography Konstruktor for fun and ended up having way more fun taking photos with it than I thought I would.

It's going to be a personal, subjective thing, but not having the option to take unlimited photos, as I tend to do with my phone when on holiday, say, but having to try to at least give each exposure a chance of being worth the expensive cost of film, made me rediscover the fun of photography.

I recently bought a cheap used Canon 35mm film camera which fits the same EF lenses I already had for my digital SLR. It has proved to be the far more fun camera to take on a photo walk. Not just because I have to think about each shot, but for the delayed gratification of having to wait days/weeks before seeing that it came out as planned.

I have been wanting to buy a typewriter, but quickly found myself lost in what to buy. Ideally I'd like something for which acquiring ink/toner/tape/etc is not overly difficult or expensive, as I intend to actually use the thing. Does anybody have recomendations?

My handwriting sucks and nothing's better for filling out forms and such. It still has practical use cases.

A bit out of context, but GPT can now run on typewriters: https://arvindsanjeev.com/ghostwriter.html

You know what the thing is? I'm working with AI, I have developed some features with AI, I love it in some areas. But I think that human creativity will still be the main driving force and more and more people will appreciate when someone use their creativity, that means they think. THINK. We are slowly forgetting to think every now and then, and the reason is that phones, tv and internet are controlling what we should think, and I think that it should be the other way around. For me, good practice is to use AI as a brainstorm machine, when you get stuck, you can write some prompt and maybe out of it get some ideas. Or you can talk to other people, but everyone today is too busy. "Too busy". So you are left with yourself, which means you have to think this way or another.

I totally agree with you Sasha!

I posted it as a joke/sarcasm to show that even people have tried running AI on a typewriter!

Really nice post. In my final SW engineering job, I bought a ton of drafting supplies and artist paper and forced myself to architect my algorithms. It forced me to slow down and I fell much closer to my objective. I’m going to try your idea.

Great idea. It is magical, makes more room for thinking, less of distractions.

The Djikstra way.

  I don't need a computer.

— The Guy I Almost Was <http://www.electricsheepcomix.com/almostguy/>

You should definitely check out https://getfreewrite.com/. You'd like that. It's like getting the best of both worlds.

Ah, an expensive Alphasmart! Yes, it has a backlit screen and wifi (and maybe a nicer keyboard), but fewer lines on the screen and a shorter battery life than the Neo.

I personally don't like small screens. I have s smartphone and it suits me well for other purposes, but for writing I want to feel that key hammering the paper, smell of the machine, and vibration they produce whey you type. You are definitely connected to the machine in some way. And while we don't have delete button, the way you think is pretty much different then when you have that delete button.

This one can erase letters https://youtube.com/watch?v=AModvOasrG8

Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ from my childhood too <3<3<3

Still have one in my room. Maybe it could work if I had all some cassettes with games or software :)

Why not just pen and paper?

ReMarkable is also a good option for epaper.

I do it from time to time. Usually just some short notes, but it's not the same for me. I like to write on a machine, maybe because I'm typing on a computer keyboard for a long time. But I do enjoy writing with hand more nowadays. Few years ago I've noticed that I do not write with hand at all, everything was on a computer. So it feels good. Combination of handwriting and typewriter works fine for me. Sometimes, when I don't have note besides me, I write some thought on the phone, because I will forget it otherwise.

All you need now is white-out :)

will gift this to someone someday, along with some liquor.