I’m torn between shock that somebody still makes them and an urgent longing to buy one before they run out
Typewriter? What’s a typewriter?
The end of the line: Last typewriter factory left in the world closes its doors
That’s an entry for the Things I Thought Happened In 1998 department.
It’s an invention that revolutionised the way we work, becoming an essential piece of office equipment for the best part of a century.
But after years of sterling service, that bane for secretaries has reached the end of the line.
Godrej and Boyce – the last company left in the world that was still manufacturing typewriters – has shut down its production plant in Mumbai, India with just a few hundred machines left in stock.
I once told my kids the story of my 8th grade typing class, wherein we struggled with cranky old manual typewriters that – if memory serves – weren’t even electric.
The kids thought it was hilarious, once I convinced them I wasn’t just making it all up.
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When I was a kid, back around 1990 or so, I thought the manual typewriter I got to see at my Dad’s work was the coolest thing EVER. Now, they’re almost all gone.
I think typewriters held out longer than expected because businesses continued to use them to fill out government forms.
Now, of course, we all use government Web portals and ‘quirky’ Web forms also built, oddly enough, in Mumbai.