I bought for myself, as a belated holiday gift, a brand new Royal Scriptor II Portable Electric Typewriter. I’ve been yearning for a working typewriter¹ for at least a year now. What finally pushed me to make the purchase was my recent realization that I’ve spent at least a third of my life for the last 34 years looking at screens. Looking for ways to cut back, a typewriter seemed an ideal compromise: one that would allow me to write without always having to be looking at a screen².

The new typewriter arrived yesterday and what a joy it is!

Admittedly, I originally set out to get a manual typewriter, but those seemed much harder to come by than a new Royal. Besides, I wanted a typewriter that was in working condition, not for show. As it turns out, the model that I got has some advanced features, including a screen that you can see what you’re typing before it types it on the page so you can make corrections. I have avoided this feature so far. After spending about an hour learning the basics, I obtained a set of blank postcards, and set about writing half a dozen notes to friends and family on my new machine. I made two surprising discoveries:

1. I am not nearly as good a typist as I think I am when editing capabilities and auto-correct are taken out of the picture. I type fast, but I make a typo every 3 or 4 lines of text. This discovery is a blessing in disguise: by using the typewriter, I think I can make myself a better typist.
2. When I get into a rhythm, with the staccato RAT-TAT-TAT of my typing as background music, I get what I only describe as an endorphin rush that spurs me on, and is like nothing I’ve ever felt typing on a computer keyboard and watching the words appear on a screen.
   

There are a few useful features that I’ve already made use of. The device has a whopping 16K of text memory, which can be used to store text files, or format settings. I’ve used it for the latter, setting up my margins and tab for standard letter paper, as well as 4×6 postcards. This makes it convenient to easily switch formatting settings based on my task. The typewriter can produce underlined text, bold text, and 3 different text pitches. It can auto-center a line, and right-justify a line. It has word correction features that make use of the correction tape, but I haven’t played around with that yet, preferring the old-fashioned X-ing out of my mistakes. This gives me visual cues of my progress over time.

I’m excited to put my new toy to more use. The feeling I got when I used it yesterday was just wonderful. As I sit here typing these words into my laptop, I am imagining typing them into my new typewriter. It is not the same.

— Arlington, Virginia

1. I have a manual Royal typewriter circa 1950, which I inherited from my grandfather, but it is no longer in working condition. ↩︎
2. Someone will note that I could also simply write longhand and at a significantly lower cost. The fact is I do write longhand, every day, in my diaries. That gives my hand and wrist enough of a workout. ↩︎