deskthority

HAL wrote:

seebart wrote: ... I bet those washing machine enthusiasts grin upon us too. Keyboards? Jeez!

Aren't we just one community?

Keyboard_washing_machine_community_2015-09-28.jpg

that would work for them too just change it to .

Tell me what washing machine that keyboard is in.

They would be able to as well. I mean how many of us can spot a model f in a huge pile of rubber domes for 50 feet away ? I would guess most of us.

OleVoip wrote: If it is more about knowing and finding out than about possessing, does it make me less a collector or is it even worse?

I'd day it merely makes you perfectly sane. It's when you chase after something merely because you don't have it yet that you know you're in trouble.

When I got into typewriters, I learned there was a certain type that becomes enthusiastic about vintage electronics and machines. Some of the typewriter guys were into Model Ms and familiar with the keyboards forums. I think we all would get along just fine.

Tom Hanks has a thing for typewriters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/opini ... -that.html

"The sound of typing is one reason to own a vintage manual typewriter — alas, there are only three reasons, and none of them are ease or speed. In addition to sound, there is the sheer physical pleasure of typing; it feels just as good as it sounds, the muscles in your hands control the volume and cadence of the aural assault so that the room echoes with the staccato beat of your synapses."

Maybe somebody should give him a converted beam spring with solenoid if he likes the typewriter sound so much. (he can't have mine though!)

I think part of the mechanical *typewriter* experience, rather than mechanical *keyboards* like ours, is the fetishisation of physical paper and physical ink. Looking at a display is too abstract, too virtual. Those guys want it real. You see the hammers strike, the ribbon twitch, and the paper slide all around the platen because you don't actually know the first thing about bloody typewriters…

A big part of mechs for me is using vintage equipment for modern tasks. A beamspring isn't obsolete any more, the moment you put Xwhatsit's controller in there and plug it into your computer. Typing is still something a lot of us do a lot of, and the old gear is often the best gear for the job.

But typewriters? I'd rather use a pen. Which isn't saying much, the cramp I get from more than a few minutes of that! Reminds me of bloody school. That, bordom, and ogling…

Yeah, a beam spring wouldn't give the whole typewriter experience. He does say, "I confess that when real work has to be done — documents with requirements equal to a college term paper — I use a computer." He'd probably enjoy using a computer more with a beam spring.

Oh the IBM Selectric does indeed feel like the beamspring, no cramp there, but the "whole" typewriter experience's worst thing is that I never dared typing fast, to avoid errors, despite auto correct tape on the Selectric and that white paint stuff before that. It would still make the result imperfect.

That and needing to mail every damn thing once you're done with it. Deskthority wouldn't be quite the same as a paper based forum.

Hey, they have philcos!

I lost it with this video I'm absolutely sure this is how people see me.

Since I don't see it in the thread:

I collect vintage calculators. Fascinated by the early pioneering digital technology and engineering that went into these things, as well as the unique appearance and construction techniques of an era where things were built to last.

Calculators with cool displays, like nixie tubes, VFDs, or panaplex displays? Sure, I have those, a plenty! Calculators with odd or unique features? I have scientific calculators that let you watch the numbers change live as it processes results. I have a calculator that can calculate infinitely large numbers by throwing away least significant digits, and having a rolling pattern of decimal shift indication, just add zeroes! I have an astrological calculator that calculates astrological alignments for the years 3000BC to 7000AD... Why! Calculators with absolutely no chips... Just transistors, diodes and resistors? I got 'em! Memory stored as mechanical vibrations traveling down a coil of suspended wire? Check! Magnetostrictive delay lines store bits by applying a torsional twist to a wire with a transducer. Another transducer at the end of the wire picks up the bit stream of mechanical twists and amplifies the signal, injecting it back into the logic circuits. I've got several examples! Calculators that use CRTs and vectors to "draw" numbers. I have a couple of those too! Calculators also have keys... Ultimately, if it hadn't been for my calculators, I might not have ended up here!

fohat wrote: Since I don't see it in the thread:

richfiles wrote:
I collect vintage calculators. Fascinated by the early pioneering digital technology and engineering that went into these things, as well as the unique appearance and construction techniques of an era where things were built to last.

Wonderful collection!

That could populate the wing of a museum.

mr_a500 wrote: Tom Hanks has a thing for typewriters. (...)
Maybe somebody should give him a converted beam spring with solenoid if he likes the typewriter sound so much. (he can't have mine though!)

Not a bad idea, though he's asked in a few interviews for people to please stop sending him typewriters, since he has all the typewriters he wants (and I imagine people send him crap ones which he just has to lug away).

But while he might not enjoy having unsolicited keyboards sent to his home, he might appreciate a friendly tip through his people to go get a mech of this or that model if he'd like to have a similar kind of tactile enjoyment in his computer setup.

Or he might find it creepy and over-familiar.