Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Nadex Pioneer typewriter

Meet the Nadex Pioneer!







Yes, it's yet another product of Shanghai Weilv, the only remaining manufacturer of manual typewriters on the planet. And it's not a new design, but the same thing as the Royal Epoch (click for my review) and other "brands" from the same factory. I have no doubt that it's just as bad, and the two-star reviews on Amazon confirm my hunch.

Take a close look at the "typing" in the photos. No, the Nadex cannot produce proportional, crisp, aligned typing like this. It's laser printed!


Don't waste your money on a Nadex. But wonder, with me, what might happen if someone decided to pour a few million dollars into creating a proper typewriter factory, with high-quality materials and careful assembly. We need a good new manual typewriter for the rest of the 21st century!



Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Louis L'Amour on typewriters


Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) was a spectacularly successful author of Western novels and stories. Here he is at his Olympia SM3 in 1953, and at an IBM Model B or C in later life.


Dave Cannon has discovered some wonderful passages on typewriters in L'Amour's memoir Education of a Wandering Man.


These are so good I just had to type them up on my Reporters Special. Thanks, Dave!