The Typewriter Revolution includes chapters on intersections between typewriters and the digital world, and on the future of typewriting. In this context I discuss things such as typewriter-simulation apps, the Alphasmart, and the Hemingwrite (now rechristened the Freewrite).
In my view, a gadget like the Freewrite should be considered a word processor, not a typewriter, since it doesn't put ink on paper. But maybe that is a picky technicality. After all, typewriters can put ink on things other than paper (cloth, tin foil, leaves...) and they can type without ink (to make a stencil, for instance). In any case, the existence of the Freewrite shows that there is some demand for a more focused, simpler writing technology than what our usual digital devices offer us.
A couple of recent news stories about such inventions caught my eye. First, there is the Pomera, an "E ink typewriter" with a folding keyboard, invented in Japan, where it has supposedly been popular for a decade. The manufacturer has started a Kickstarter campaign to introduce it in the US.
"With the first model having been released in Japan in 2008, pomera will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2018. In 2008, people who were using laptops on the go or on business trips were unhappy about the heavy weight, large size, slow startup and short battery life. They would carry heavy laptops just to take notes. During meetings, they would surf websites, becoming distracted from work. We wanted an easy-to-use tool just for entering text, which led us to develop pomera. Now it is used [for] taking notes as well as for writing, such as novels. We have launched pomera on Kickstarter, because we want this unique tool to be used by people in the U.S. and Japan."
The other device that drew my attention is the Typer, which I think exists purely as a design concept so far. It was created by industrial designer Yannik Goetz. What makes it different from the Freewrite or the Pomera is that it actually prints immediately onto a roll of paper. (These images come from Goetz's Instagram account and from a story here.)
The Typer's keyboard is truly minimal, and would probably be uncomfortable at first because the keys are in a grid, rather than staggered, like most typewriter and computer keyboards. The dot-matrix printing technology is what you'd find on a simple printing calculator or cash register. What is the potential market for this gadget? Probably zero.
But is it a typewriter? I vote yes. In the '80s and '90s, dot-matrix technology was used on some portable machines that were marketed as typewriters and that no one, to my knowledge, insisted on calling anything else. Here's an example (not my video):
What do you think?
In my view, a gadget like the Freewrite should be considered a word processor, not a typewriter, since it doesn't put ink on paper. But maybe that is a picky technicality. After all, typewriters can put ink on things other than paper (cloth, tin foil, leaves...) and they can type without ink (to make a stencil, for instance). In any case, the existence of the Freewrite shows that there is some demand for a more focused, simpler writing technology than what our usual digital devices offer us.
A couple of recent news stories about such inventions caught my eye. First, there is the Pomera, an "E ink typewriter" with a folding keyboard, invented in Japan, where it has supposedly been popular for a decade. The manufacturer has started a Kickstarter campaign to introduce it in the US.
"With the first model having been released in Japan in 2008, pomera will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2018. In 2008, people who were using laptops on the go or on business trips were unhappy about the heavy weight, large size, slow startup and short battery life. They would carry heavy laptops just to take notes. During meetings, they would surf websites, becoming distracted from work. We wanted an easy-to-use tool just for entering text, which led us to develop pomera. Now it is used [for] taking notes as well as for writing, such as novels. We have launched pomera on Kickstarter, because we want this unique tool to be used by people in the U.S. and Japan."
The other device that drew my attention is the Typer, which I think exists purely as a design concept so far. It was created by industrial designer Yannik Goetz. What makes it different from the Freewrite or the Pomera is that it actually prints immediately onto a roll of paper. (These images come from Goetz's Instagram account and from a story here.)
The Typer's keyboard is truly minimal, and would probably be uncomfortable at first because the keys are in a grid, rather than staggered, like most typewriter and computer keyboards. The dot-matrix printing technology is what you'd find on a simple printing calculator or cash register. What is the potential market for this gadget? Probably zero.
But is it a typewriter? I vote yes. In the '80s and '90s, dot-matrix technology was used on some portable machines that were marketed as typewriters and that no one, to my knowledge, insisted on calling anything else. Here's an example (not my video):
What do you think?
