It all started when I was 13 or thereabouts; it was the late 1950s. My mother worked as a clerk typist, and I decided I needed to learn to type so I could write about my favorite subject at the time, flying saucers. So she agreed to rent one, and gave me quick guidance as […]

Do you remember the IBM Selectric? It represented the pinnacle of traditional typewriter technology before companies tried to turn them into rudimentary word processing machines. The Selectric made it easy to change typefaces by putting the letters on tiny switchable font elements or balls. My recollection of the Selectric is that they were smooth, reasonably […]