Scribes of Our Present Age

Post-Script: Perhaps us typewriter aficionados do have a duty to future generations, to preserve some small glimpse of this present age, through this seemingly outdated medium of mechanically imprinted ink upon paper, like those few diehard film photographers who choose to preserve images onto a more physically permanent medium than magnetic fields or bits of electric charges might provide. Perhaps that is the greater significance of the typewriter renaissance, offering one last opportunity, before these machines corrode irreparably through the effects of time, to preserve the knowledge of the past and present.

Maybe this is all much too romantic of an approach, the idea that typewriters serve some culturally historic function. But consider that the typed document is able to be scanned and then converted to some electronic format, much more easily than a handwritten manuscript might (certainly my handwriting is scanner-proof); functioning as a film negative, as a document existing into the future within the physical realm.

We could argue endlessly as to whether paper is more archival than electronic media. I can imagine scenarios where either media would fail first. For my purposes, however, paper documents require no expenditure of energy to sustain, only space to store; unlike information in server farms or hard drives, which have to be repeatedly copied onto new media periodically to remain viable. The laws of thermodynamics and quantum physics dictate that magnetic fields inevitably degrade over time, as do electrical charges, that will inevitably leak out of the best flash memory's floating gate.

I wonder if future historians will even have access to the archives of our present social media platforms, or if these will function as virtual voices in the wind, fleeting and ephemeral, only accessible in the present. Might it be possible that there will remain an enormous gap in our culture's legacy, brought about by the temporal nature of the systems and platforms that support our contemporary culture?

I am reminded that the typewriter's origins lie in an attempt at circumventing the effects of a labor strike at Christopher Latham Sholes's newspaper's printing office. Such is the problem of centralized control of the means to access information technology; which reminds me of our present-day era of silicon-based platforms dependent on specialist, centralized complexity, and of the typewriter's intrinsic self-sufficiency. Unlike the ancient Alexandrian library (another centralized repository of cultural data), whose contents were lost to history, the typewriter is entirely decentralized into the hands of individual collectors and users. Contrast this with these mega-sized semiconductor factories, described above (and in which I work), which are becoming more and more expensive to build and maintain, in the hands of fewer and fewer corporations willing to invest the necessary capital.

Typecast via ~90 year old Corona 4.

Neet Notebooks?

Post-Script: These are simple enough that anyone with a paper trimmer, stapler and corner punch can make these. I did a batch of sixteen just yesterday, and it was kind of meditative as I zoned in on folding the paper by hand as precisely as possible. The hardest part was getting the template made for printing out four covers on one sheet of paper; but the laser printing looks very nice.

Send me your postal address and I'll get one or two in the mail to you. Just give me feedback on how you like them. I always carry one in my wallet, they come in very handy for generic note-taking.

Here's a link to the video on the inspiration for Field Notes brand.

Typecast via Corona 4. I've been tinkering with the Corona this week, as I got the new feet installed. I degreased with isopropyl alcohol the ribbon mechanisms, including the vibrator and reel mechanism, then followed up with some naphtha as a light lubricant, and the ribbon spools now runs the entire length before auto-reversing. She also looks nice and shiny with a bit of car wax.

New Sneakers

Post-Script: These new rubber feet certainly quieted the machine down, especially the front two, which also serve as bumpers for the space bar. While test typing last night on my granite-surfaced kitchen island, not a bit of slipping was noted, testimony to how well the new rubber grips. I would certainly recommend checking out the Typewriter Man's website, should your Corona need new feet.

As for the upper case shift problem, what I suspect had happened is that because, over the years, the rear feet had become permanently squished, making them wider than they should have been, they were interfering with the shifting mechanism. Then when I had the machine reconditioned some years ago, the local repair shop didn't have new replacement feet, and so they just adjusted the shifting to compensate. Subsequently, after the feet replacement, the shift mechanism was free to move further than before. The problem last night, as I indicated in the piece, was figuring out why the upper case adjustment screws weren't permitting enough range of motion, which ended up being debris caught in the bearing race for the carriage up/down motion.

I still haven't looked at the premature ribbon reversal issue, but I'll leave that for another day.

The Ever-Eager Runway Model

The subject of today's video, a roller base for 35mm development tanks

Post-Script: Though I've kept the Corona 4 on display for some years, I haven't paid it as much attention as it deserves, hence why I only found out last week the problem with its feet. If after I replace the feet I decide to continue using it inside its base, I might add a thin sheet of craft foam underneath, to dampen the sound; it's noticeably louder now, absent the thick felt pad.

Should you be interested, here's an embedded link to the You Tube video I was working on, about a project for making a roller base for 35mm film development tanks, for use with rotary processing small direct positive paper prints.


Photo via Lumix G5.