Typewriters to Laptops to Typewriter Laptops?
With the first typewriter being put into circulation in 1868 by Christopher L. Sholes, it is not a technology that has fully gone away. Yes, technology has improved and laptop sales are booming, the classic feel of a typewriter is like no other. As a child, I would type away on my grandfather's antique typewriter, with no paper or ink intact, but the feeling of importance, as there is an aura that surrounds an antique invention such as the typewriter.
The Author's Classic Typewriter Keyboard
The initial typewriter invented in 1863 was essentially a word processor without display or memory, being unforgiving to user created errors. The idea of the typewriter being portable came later in 1917 by Fox Portable. Although the company was quickly sued for design theft, the concept of a typing tool being portable became undeniable. We saw the same timeline for computers as they were once very large making them non transportable but the idea of laptops quickly came around and today a majority of those with a desktop computer also have access to a laptop. This counteracts my original EOTO, "paper", as author Mark Kurlansky states, "new technologies seldom replace old technologies. Rather, the new technology fills an adjacent slot- and the old technology retains important uses (Kurlansky, Paper: Paging Through History). We see this statement to not be true for typewriters and laptops as typewriters are in a minimal amount of circulation, especially for use as a writing source, the laptop has truly replaced the need.
With that being said, the image above presents us with a modern take on the typewriter. The typewriter keyboard attached to an electronic device, solely for the purpose of the feeling that one gets when typing on those keys.
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