199x Canon Typestar 220 #SB2015673

Status: My Collection
Hunter: Michael Hoehne (mhoehne)
Created: 08-16-2014 at 10:12PM
Last Edit: 07-23-2017 at 04:51PM

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Description:

I do not think this is a typewriter. I submit it to the database as an edge case, to help clarify what is and what isn’t. The keyboard and the portability make it look somewhat like a typewriter but it is really a computer with built-in printer.

There is a continuum from electric-assisted-mechanical typewriters through electricity-required machines (e.g., Selectrics, which could not work with finger pressure) through the wedges with their electronics-controlled mechanical hammer (and which could be computer-driven) to this, which is computer-driven and has finally eliminated impact altogether. The last vestige of mechanical parts are the cables and pulleys that move the thermal printhead; although the keys do move, they could just as well be capacitance sensors so that possible link doesn’t count. It does use an “ink” source and plain paper, but so does ‘most every other computer printer. This looks like a wedge, so we might be tempted to call it a typewriter just by extending the (questionable?) courtesy by which we call the wedges typewriters ... nah.

This might not even be able to place one character at a time, a universal hallmark of a typewriter. Maybe it can, but I don’t know how without an instruction manual---another difference from a real typewriter.

If you all want to delete this from the database, fine with me.

Typeface Specimen:

Photos:

Good Luck using this without a manual and managing to write faster than longhand.

Hunter: Michael Hoehne (mhoehne)

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Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 5644

While I find all of mankind's inventions interesting, I am most enchanted by the human-scale arts and devices, the ones that can be created (and repaired) in a home workshop or studio; the ones that can be understood by looking at them; the ones that do something useful or stir admiration. Typewriters work for me.