.Davis Typewriter Works

.Davis Typewriter Works

Monday, July 26, 2010

Ode to the Generation 3000


O Ignored and ignoble one!
O how maligned thou art!
How base, low, and reprehensible!
See how unreviewed and unappreciated thou have been?
See how those who type manually and/or portably have turned their backs on you?
Thy fate is certainly undeserved, is it not?
To think, thou art one of the last manual typewriters in manufacture, available new, un-blemished and un-used, and with instructions.
And are those who would look upon you and yet not purchase you un-moved by your singular position, being available through such fine and well establish-ed institutions as Dr. Leonard's and Carol Wright?
Yes, you have appeard in more than one guise, but even as "Rover 5000" thou art new and shiny, smelling of recent manufacture and machine oil.
Un-typed upon, un-previously owned, un-marked and un-stickered with "Larry's typewriter repair and Ice Cream shop-- 531 N. South Street."
And now, thou have become unavailable except as clothed in an Olivetti guise. The good Doctor and Ms. Wright choose to carry you not, it would seem.
Glad am I that I have come to know your notchy operational characteristics, and glad too am I that you now reside in my collection next to typewriters of much higher station than you would ever have.
Thou art a Chevette, a Pinto, a Sparkomatic, yet thou doest type well and/or true, as thy alignment test would attest to.
Thou art not flashy, but plastic-y, light in weight but heavy in history, as one of the last in manufacture.
O ignored Generation 3000, or Rover 5000, or Olivetti MS25 Premier, or whatever name you choose to go by, we are glad to have known you.

1 comment:

  1. HaHA! Nicely done.
    (by the way, I drove a 1984 Chevette for a brief period in my late teens. By the time it gave up the ghost, its speedometer would spin wildly, faster or slower depending on how fast you were going. It was a bit like - I imagine - staring into the instrument panel of a plane that has been shot down, but hasn't yet hit earth.)

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