Typewriter VS Computer Printer

Which do you believe is better?

  • Total voters
    29
Typewriters are heavy. And cool.
Whenever I see one I think of this 80s TV outro
that came on at the end of A-team, Airwolf, Knight Rider,
MacGyver and other classic series episodes.

 
Years ago I would have been tempted to say typewriters are better than printers. Not better than word processing software, just printers, because all my life printers were always unreliable. Now we have Brother brand printers (HL-L2340D) at home and the home office at the in-laws', and they just work. Neglected, dusty, even getting carried to all our annual meetings and spending time in the back of the van (a different model).

It really was a foreign concept to me to just go and print something without expecting the printer to screw up (or for Windows to screw up sending to the printer in the first place). I remember crossing my fingers that the printer would work as a component of the stress in finishing a school assignment the night before it was due. It wasn't just the same printer over the years, either.

I do a metric ton of revising and editing on the fly in my writing, though, so a typewriter would not necessarily have been a better fit.
 
Seeing as how copy/paste and other ease of editing things have been mentioned here, I'll say that I've never seen a printer that supports copy/paste etc. There's no reason why one could not prepare a document with a word processor then manually type it up rather than hit the "print" button.
 
BobK
There's no reason why one could not prepare a document with a word processor then manually type it up rather than hit the "print" button.
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There's also no reason why one wishing to cross the United States could not spend 4 to 5 days driving rather than 4 to 5 hours flying. Convenience is likely the primary motivator for choosing the latter in both examples, no?

If all other current word processing tools were available without the convenience that a printer offers, I imagine people would be doing exactly that.

One could still choose to type up something they've drafted on a computer, of course, just as one could still load up a car and drive half the day for several days while spending the other half in diners and cheap motels.
 
TexRex
There's also no reason why one wishing to cross the United States could not spend 4 to 5 days driving rather than 4 to 5 hours flying. Convenience is likely the primary motivator for choosing the latter in both examples, no?

If all other current word processing tools were available without the convenience that a printer offers, I imagine people would be doing exactly that.

One could still choose to type up something they've drafted on a computer, of course, just as one could still load up a car and drive half the day for several days while spending the other half in diners and cheap motels.
Click to expand...

Oh absolutely, I agree completely. It's just that cut 'n' paste got injected into the discussion even though it's an apples and oranges thing, that's all I'm saying.
 
BobK
Oh absolutely, I agree completely. It's just that cut 'n' paste got injected into the discussion even though it's an apples and oranges thing, that's all I'm saying.
Click to expand...

The cut 'n' paste got injected into the discussion because it's an apples and oranges thing. :sly:
Next we're going to bring the dictaphone in - you know the one with fairly strong legs that can efficiently keep abreast of one's ramblings.

Quite fascinating how some discussions, like a good wine, improve with age. :lol:
 

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