Qwerkywriter: a mechanical typewriter keyboard

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Oh, hipster, that’s got to be coming to a coffee bar soon!

Is a Mechanism that mimics a key not a key?

Oh my. Hipster or not, my inner Mid Century Modernist wants this rather badly. It reminds me of the concept Philco Predicta computer, in a very good way.

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Was going to spoof this with a straight key and some photoshopping, but of course the internets…

Also… anyone else think kickstarter videos are painful? Is the Dyson marketing company required before you get a kickstarter badge?

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Or just buy the Tom Hanks typewriter app. Also, epic fail that the cylinder doesn’t move.

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Does it come in Dvorak?

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Oh man I so so so want that now. That is beyond cool for case design.

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I’m guessing that it is using something like Cherry MX Blue switches, if it is then you should be able to swap the keys to whatever layout you want.

What I want to know is when are they going to make the blank key version?

Edit: They already have blank keyboards. I should have checked their page better than I did.

Unfortunately, the carriage return lever is cosmetic, and does not cause an ASCII 13 (or a VT for that matter). The inventor says he’s eventually going to enable it, though.

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$300 is pretty for one of these.

droooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Oh that Philco Predicta is yummy!

This must be the left-handed model - the manual return is on the left side…

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That is where they be. So as one can push the carriage to the right.

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I used to bash out bad pastiches of Biggles books and the like on one exactly the same as that as a child.

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While waiting for the release, the portable windows app Q10 does typewriter sounds on the keystrokes… the steady rapid-fire kerchunking builds a nice motivation for maintaining momentum while writing.

Though the default screen colors are VAX terminal-like green on black, it can be adjusted to black courier on white for even more nostalgia. I think I read somewhere that the sounds are sampled from the movie Amélie.

Though for real nostalgia I would have to find one that emulated the C-64… which would merely mean placing a “RESET” button somewhere likely to be hit occasionally to lose all unsaved work.

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Maybe they were worried that people’s ipads would become flying deathtraps.

I remember getting the rather tidy LG phone (U400) thinking “yeah! it’s got a little DJ wheel on it for scratching up my favourite mp3s!” but no, all it did was overlay the wikki wikki sound effect on top of the track. No slowing or rewinding, which shouldn’t have been disappointing but I knew that the technology existed.

Anyhoo I don’t have a tablet device, I don’t need an expensive keyboard peripheral and the cylinder doesn’t move but GODAMMIT I want it.

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I recently ran into the odd fact that actual typewriters are so rare today, mere possession of one is treated as evidence one is engaged in forgery or identity theft. Nevertheless I want one.

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My mom’s in trouble, then. She’s had a 1950 Royal since… um… about 1950.

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I want to make a PC keyboard from a 48k ZX Spectrum case, but I don’t know how to do it.