Friday 2 September 2011

Never Too Late to Look into the Future


6 comments:

  1. Thanks deek for a thought provoking guest post! If I'm still around, I'll be 110. Most likely pushing up daisies! If not, I might be hand weaving ribbons and grinding soot for ink.

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  2. actually, the advances in 3-D copiers would virtually assure that you could easily and cheaply replicate nearly anything that had been properly scanned into digital form anytime between now and then. Want a new ribbon? no problem. How about an entire 1959 SM? That'll be 25 Reagans, and it'll be done in four minutes.

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  3. I'll be dead or wish I were dead. But I hope some of my typewriters will have found their way into the hands of a few people who will use them or treasure them. It's a good thing to think about, it makes us more careful about these devices we are preserving for future generations.

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  4. ...unless a last request is that we insist they are buried with us - like the pharaohs of old Egypt. Might be needed in the afterlife.

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  5. My Reagans are on a 150 year average lifespan by then:)

    So, would these 3-D copiers even produce the ink in the ribbon, or would that be a separate process? I can understand how it could create the spools, but a ribbon and ink too? Fascinating!

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  6. Gosh. In 60 years I'll be 77...
    Hopefully I'll still have my typewriters then-at least my trusty Brother Deluxe 220 that I bought in Germany and traveled back to the States with.
    I think there will still be stuff available to use with the typers; maybe not traditional ribbon that you and I would think of but some kind of perpetual ink that can be applied to fabric, that is, if there is even a major use for paper at all in 60 years.
    I believe that my typewriters will live for a lot longer than I will, so there's no problem there. I think that the biggest concern, as you said, will be paper and ribbons.

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