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by disintegore 2415 days ago
How in hell is that "simpler"
1 comments

Probably meant technologically simpler, since no software is involved.

Acquiring and operating a typewriter is definitely not, in my view, a simple alternative.

Just writing with pen and paper seems simpler on all counts.

I think they might have been referring to needing to type the whole thing again. Back in the typewriter days, I remember drafting papers on pen and pencil until I was read, and then typing it out; occasionally switching to white out ribbons to fix mistakes. Word processors changed a lot of that, and big high school we could all type our papers in Word97 or Corel WordPerfect and print them out; no intermediate steps.

I suppose with a typewriter today, you could still just OCR the result using an old scanner you can pick up at a garage sale or thrift store for nothing, if you didn't want to re-type everything by hand.

R.R. Martin has said he still uses and old word processor with Word Star on it, to have fewer distractions. He transfers things over via floppy disk.

Typewriter operation is on the same order of simplicity as typing on a computer and operating a printer.

Typewriter acquisition is about an hour of time and $50.

Admittedly, I've owned a typewriter for longer than I've owned a conputer. I put it down in favor of WP5.1, but picked it back up a few years ago.

The advantage over pen and paper, for me, is speed and legibility.