It’s a sad day in low-tech today as the typewriter reportedly officially became obsolete. The last company on earth producing typewriters – Godrej and Boyce – has closed its production plant, leaving Snoopy to embrace this old-style Mac for his writing endeavors.
The company’s general manager, Milind Dukle, told India’s Business Standard newspaper: “We are not getting many orders now.” The announcement, if true, ends a long run for the device, which was once a mainstay of office life. A prototype of the typewriter was introduced in 1714 by Henry Mill, but the first mass-produced typewriter came in 1868 when Christopher Latham Sholes, a printer-publisher from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, patented the device.
While I somewhat doubt there will never be another typewriter produced ever (contrary to the report), as there will always be collectors and history buffs around, as well as Luddites and classicists, this report is nevertheless a compelling statement on the direction that technology is headed – away from the mechanical world.
