Before PCs

This has been a week of reunion with old friends, re-hashing old stories, re-affirming long-standing friendship.

At some point, our do-you-remember-when conversation turned to typewriters (yes, typewriters, not PCs and microsoft WORD). This is the tool of trade that defines our generation.

Who remembers (or even knows anything of) that marvel of a typewriter called the Selectric from Big Blue? If you admit to having worked with one, you are of the same vintage as me. Remember when your position in the office pecking order was defined by the number of different typeballs you owned?

In my mind's eye I can still see: my IBM Selectric II was olive green and had dual pitch (10 and 12 characters to the inch). The fonts I used the most was Elite (12-pitch) and Pica (10-pitch). I would switch to Courier (10 and 12) when I wanted a different look.

Back then, most of us were trained to type by touch (as opposed to hunt-and-peck). I am particularly proud that at my fighting best, I typed comfortably at a demonstration typing speed of 90 words per minute (wpm) with 98% accuracy. 60 wpm with 90% accuracy was considered the minimum employable proficiency speed.

This is all historical trivia. It is sentimental trivia for me and it feels good to be talking about it with people who lived it...