Pain incarnate

Kneeboard

09 Aug 2021, 01:21

I decided to check out my local charity shop, haven't been there in months so due to COVID and I kinda missed it.
I checked around a bit and then something caught my eye, a typewriter.

It wasn't just any typewriter, it was a Smith-Corona leafspring typewriter. Pretty similar to the one in Chyrosran's video, (not sure if it was the same model) but I decided to try it out anyway.


I pressed a key...


Imagine you get some pringles, a whole can of them. You slowly poor them all out and stack them on top of eachother. Now put a keycap on top of it and press down till you break through every. single. pringle.

That would be the best description of it.

I've heard that depending on model it CAN BE really nice but it just felt gross to type on.

Its like someone put a keycap on a block of sand.

Pretty sure this was supposed to be linear but its just... not?

I have typed on some bad things, once I tore a rubber dome mat out of some old office keyboard, pored cooking oil on it and then tried to type on it and honestly, I'd rather type on that EVERY DAY of EVERY WEEK for EVERY YEAR TILL I DIE than type on this.

Do you ever get shown a shock video/picture without warning? Stuff like goatse. Well imagine if they got that feeling, melted it down and made monster out of it. Touching is like staring at Cthulhu.

I'm pretty sure half of the people that used these things were later put into Psychiatric hospitals, the other 50% lost it entirely and ran into the wild, never to be seen again.

You type a sentence on this and all time slows down, this thing wants you to suffer for as long as possible. Its goddamn AM in typewriter form.

I haven't slept in ages so this is definitely filled with spelling mistakes but I don't even care. Life is meaningless now, I can't sleep without having nightmares of the slightly grey/silvery beast. The image has been burn into my eyelids. I blink and see a full 8k image of it.











It was sold for 30 quid...

keyboard Kultist

09 Aug 2021, 23:14

Ha Ha Ha Ha I had a similar experience at a local thrift shop. It was for sale for six dollars. I left it on the shelf.

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Karmel

10 Aug 2021, 01:29

I swear there's something up with these switches. Everyone I've seen hates them but mine feel great, they're amazingly smooth and don't bind at all or anything, and it's not a Mitsumi version.

kelvinhall05

10 Aug 2021, 01:31

Karmel wrote:
10 Aug 2021, 01:29
I swear there's something up with these switches. Everyone I've seen hates them but mine feel great, they're amazingly smooth and don't bind at all or anything, and it's not a Mitsumi version.
Yeah same I've tried probably half a dozen and they've all been butter smooth, rivaling even some lubed modern switches. No binding whatsoever.

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XR6

10 Aug 2021, 01:45

I've tried a couple of SCLS typewriters, they were quite smooth and didn't bind at all.
I did try one that was a bit scratchy and bindy but it wasn't that bad.

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Karmel

10 Aug 2021, 03:19

I did find one once that was super scratchy and binded to the point of being unusable, so I don't know if it a condition thing or if Smith Corona just had poor quality control sometimes. I wouldn't expect an inherently bad feeling keyboard form Smith Corona as their earlier manual typewriters are some of the best feeling out there.

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Yasu0

13 Aug 2021, 20:39

Have you ever actuated the turn signals on an 80's K-car... its kind of like that.

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hellothere

15 Aug 2021, 18:43

Yasu0 wrote:
13 Aug 2021, 20:39
Have you ever actuated the turn signals on an 80's K-car... its kind of like that.
I have. Either it wasn't remarkable or I'm suppressing the memory.

Props to kneeboard on the great rant.

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