10/4/2018

​Retro style has another round at the computer world and certainly, quite a few writers are taking noice. Reporting on a new addition to that world, a typewriter-style keyboard that even reproduces the clatter of the now seemingly obsolete device, “Wall Street Journal’ says in its subtitle that it will make you “feel like a high-tech Hemingway.”
[A Computer Keyboard That Reminds Us How Typing Should Feel — WSJ](https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-computer-keyboard-that-reminds-us-how-typing-should-feel-1522768128?redirect=amp)
Since all the typewriters I ever owned were long gone, to remind myself instantly of that clatter, I put on “The Blue Notebooks,” one of the best Max Richter albums, where qt one point the typewriter sounds could be heard.
While the typewriters might be gone, my hard pressing the keyboard buttons is still around from all those years behind the ‘original stuff, and this nostalgic trip brought along a few questions — does ‘nostalgic’ typing bring along ‘nostalgic’ writing? Do younger writers even know what it is like sitting behind a typewriter, or even what Hemingway writing style is like and do they want to feel like a high-tech Hemingway after all?
For those writers that still remember both the typewriters or Hemingway (or Hemingway’s writing, at least), writing on those clattering machines used to be like a ritual — the moment you sit down in front of a blank piece of paper with coffee and already typed pages scattered around, the ideas would start flowing, or at least the whole setting would be some form of conduit that would bring ideas no matter what. At some point anyway.
It all brought along a certain style of writing. Like Hemingway, among the multitude of great writers. There was no flash fiction (or at least it wasn’t called that anyway), or if we have Hemingway’s news reporting career, no fake news, or at least there weren’t supposed to be any.
Still, would an old style clattering typewriter lookalike keyboard bring back such writing or, after all, should it? All this is open to discussion. What I do know personally is that I intend to get my hands on one of those, it brings back memories, both good and bad. And memories do come up with some good writing.

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