The Cheapest Distraction-Free Writing Machine You’ll Ever Find

Behold the glory of the 1990s-era Alphasmart

A month ago I wrote a blog post entirely using my old manual typewriter.

It was a bit of a stunt, of course. But it felt oddly modern. Cognitively speaking, typing out an essay felt quite similar to writing via voice-dictation on my smartphone. In both cases — before I speak, or before I type — I have to craft a whole, complete sentence in my head. Interestingly, working on a typewriter made my text rather more plainspoken and less ornate, because I couldn’t tinker and fiddle with sentences to get them perfect.

There was another benefit to the typewriter, though, which is that it was distraction free. No nagging alerts from the nudgy casino mechanisms of social media; no ‘zup? messages from friends suddenly breaking my flow.

So the typewriter giveth and taketh away. It endows you with superior concentration — but makes it hard to craft and sculpt your prose.

When I was talking to friends about my typewriter essay, they noted this see-saw compromise, and wondered if there weren’t some perfect midpoint. What if there were a machine that gave you fully digital editing abilities, but wasn’t connected to the raging cocktail party of the Internet? They’d love that!