Showcase (11) : Smith-Corona GT

The Italian design firm Ghia are well-known for their car designs, especially for deluxe models in the Ford range in latter days, but did you know they also once designed a typewriter too? The nice but somewhat curious Smith-Corona GT has Ghia (and thus automotive like) styling. This is a typewriter with go faster stripes and pieces of rubber on the trim including the carriage return lever! When you open the case (which carries the Ghia badge like a proud owner's Ford Grenada Ghia) you get the smell of rubber!

Although a rather plasticky machine from the mid 1970s, the typewriter works pretty well, the Q key sticks when used but other than that there are not any other problems to report and i have been using it recently for my touch typing practice. The ribbon was recently changed, this was a much more fiddly (and inky finger dirty) job than usual. 

Green LEDs

I have bought quite a few calculators lately but when i saw this Commodore 798D on eBay i knew i had space for one more. It has a lovely green LED display which makes it stands out from my other working Commodores with their red LEDs. The calculator, built in 1976, is like new and seems to work perfectly.

The workshop opens

The new dedicated typewriter "workshop" has opened! Up until now i have had to use the dining table to explore the typewriters in the collection, which is also my desk when working from home! A dedicated space for the typewriters will make everything much easier. Maybe i can make a start on trying to fix some of the broken machines in the collection...

USB Typewriter

Typewriters are, of course, much more fun to type on. Imagine if you could use a typewriter to input into a computer? Well indeed you can! This company modifies typewriters so they provide an output to computers and tablets. I'm in two minds about it, i like the idea of using a typewriter with your computer though as we have seen with the Mysterious keys series the difference in keyboard layouts between typewriters and computers must surely cause some issues? 

However, i don't really like to cross the streams. Personally i feel that if you want LOUD typing on your computer then get a Tecknet X705 (or similar) mechanical keyboard. Though if you do go down this conversion route then have fun, thats what this is all about after all!

Olympia

Our other new typewriter is this early 1960s Olympia SF Deluxe. The typewriter looks to work fine (and has the fine looks of a typical Olympia) though a more thorough evaluation will be carried out in the coming weeks.