Page location: Blog / Archives for typewriters

typewriters

See also... guinness world records / journalists / James P. Sterba / Olivetti Typewriters / Swintec / tom fasano / Don DeLillo / Smith Corona Electra 210

Typing One to a Million on a Typewriter

posted Dec 29, 2025 by Tom Fasano

by

Setting goals is a great way to get things done, but sometimes the point isn’t efficiency or even explanation — it’s endurance. Case in point: Les Stewart, an Australian man who decided to manually type out every number from one to one million on a typewriter. In words. One finger. Over sixteen years.

He started in 1982 and finished in 1998, working in disciplined bursts (20 minutes on the hour, every hour), producing nearly 20,000 pages and burning through a thousand ink ribbons across seven manual typewriters. Partially paralyzed after serving in Vietnam, Stewart chose a challenge that fit both his limitations and his love of typing — something he’d once taught professionally.

It’s tempting to ask why, but that’s usually the wrong question. The better one is why not? Some projects exist purely to be finished, and the quiet stubbornness required to see them through is its own kind of achievement.

A Foreign Correspondent’s Olivetti Now in NY TIMES Museum

posted Nov 23, 2025 by Tom Fasano

by




James P. Sterba working on his Olivetti Lettera 32 in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1971. Note the lorikeet perched atop the typewriter. Credit… Courtesy of James P. Sterba

Note: I read about this in today’s NY Times.





James P. Sterba, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, with the Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter he donated to the Museum at The Times in 2024.Credit…David W. Dunlap/The New York Times





My Lettera 32 used to type this post. There’s something wrong with the ribbon advance, which is probably why some letters appear washed out.


Swintec Typewriters Keep Clacking

posted Jan 13, 2021 by Tom Fasano

by

The Wall Street Journal a few years ago ran an article about Swintec, one of the last surviving typewriter companies in the U.S. (Please see the WSJ article for more information.)

Edward Michael, who started the company in 1985, is quoted in the article as saying, “We’re typewriters. This is our specialty. This is what we know.”

Down to about 10 employees now from about 85 during the boom years, Swintec continues to sell typewriters at a click-clackety pace: between 3,000 to 5,000 units a year, mostly to universities, senior centers, and prisons. Yes, typewriters are quite popular behind bars — especially now that Swintec came upon the novel idea of a clear typewriter designed to prevent the smuggling of contraband.

From our point of view, typewriters aren’t going anywhere. After all, the vacuum cleaner, as Mr. Michael points out in the above video, failed to replace the broom. Nor did the typewriter replace pens and pencils.

Don DeLillo’s Typewriter

posted Dec 2, 2012 by Tom Fasano

by


In late 2000 I wrote a letter to Don DeLillo asking him what kind of typewriter he used. I’d read in the Paris Review interview that he used a manual typewriter. A page from said typewriter (from his novel Libra) was also reproduced in the article, and I found it fascinating because it showed evidence of hard labor — typing and lots of inked-in corrections. Plus, the type style was beautiful and I wanted that typewriter. So I wrote the letter. A few months later I received a letter (unfortunately damaged) in reply from this most reclusive literary genius, who identified his typewriter as an Olympia “SM-something.” The above photo clearly shows an Olympia SM9, manufactured in the early 1970s. A great and reliable machine, one of which I now own. Here’s a link to the manual.