Writing on a manual [typewriter] makes you slower in a good way, I think. You don’t revise as much, you just think more, because you know you’re going to have to retype the entire fucking thing. Which is a big stop on just slapping anything down and playing with it.
- Will Self
Reading the title you can probably guess what this program can do, or more what it can’t do. The above quote got me thinking about the process of writing on a typewriter and I was surprised to not be able to find any program that could mimic that interaction.
So on a whim I ran with this weird idea and turned to Elance, where I found Denis Sokol in Russia and he created this program.
It’s super, super simple and basic. All you can do is type in one direction. You can’t delete, you can’t copy, you can’t paste. You can save and print. And you can switch between black text on white and green on black; full screen and window.
Download Here
The program runs through Java, so it should work on any operating system, but make sure you have the latest version of Java here. Feel free to share, modify, and post the program however you like. All I ask is that you please reference this site with a link either directly to this post or the site (http://www.lifehackingmovie.com).
Hope you enjoy and let me know what are you thoughts are on using it.
This software is licensed under the CC-GNU GPL version 2.0 or later.
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Joey, You need to add a way to get back to the screen that tells you all the shortcuts.
It’s Apple/Control + K (for keys)
Is source code available?
-m
Can you increase the font size? It’s great idea, but not worthwhile if the text is so small.
I’m on Windows. How do I launch it?
There’s no application file whatsoever.
Yonathan (and other Windows users), there’s a .jar file here:
Typewriter.app/Contents/Resources/Java/Typewriter.jar
You can drag this out and it’ll run just fine, as far as my limited (i.e. five second) testing has shown.
Also, this app is damned amazing. It’s like the ultimate in no-mistakes-or-you-die editing
I tried this with Windows. I think the font default should be Courier rather than Times. Like a typewriter.
I think the only other thing that this needs is a “force new page” shortcut.
Like Ctrl+N without the confirmation.
Awesome, I’m going to go write some PHP code with it!
Is there a way to copy and paste?
nevermind, i figured it out.
It would be great if it made typewriter noises as you hit the keys. Anyone out there done it yet?
Thanks, Gabriel.
Thanks for all the comments everyone! Fogus, I’ll see if I can get the source code. And Jeans, you’re totally right, it should’ve been Courier. I’ll see if I can change that, or have two versions.
I know very little about programing (why I outsourced this), I just really liked this idea, so I’d love to see people take it and run with it. Keep the feedback coming!
Would also be nice if there were more font and background colors.
I would like it to have black font with dark grey background – like I have set in Write Monkey.
You know, the best of both worlds…
Writing in this program for a few minutes is really eye-opening. I had no idea how much mindless slop I’ve been hammering out, and how much time I waste in sentence-by-sentence corrections and editing. Really good for perfectionists like me who get hung up on little things, it forces you to keep moving ahead, THOUGHTFULLY.
I read about Typewriter in John Naughton’s column in the Observer (NB: a British Sunday newspaper) today.
http://tinyurl.com/oj62xh
But ironically this quasi-archaic program requires a pretty new computer. It’s not supported by Mac OS10.3.9 – when I try to run it i get a message saying it requires Java 1.5 or later and I only have 1.4 and 1.3. “Updating to a newer version of Mac OSX may resolve this”. (I like the “may”!).
Incidentally Naughton says his uncle who was the head of a school in small village in Ireland in 1984 and his colleagues had never used a typewriter, which I find hard to believe, so they were unimpressed with the wordprocessing capabilities of an IBM PC they had won in a competition…
And why doesn’t Typewriter have backspace, as far as I remember the metal version has one…
(Maybe I need to upgrade Java but as far as I can see 1.5 isn’t compatible with 10.3.9).
This is a PERFECT tool for writers! I’m going to try it out for the novel I’m writing. I have been constantly plagued by going back over what I’ve written instead of writing more. “First get it written, then get it right.” Thank you for this!
Shame on me. Didn’t even say thank you for this great application after complaining about it’s disadvantages.
So, thank you very much.
It helps me write flawlessly. I am not self disciplined, so I need someone or something to stop me from going back and fixing that typo!
Would be a great thing to implement this idea into professional production tools, like Photoshop, Cubase, and others…
@Fogus, it’s a .jar file (a java archive), all .jar files can be disassembled or decompiled into the source.
If you have jdk installed, you just have to type:
jar -xvf Typewriter.jar
Then, you will have all the .class files. To dissamble or decompile them, you could try javap if you’re on *nix etc. or Mocha http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/software/mocha/ or some other decompiler. Hope that helps.
No problem Yonathan, glad you like it.
@Michael – I saw the column, glad you found your way over here. Do you know if it’s in print? I was trying to hunt down a copy of The Observer but all the bookstores have few week old editions.
And thanks for the tip, Rog. As you probably can tell, my programming knowledge ends around getting ‘Hello World’ on the screen.
Joey, not sure what you mean by is the column in print? It was in yesterday’s Observer and as mentioned is online at http://tinyurl.com/oj62xh
Michael
I saw it online. I didn’t know if it was an online only column or if it was in the printed edition as well. I take it it’s in both.
Thanks for this, been using it this afternoon, really enjoyed being freed from the tyranny of formatting! It’ll be interesting if I can keep using it.
Could you please add Right to Left support?
My native language is Hebrew, and I want to be able to use Typewriter in a more comfortable way (that is, by typing from right to left).
I read your article about this on ProBlogger- what a great idea. I definitely miss my old typewriter and the sound it makes as the keys are hitting the paper. Maybe downloading this program on my laptop will help me begin that book of short stories I’ve always wanted to write!
Very interesting how it does make you think differently. I used typewriters in high school. I actually have my Mom’s sitting on a desk in the other room. I use it for artwork but not “real” typing. They did have a backspace key. You would back up one space and have to use a sheet film form of white-out, white-out itself (or some typewriter tapes had built-in whiteout on them) to cover your mistake by retyping the same letter. This had to be done before you removed the paper from the machine as they would not match up precisely otherwise. I believe the much older models used a strike-through for a mistakes.
I like progress…heck, why don’t you just tell people to get out a piece of paper and actually {gasp} write with a pen (with no eraser, of course)!
Very clever though!
I like what I see so far, especially the full screen version. No distractions. Just text on a screen. Cool.
Not to belittle your effort but having typed on an old typewriter with three carbon copies to correct, why punish yourself by going backward!
It was horrible, made a lot of work, you could never be perfect and you had smudgy copy.
I love today and all new shortcuts so bring ‘em on baby!
I find it ironic that all the “distraction free” editors have become too distracting. The great thing about typewriter is the only thing that you can do with it is write. I actually got quite annoyed with JDarkroom because it wouldn’t let me use the Block cursor. Spent ages searching the Net for a workaround. Thanks so much for this app.
You should check Q10 (http://www.baara.com/q10/)
Nice idea, it would be even better if the letters came out on the printer as you hit the keys, that would be FULL COMMITMENT! I need something like this to get around data-protection law, so that nnothing can be construed as being stored.
Nice job, and an interesting philosophical position. One thing this program could really use is a typewriter-style backspace. On a correctionless typewriter, a standard and ugly method of “erasing” characters is to backspace and strike over each one with another character, usually the letter x.
Thanks man. This application helped me alot. I used to work with Dark Room, but something went wrong (probably viruses) and I searched for some new app. This is even simplier, which means better app. This is exactly what was I looking for.
Peace!
First off, I agree that this function should be a built in ‘option’ on all serious writing tools. And promoted as a new ‘feature,’ retro as it may be!
Secondly, I’d seriously like to see this offered for the iPad/phone. I’d gladly pay for it on my platform of choice!