Typewriters have left offices, newsrooms, classrooms, and information centers, but they have found a new place in collecting... and, believe it or not, on the Web itself. The Shift Happens portal puts in front of us a simulated typewriter, with all the features and limitations of the original models. What does that mean? That you'll probably have to learn to type again...
A Brief History of Silent Typewriters
The first models of silent typewriters date back to the 1920s, and they remained on the market until the 1960s. Apparently, sales were quite good, but they also had their detractors. Users felt that something was lost with the noise reduction, and feedback is essential in a typewriter.
Our fingers slide at full speed over modern keyboards, but on a typewriter you have to stab the keys. Precision, consistency, arms, shoulders. The sound of the machine is its response to all that, and today you can experience that sensation again with Shift Happens, a portal that presents a simulated typewriter.
Shift Happens: A Simulated Typewriter in Your Browser
If you've never used a typewriter, it's not a bad idea to review its basic instructions. Remember that a traditional typewriter has no cursor arrows, so you'll have to move across the sheet by pressing the spacebar and the Backspace key. That leads to another detail: Backspace doesn't erase anything, and the only way to remove errors is by pressing the Del key a couple of times to apply correction fluid.
Margin control is also important: F3 and F4 serve to set the left and right margins respectively. The bell warns that you are five characters from reaching the margin, but you can hold down the Alt key to ignore it. However, the great challenge on this typewriter is producing accents and special symbols. Accents are essentially dead keys, meaning we press the accent first and then the vowel, but the only solution I found for the ñ was to press the n, correct the carriage, and add an underscore "hat" over the letter.
The rest of the commands are easy to learn. F1 changes the ink color, Tab hides the sidebar, and F10 clears the simulation. If you like what you've written, the Save as Image option will save a local copy in PNG format. Don't hesitate to try Shift Happens!
Official site: Click here
