The Weird Typewriter-Computer Hybrid: Smith Corona PWP-3200

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In this very chill and laid back video, we take a look at the Smith Corona PWP-3200, a word processing typewriter from the early 1990's. There were a number of products like this available, and while they are an interesting bit of technological history, they are really strange.

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[ZeidKhan]

Every time I hear that "ding" from a typewriter, I'm reminded of being a little kid in the late 80's and early 90's, when computers hadn't been spread far and wide yet. I'd have to type up papers and would go to my local library where they had a long table with several typewriters on it. People would just sit there and type up their papers all day long. I had to have a librarian teach me to use one; she was surprised I never had. After I got my first computer, I remember going into the library one day and being surprised that all the typewriters were gone. They were replaced by computers. Except now, instead of young kids (who couldn't afford computers, trying to type up school reports), it was all old people trying to learn how to use a computer. The same librarian who taught kids how to use typewriters for the first time, was now teaching the elderly to send emails.

[KevinBerstene]

File names are "Cool" and "Cool2". Yup, definitely stuff from high school.

[zappawoman]

I had one of these! I worked as a secretary for a Private Investigator, typing up reports and bills on this typewriter. I got good at lining up the text because it would tell me how many characters were left. Minimised mistakes as well!

ETA: The sounds, oh my the nostalgia!

[stewie]

I had something similar to this when I was getting my masters degree, and its practically impossible to understand how wonderful it was to have a way to create a document and then have it typed out. Prior to that I spent more time manually typing, correcting, use white-out and correction tape, then I did doing the paper. And still my papers were a mess. So the speed of this was not an issue at all because it was a huge time and labor savings!

[designator]

When he wrote "If I start typei word qords words!!" that really hit me

[timothymclean]

500 years from now, some archaeologist is going to cry in delight at finding a copy of Microsoft Works, only to weep in anguish as he realizes some kid with NO idea of its future historical value wrote over it with his school papers, like an artist who scraped the surface off of Shakespeare's first play for some spare sketching material.
But hey, at least he has a plot summary for _Twelve Angry Men._

[lucasrossiemc]

"That's why it's called the 'Shift' key, because it shifts the carriage down."
My mind is blown. One of those things you never question the origin of, but when someone tells you, your face becomes a meme.

[TechnologyConnections]

This video is just pretty chill. I've had this thing in my collection for years and wanted to show it to you. There's not much of a point here, but I hope you find it interesting. There _will_ be a point, though, for next week!

[gryphonsong]

Omg, I would LOVE to have something so simplified. Just typing and printing. No ads, no unnecessary software, and other then the ribbons and corrective tap, no mess! It does exactly what you want. It’s why I had a typewriter, but if I had one that took key drives instead of floppy disks, I’d be set!

[nuclearpsychopath]

Interesting note about the printing speed of the typewriter, which you called a bit slow: If you look at around 9:20, the typewriter has to reset to each line to type left-to-right. IBM Wheelwriters of around the same period (which also supported floppy disk external storage) printed documents from memory in boustrophedon - that is, the first line was left-to-right, then the second line was right-to-left, then the third was left-to-right and so on. This saved time as the typewriter did not have to reset the carriage all the way to the left each line. Over a long letter I'm sure this would add up to quite some time savings even if the per-character typing speed was the same as this Smith Corona.

[SentientMeatbag]

16:00 The @-key was used in billing to show pricing for items, for example: 6 eggs @ $0.15 = $0.75

[matthehat]

I have a real soft spot for machines like this - not quite a full computer, but not quite a "dumb" device either. Great video, keep up the good work.

[BlueMastic]

The shelves in the background are so much more beautiful than the greenscreen. I really like it!

[maxisk]

Aside from it being very slow in some areas, I love these kinds of devices. Something that puts mechanical processes into an electronic device fascinates me.

[MikeRoberts]

I had one of these in the early 90s. Ironically, years later I was in a stationary store to buy a replacement ribbon for it and while waiting in line, saw a copy of Tomb Raider 2 in the remainder bin, bought it, installed it on my computer that I'd bought in the meantime and fell in love with video games and started writing by doing Tomb Raider fan fiction on the SC 3200, then started writing original fiction....20 years and a dozen novels later, I can say that it all started on/ because of this machine.

[Tangobaldy]

This wasn't slow it was an amazing thing to own. By today's standards it's awful but back then it was epic

[BenMarvin]

Holy crap! My family had one of those. It was the only computer in the house till my brother and I fished an IBM AT and IBM XT out of the dumpster of a nearby business park. They were covered in food waste, but still worked. Although smelled like baked beans when turned on.

[AirborneSurfer]

You used this in high school because you were a retro nerd. I used this in high school because it's what we had! 😜
Also: keep the jacket. I dig it!

[El-Burro-Grande]

The wife and I got through our undergrads at Memphis State in the 90's with this machine.
It was awful.
But I recall you could play a very bad version of Tetris on it.

[rydoggo]

2 years ago: huh this is cool
Now: haha "corona"
Me: no.... stop...