For the first time in history, it allowed a human to tap a backspace key and make a mistake go away.
Called "Selectric II," it was conceived when Richard Nixon was president, when IBM made typewriters and when a hand-typed card catalog tracked every book at Tampa's downtown library.
Librarians got machines for the public, giving each a room of its own with walls the shade of an avocado. The workhorses spit out labels for spines of books and stamped Dewey decimals on paper cards. They typed resumes, got people jobs.
But sometime around the election of Ronald Reagan, IBM teamed up with a 32-person company called Microsoft and started selling "personal computers" for $1,565 apiece.
...
Four public typewriters became three. Then, two. One.
Then sometime last week, the typewriter hammered over the same spot again. And again. Its ribbon refused to advance. Even the backspace key could do nothing to help.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
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