🚀 go-pugleaf

Dan Pop (Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch) spewed forth the following profound insight:

==> cirby@magicnet.net (Chad Irby) writes:

==> >Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch (Dan Pop) wrote:
==> >
==> >> You missed the point (it isn't the first time :-)  I didn't doubt
==> >> that Smith-Corona went out of business, but the fact that it was "the
==> >> last of them".  Go back and check.
==> >
==> >He's right- there are a few typewriter manufacturers still in business. 
==> >But right now, the biggest in the world is Brother, and they build more
==> >computer printers than typewriters.  They don't make those old manual
==> >machines any more.  The machines they *do* make are "word processors"
==> >instead of plain old electric typewriters, and they're not something an
==> >untrained user could manage any more.  

==> I wouldn't call a typewriter with an one-line buffer "word processor".

    Where did he say anything about 'one-line buffers'?  My Evil friend
    Rob has a Brother Word-Processor, and you have a multiple-line screen.
    And you can save your work to 3.5".  I still consider it a typewriter,
    but it is nothing like the typewriters, even the electric typewriters,
    of yore.

==> >Smith-Corona was, however, the last of the large manufactureres that was
==> >making manual typewriters.  There are a few manual typewriter companies in
==> >some countries, but the number is dwindling every month.  

==> A typewriter which is not manual is usually called "printer".  Again, we
==> seem to have terminology problems.

    I think that by 'manual' he means 'non-electronic'.  'Manual' and 
'mechanical' are sometimes interchangeable in Standard American English.

==> >I went into Sears and Office Max yesterday and asked the salesmen about
==> >computer versus typewriter sales, and between the two stores, they had
==> >sold *two* typewriters in the last week.  Versus a couple of Macs a *day*
==> >in each store.

==> Now, go to any third world country you like and make a similar study.
==> Or do you think that the US sales can be extrapolated everywhere?

    Agreed!!!  Remember that the Internet is not just confined to the United
States, and that technology runs at a different pace outside of our borders.

    Just the same, I'm not so sure that sales of Typewriters versus Macs in 
third-world countries would really make a dent in the ratio of the overall 
sales of each.  If the # of Macs sold in the US beats the # of typewriters
sold in the US by enough orders of magnitude ('enough' is up to you to gripe
about, I'm tired), then it would take a *lot* of typewriters sold in a *lot*
of foreign countries to substantiate the claim that more typewriters are
sold than Macs overall.

						-Overall Caj