Writing Implement Indecision
In the midst of unpacking some of my things, I came across my AlphaSmart 3000. I originally got it off eBay before all of the crises and moves and general instability of the last nearly three years. I never really used it much; all it really does is let you type into a 4-line monochrome LCD display and send it to a computer by plugging it in and emulating a keyboard. It’s just another one of those classic devices people are using for distraction-free writing as a sort of “digital typewriter” to try and unplug from all the notifications and tempting browser tabs and such. Granted, spending twenty bucks on an old piece of classroom tech from the late 1990s over hundreds of dollars on a Freewrite that does the same exact thing but without internet or Bluetooth.
My particular unit is in decent condition from the outside, and is technically fully functional in that it saves and all the buttons work, but the LCD seems to dim when there’s lots of characters on the screen, even with fresh batteries. My (mostly) uneducated guess is that some capacitors are dying on the motherboard. While easy to get to, only a few Phillips screws on the bottom that don’t even require removing the sticky rubber feet, I don’t have any soldering setup or skills to attempt to fix the issue myself. The keyboard is about as mushy as a $10 Logitech that you would buy off the self at a Walmart in an emergency. It does its job well, but part of me would like a stripped-down laptop to do this on. I’m going to have to format and edit it on the website anyways since Neocities requires a subscription for remotely accessing your website directory, but I digress. There’s something cathartic about doing things the annoyingly tedious way and forgetting all the “do it right the first time” feelings associated with doing anything on the computer. Will the site grow a little ugly and inconsistent? Yes! That’s okay though, all of the web does that, though usually due to news sites trying to cram more ads than was originally planned for in old articles.
Maybe when I get more money, I can get a cheap old laptop to have a dedicated Linux machine again. Part of me wants a Gentoo box just for the hobby of installing and keeping the thing installed. Yeah! I’ll let it sit and compile Firefox for two days straight! I just like seeing the lines scroll on the screen. I tried (and failed) installing it onto my Raspberry Pi once. While there’s documentation on how to install and configure it for different models, it requires cross-compiling or installing something else with build tools to compile the install environment, since they don’t actually ship one premade, or at least they didn’t when I attempted it earlier this year. A fun tidbit about the Raspberry Pi’s technical ability to compile everything, while it can theoretically install Chromium, it would take so long to compile on its underpowered hardware that a new daily build would have been pushed by the time it finished.
Perhaps someday, there will be desktop Arm platforms out there that are viable Windows or Linux machines. Will they be as configurable as x86_64 machines are now? I just hope they’ll create motherboard standards to at least allow for SIP replacements, if they have to bundle graphics and memory with the processor. Granted, that would mean very costly socket design.
As for other even less distracting methods of writing, I still have my Brother Charger 11 typewriter. It’s a portable model that I use mainly for addressing envelopes, since it’s far easier than formatting and printing labels and typing out standardized addresses with the ZIP+4 makes your mail go through sorting machines more quickly, even if handwriting recognition is improving. It’s currently disintegrating, as is expected for an 80s era children’s “training” typewriter that was rescued from a hoarder’s yard in the woods over a decade ago. I should order a new typewriter too that I can use to try and get into mailing people letters.
I also have another Brother typewriter, a near-mint electric dot-matrix model from the ‘80s that my grandparents won from a QVC raffle in the 90s, but it uses a proprietary plastic ribbon format that isn’t available anymore and can’t really do much. The font is barely readable, but it can type international characters. The keyboard is somehow worse than any other keyboard I’ve ever used, and to save space the feed roller has so little space it can’t even have more than one sheet of paper in it at a time, thus making envelope addressing or anything with carbon copy backing impossible. Then, of course, are fountain pens and hand-writing things.
So many ways to write, such indecision, and no money to burn, no recipients to send to, so all I can do really is just… mail all of my bills in and go through the mail for everything and avoid doing things electronically. Which, given how most computer systems can’t even handle my legal name not being standard, that’s actually the better option. If I had the money for a PO Box and even the slightest hint of interest for it, I would totally start writing people and solicit suggestions on how to fulfill my desire to simultaneously be online and unplug from everywhere. I’m sure if you’re reading this you can understand the paradox of my sentiment here.
I’m not sure what the point of this was. Perhaps this site will become a more stream-of-consciousness diary than any seriously well-researched and planned article, but I digress… At least, after editing this in word for spelling mistakes, I made it to nearly a thousand words. Perhaps this is a good way to write these.
Enough rambling, time to stop worrying and let my mind empty out into nothing but hollow, air-filled vinyl.
