Relax, They're Still Making Typewriters
So everyone is saying that the last typewriters have left the assembly line, and no new typewriters will ever be produced. It's not true.
The story being picked up is one that originated in India's Business Standard, in which a representative for Godrej & Boyce, who have produced typewriters in India since the 1950s, said that the company had ceased production on the machines back in 2009.
In the retelling, however, this somehow came to mean that Godrej & Boyce was the last existing typewriter manufacturer in the world, and that this therefore marked the final, wheezing gasps for the antiquated word-processing machines. From the fake typewriter ashes, a million nostalgic personal essays bloomed.
But rest easy, annoyingly hirsute hipster Luddites loitering at local cafes: The typewriter is alive and well. How do I know? Well, because I looked on Staples' website. But don't take my word for it. Let's check in with a typewriter manufacturing expert:
The typewriter is "far from dead," [says] Ed Michael, General Manager of Sales at Moonachie, NJ-based Swintec.
"We have manufacturers making typewriters for us in China, Japan, Indonesia," Michael says. "We have contracts with correctional facilities in 43 states to supply clear typewriters for inmates so they can't hide contraband inside them," Michael explained.
There you have it: So long as you can smuggle a nail file inside a MacBook, the typewriter will live to jam another day.
