Brother, Can You Spare Me A Typewriter?

If there was ever a company that made office work easier before the computer it has to be Brother Electronic Typewriters. Back in '91 when I was an office manager and computers were still in their infancy as far as most companies were concerned, this typewriter was thee piece of office equipment you wanted at your desk, because it made your life so much easier with the spell checker and the correct-o-type ribbon.

The only thing different with mine (AX-350) over the ML-100 is that mine doesn't have the international languages.

Before you begin typing you can either select Pica (10 pitch): which offers 10 characters per inch. or Elite (12 pitch): which offers 12 characters per inch.

You also have a choice of single spacing, 1 1/2 spacing or double spacing setup.

Another one of my favorite features is the hot zone which is a warning beep that will sound when you have only six spaces before the right margin.

The relocation key is another factor. Say you have to go back to the beginning of the sentence line to correct a letter, after you correct it, just hit the relocation key and it will take you to where you left off.

The correction memory function also has the capabilities of erasing one word at a time instead of one letter.

Typing BOLD or underlining is as simple as pressing an ALT key with the corresponding bold or underlining key.

There is a 56,000-word built-in dictionary program called Word Spell. It will beep three times whenever a word you entered cannot be found in it's dictionary. Wouldn't that be neat if epinions put something like that in while your typing away on your review?

When I started my job with the newspaper, they had this clunky old IBM typewriter that had fuzzy type, no apostrophe key and no correction key. After a few days of this of typing up envelopes to send clippings out, I promptly asked if I could bring my own typewriter in. The managing editor kind of smiled (probably thinking of his own early days at the typewriter banging out a story) and said, "Sure if you think it will make life easier." He didn't have to nod his head twice!

The beeping can be irritating as I was asked what that bell sound was a couple of times when people would pass my desk.

This typewriter if perfect for those times you need to fill in a resume, employment application, credit application or tax forms that just can't be done on the computer.

The only thing I have replaced on this typewriter is the ribbons for the type and the correction tape. You can't do much better than that for 9 years of use.