Typewriters may be long past their heyday, but just because personal computers, word processor software and cheap printers make them basically obsolete does not mean that the world will be better without them. Using a typewriter is a rich sensory experience, from the feeling of pressing keys under your fingers, which can’t be compared with even the loudest PC keyboard, to the strange universal sound of typewriters hitting paper.
So if life gives you a typewriter, why not put it back to work? This is exactly what [artillect] did when it converted typewriters from the 1980s into Linux terminals. This typewriter is the brother of AX-25. It is one of the electronic typewriters before the emergence of word processing software. It has a daisy wheel print head, a small LCD display and an 8K memory for editing documents. [artillect] first calculate which keys are mapped to typewriter 8 × 11 which characters in the matrix, and then release one Arduino and two multiplexers when driving the print head. The keyboard of the typewriter has not been used for input, because the project is still in the prototype design stage, so the Fupenzi PI acts as a serial monitor between the typewriter and the notebook computer. The following video provides a good overview of cabling and software, and shows the typewriter typing out Linux command line output.
At present, [artillect] typewriter is basically like an old teletype. There is still much room for development in this regard; For example, we would like to see it become a cyber platform with a built-in printer. But even as a proof of concept, this is great. You can be sure that we will look for old typewriters in thrift stores and yards.