Those of you younger than, I guess about 35, did you know that

[raccoon]

typewriter keyboards didn't used to have an exclamation point that you could type!

Know what you had to do? A period, backspace, and a single quote above it.

Know a trick to make a pound symbol in those days? (I mean, pounds sterling.) Capital L, backspace, and then a lower-case f.

[Dr Morbius]

1. What's a typewriter?

:P

[Call Me Wesley]

2. My 1960's olivetti valentine has the exclamation point,

but no pound symbol. :hi:

[Orrex]

8. I have four or five vintage (pre 1965) typewriters

All of them have the exclamation point.

I mean, all of them have the exclamation point!

[AngryAmish]

9. Were they used by the Texas Air National Guard?

[Orrex]

16. LOL

Nice!

[LeftinOH]

3. I remember exclamation points, but sometimes there was no number "1"

-the lower case letter "l" (L) had to be used. Such things probably depended on whether you bought a name-brand typewriter, or ordered the 'house brand' thru the Montgomery Ward catalogue.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. When I learned to type in the early 60's, the Royal typewriters we used didn't have a number "1" or

an exclamation point.

It looked a lot like this one:

[Richardo]

11. I use that little factoid for passwords that require alpha AND numeric characters

I'll use a word that has one or more letters 'l' in it, and substitute the number 1.

E.g. '1etter' instead of 'letter'

[musette_sf]

17. that is correct

exclamation point was single quote backspace period

"1" was small "l"*

* that's an L

[Dr. Strange]

5. Your typewriter had a backspace?

In my day, we had to reinsert the sheet of paper and hope to God that it lined up correctly.

[JohnnyLib2]

6. You mean they've changed that?

Dang it, the grandkids told me I had antiques.

[hunter]

7. What everyone needs: A usb typewriter conversion!

http://www.usbtypewriter.com

[lillypaddle]

10. Remember when 10-key adding machines

had a handle - after you punched in the numbers you pulled the handle down to record them.

And carbon paper? OMG, when you made a mistake typing it took forever to correct.

[Arkansas Granny]

12. One of the most intense lessons we had in typing class was learning how to make corrections

so neatly that they couldn't be spotted. There was a lot of skill involved in making a good erasure, especially when carbon paper was involved. The first job I had out of high school was in an insurance office. I had to type info into insurance policies that sometimes had as many as 10 parts. What a nightmare!

[tigereye]

13. ooh, I forgot about that! I typed many a paper on my old type-writer with

those white-out strips by my side, as well! :wow:

Kids today ! don't know how easy they have it!

[nickinSTL]

14. I think you could be older than 35 to not know that

I'm 37 and I've never seen a typewriter without an exclamation point (except in museums, most likely - had I bothered to examine the typewriters in museums).

I am familiar with the common practice of using the lower-case letter L as a number one. Those things still appear in library records online - and they're terribly unhelpful in the online environment. Looking for a book with a date of 1960 is hard to find with a date like l960.

[Courtesy Flush]

15. They also didn't have the number 1

You used a lower-case L instead.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. Ha, how many of you have keypunched?

I had to learn how for a computer course I took ca. 1982, even though punchcards were on their way out.

[Skittles]

19. ?

I'm 53 and every typewriter I ever had, it had an exclamation point and a pound sign

[rug]

20. Maybe you just had a dull typewriter.