In 1984, I was living in Los Angeles and working at Bon Appétit magazine. One morning, our IBM Selectrics were whisked away and replaced with computers. I was no fool. I wouldn't be rushing in and investing countless hours in an attempt to master this fly-by-night piece of equipment. I'd never bought into 8-tracks or Betamax, and I wasn't buying into this.

I was on the editorial staff of the magazine and wrote a column called "Too Busy to Cook." The Selectric accelerated my production significantly. The gold standard in typewriters, it was a dream machine with keyboard action that facilitated a typing speed akin to the speed of light.

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