500 machines left at world's last typewriter factory
If you can remember how to change a typewriter ribbon - even if you've since forgotten but once could - this news is about to leave you feeling, well, old.
Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Company, the world's last manufacturer of office typewriters, is putting its last 500 machines on sale at discount prices.
"From the early 2000 onwards, computers started dominating," Godrej & Boyc general manager Milind Dukle, told India's Business Standard newspaper. "All the manufacturers of office typewriters stopped production, except us. Till 2009, we used to produce 10,000 to 12,000 machines a year."
The company, which stopped making typewriters in 2009, when it switched over its typewriter plant to make refrigerators. During the 1990s, Dukle said, the company was producing 50,000 machines every year. But the rapid spread of computers spelled the inevitable doom for Godrej Prima - as well as for other bellwether typewriter brands which included the likes of Remington Rand, Olivetti, Smith-Corona, Adler-Royal, and Olympia.