We blogged a while back about how cassette tapes have found a niche in prisons, where the retro tech is considered a safe alternative to CD’s. Where else is old technology hanging on? In New York City police stations, where typewriters are still regularly used to fill out paperwork. The N.Y.P.D. spent nearly $1 million on typewriters in 2007. Just because a technology has been superseded doesn’t make it completely irrelevant. [%comments]
Crime, Punishment, and Typewriter Tape
TAGS: Technology
and 
. You can also watch it on 
This reminds me of The Wire. In the first season the BPD uses typewriters and complains about them bitterly. In season 2 they are just starting to get computers up and running. From then on the cop characters use computers regularly and without special comment. As the other technology on the show grew more sophisticated so did the use of computers. More evidence that Simon & Co. knew exactly what they were doing.
Superseded (obsolete) technology is never irrelevant. People used mortars and pestles thousands of years ago, but they exist in many kitchens today, despite blenders, mixers, mills, etc. Cooks choose to use many tools.
However, the NYPD using typewriters has nothing to do with this thesis. The NYPD is a victim of bureaucracy, internal politics and budget constraints. $1 million buys many more typewriters than computers. Ask any cop if he or she would prefer a computer to a typewriter.
You might as well point to the 1950s cars that are still on the road in Cuba. They work, but the folks who use them would probably prefer to drive something else. They use the old cars because they have to.
LOL.. very interesting. I betcha the guys who supply NYC cops can charge a premium as the ‘supplier’ base drops… dead… literally.
In FY 2009 the NYPD purchased 213 typewriters at a cost of ~$65k. The “$1 million” written about in media reports is a three-year, multi-agency (i.e., not just NYPD) contract through Citywide Administrative Services that covers fiscal years ’08, ’09 and ‘10.
This January the NYPD awarded a $25-million contract to completely automate the property clerk’s office with a new property evidence tracking system. (Typewriters are often used to process property vouchers, which are not yet automated.) It is expected to go online in 2011, when the recording of all property will be done with computers, not typewriters.
With the Mayor’s support, tens of millions of dollars have been expended on the ongoing computerizing of station houses and police cars, and developing the Department’s Real Time Crime Center, as well as rebuilding the technological infrastructure related to 911 calls.
What amazes me is the fax machine. It became popular in the 1980s, and hasn’t undergone may changes since then. And even though computers, the Internet and email should have made the fax obselete, it is still a vital piece of equipment in many organizations.
Is it perhaps because noone wants to be the first to discard their fax? Every fax involves 2 machines, so you can only really get rid of yours if they get rid of theirs. For that you need some kind of mutual agreement. But that is already getting far too complicated…
Look at the ease with which DJs still scratch records.
Seeing as I do not work for the NYPD I can not speak for anyone there, I however, find typewriters to be wonderful instruments. Old fashion typewriters involve the writer in a physical way which has been all but lost in the age of computers. Nowadays nobody thinks about when to go to the next line, because computers do it automatically for us. There is something so satisfying about hearing the clacking of a typewriter’s keys. Also, typing involved thinking about what you wanted to say before putting it on paper, something which not all writers do now.
In defense of the NYPD office, typewriters can also be very helpful for filling out paperwork, more so than computers. For paper documents with blanks that need to be filled in you can’t beat a good ol’ Blickensderfer.
Hopefully these are the IBM Selectric ball version typewriters…picture from CNN looks like a manual version.
One thing they should NOT be doing is buying new typewriters- surely there are enough old ones to refurb…