Retro Tech Films & Books

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Here are some of my favorite books and films about retro tech. Please email me if you have suggestions!

Writing, Typing, Typesetting

Documentary: The Typewriter in the 21st Century
Documentary: California Typewriter, a family-owned Bay Area business dedicated to the craft of typewriter repair
Documentary: Helvetica, a film about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture
Documentary: Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu, a documentary about the final day of operation of the Linotype machines at the New York Times, before they switched to digital typesetting
Documentary: Linotype, The Film, about the revolutionary machine that helped automate hot-metal typesetting and pretty much took us all the way up to the advent of phototypesetting
Book: Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing (my summary & review)

Film & Video

Documentary: Rewind This, chronicling the impact of VHS on the film industry and home video
Book: From Betamax to Blockbuster (my summary & review)
8-minute Documentary: The Mechanics of the Film Projector. If you went to high school earlier than about 1990, you probably watched many “educational” films on these projectors in school.

Art & Music

Documentary: Note By Note: The Making of Steinway L1037. As a pianist and Steinway owner who has also visited their remarkable factory in New York, this was fascinating.

Looking for good retro tech resources on…

Cassettes. This documentary isn't bad but not as good as the above, and in particular not as good as the VHS-related pieces.
Pinball

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Armando Fox