Richard Polt, a philosophy professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, collects old typewriters but is sufficiently computer literate to run an attractive website devoted to them.

"There are so many distractions with the internet, it is also so easy to change and delete what you have written. It is too easy to dither."

So he turned to one of his 175 old typewriters.

"I didn't compose most of the book on a typewriter, but every once in a while I would put out a few pages on a typewriter, a first draft, and it was kind of refreshing."

¶ 12:09 AM