Long after being replaced by computers, the appeal of manual typewriters remains.

The New York Times’s Fashion & Style article “Click, Clack, Ding! Sigh” captures the nostalgia, fetishization, and general love for manual typewriters, and describes the subculture/philosophy of typewriter revivalists who crave their simplicity:

Typewriters are good at only one thing: putting words on paper. “If I’m on a computer, there’s no way I can concentrate on just writing, said Jon Roth, 23, a journalist who is writing a book on typewriters. “I’ll be checking my e-mail, my Twitter.” When he uses a typewriter, Mr. Roth said: “I can sit down and I know I’m writing. It sounds like I’m writing.”

Via LIFE Magazine‘s “In Praise of the Typewriter” slideshow, Flavorwire has published a series of fantastic images of authors and their typewriters.

William Faulkner & typewriter

What if you love the sound and feeling of writing on typewriters, but can’t truly abandon the digital age? There’s a fix for that. Jack Zylkin has invented a “USB Typewriter” that allows you to use a typewriter to write on a computer or iPad. The USB typewriters also work with paper: