TW-DB has been an excellent resource for typewriter collectors for many years, but is apparently no longer maintained. A year or so ago, I had an email discussion with some other collectors who had tried to contact the owner and had failed, and who were concerned that the site might disappear along with all of its valuable information. The tw-db.com domain expires on Jan 5 2013, so we’ll see if it gets renewed by Mr. Schumann or if the site really does go down.
To prevent this possibility, I mirrored the TW-DB site here, and I cleaned up the HTML, removed most of the garish colors and all of the midi embeds, and generally tried to make the pages easier to print, so collectors could print their own serial number lists. (us typewriter collectors like to have things on paper)
In the past year, I’ve been slowly working on further cleaning up the html of those original serial number lists and updating them where I have newer, more credible sources. I’ve also been building this site, which will soon have this information in a relational database that I can connect to other things, like member’s uploaded collections, and threaded discussions about the data.
Thus I will be splitting my time between building things like the aforementioned collection galleries and discussion management and updating the data that we have currently. The search continues for more complete and accurate serial number lists, so lend a hand if you can!
The Typewriter Serial Number Database (formerly: typerati.com)
Wow, Rev, that looks slick! Thanks for going to extraordinary lengths to keep the database in existence. By the look of your new and improved version, based on the Home Page, will we need to register in order to view it?
Thanks again!
nope, all the data will be publically viewable without an account. What membership will get you is access to upload photos and data about machines in your collection (or sighted) and the ability to participate in the message forums (when these features roll out)
Bookmarked. Awesome, you’re really getting there on that.
Ah… Membership? Shall I sign in? Do I get a Christmas card if I do?
I’ve been using your version since you first created it and very much appreciate it. (Small kvetch: the yellow text against a white background is unreadable except when I highlight it.) Your new project is very interesting and will make this something more like a wiki. Georg Sommeregger started Wikitype some time ago but it never got very far, in part because Georg has been busy working on the IFHB board of directors. He will be interested in your initiative, for sure.
Ahh, Wikitype – I checked that out some time ago but never figured out how to navigate it except by just having it jump to random pages. I should study that again and see what data fields are being tracked for each machine. That’ll be important when I build the “collections and sightings” galleries.
I use a lot of wiki’s, never heard of WikiType though. In my experience, MediaWiki is the easiest to learn for users. For administrators the semantics can be a cruel bitch, but that just depends on how far you want to extend it.
Thanks for making sure the database stays viable! I’m looking forward to seeing how the added features turn out.
A first quick feedback: Super! Will write you in detail in due course. Thanks a lot, for now.
I eagerly anticipate your input, shordzi – I know you’ve been quietly gathering some pretty good data lately on the Swiss and other European brands. let me know if you have updates to toss into the mix. (: