My typewriter in high school (major papers had to be typed in 12th grade) was an electric... from the 1950s. Gawdawful monstrosity, the carriage must have been half the weight of the thing, and obviously designed for a sturdy desk. Since it lived on a rolling stand in our house, every time I hit [return] I had to grab the stand, or the whole thing would threaten to topple over. DAMN I hated that thing.

For college my parents got me a portable electric Smith Corona, with cartridge ribbons. This meant that I could make a mistake, pop out the ink ribbon cartridge, pop in the corrective tape cartridge, make the correction, and be back on course in no time. Never used the poor thing after I got a printer and a computer a decade later, of course.