This Musical Typewriter Turns Sentences Into Sound Two designers turned a pile of discarded electronics into a music machine that translates your written words into tunes.

Hanx Writer turns your iPad into an old-school manual typewriter. It replicates the thwack-thwack sound of metal stamping on paper and the ding-clunk-fripp of reaching the end of one line and ...

Typewriter sounds are included, but you can turn them off if you prefer. But using the Typing Writer I realized I liked leaving them on, just to hear the bell letting you know you’re coming to the end ...

It simulates a typewriter keyboard, complete with clickety-clack sounds and the distinctive ding at the end of each line, on your iPad. You can “insert” new pages too.

The manual typewriter also requires one to think carefully before putting thought to paper. Manual typewriters are not correctable. There is no cut, paste or undo function.

That sound, the pre-computer, pre-word processor, pre-electric manual typewriter once clattered out in offices throughout the civilized world.

When I want to get some serious distraction-free writing done, I turn to an old Royal manual typewriter. Call me a hipster all you want, but there’s something about manually throwing keys around ...