Some people still write with fountain pens. Some still love their old manual and electric typewriters. But typewriter repairmen are a vanishing breed. Up on the eighth floor of the Flatiron ...

Success enabled Whitlock to keep the older manuals to himself and delegate the electric typewriters to others. A 1910 Oliver is the oldest machine that Whitlock keeps in his shop today.

She brought an old manual with her that her mother couldn't use because the keys were too difficult for her to press. Rather than rework the keys, Segal worked a trade for an electric typewriter.

But there still are people who use typewriters, and Nachtweih says he has customers from Alaska to Montana who will ship their electric and manual machines to him for fixing.

Unplugged and empowered Typewriters: A small but staunch core of manual machine aficionados say computers, electronic gizmos have taken the soul out of writing.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story was incorrect. While Godrej & Boyce was the last company in the world making manual typewriters, other companies still make electric typewriters ...

Today, in most places where paper is still shuffled, the noisy clatter of typewriters has largely fallen silent, having given way first to the low buzz of electric models and more recently to the ...