Ruben Schade has an interesting idea, that's started flipping a lot of switches in my head, using an old computer as a dedicated device for writing.
I’ve seen more people on Mastodon take up old computers for this purpose, which as a self-respecting retrocomputing nerd has inspired me tremendously. These are some of the reasons I’ve seen:
Single-tasking operating systems force the text editor to be front and centre, and nullify any temptation to ALT+TAB to a browser, or chat window, or a quick game of Chips Challenge running in Wine.
Spartan GUIs or text interfaces have fewer distracting Das Blinkin Lights, relatively speaking.
Old machines and word processors have their charms. Why wouldn’t you want to write on something old and cool, instead of something new and meh?
Some old keyboards were garbage. Some were wonderful. The latter, turns out, are still great to type on.
Writers have muscle memory going back to the days of WordPerfect or Paperback Writer. I think The Beatles sang a song about that.
Fast character recognition. Modern computers have higher latency between key presses and typing, which I absolutely notice now.
Just reading this post makes me want to get out my X1 Carbon ThinkPad, play around with Arch, and configure myself a device dedicated to writing. It wouldn't even be that complicated for me, since my blog is really just a bunch of markdown files that are put together on my server using Hugo.
The idea makes my mind go back to a video by Joshua Blais where he talked about using a 10 year old ThinkPad, and also how he uses various devices to keep contexts defined and separate.
I think it's time to download a fresh Arch ISO, make myself a coffee, watch some of Joshua Blais' videos, and play around with a ThinkPad.