And now, because there will never be too much porn on teh intarwebs, here’s a photo of an Olivetti Studio 44 without any clothes on:

I had to take it apart because it was so dirty that little bits and pieces of dirt were falling out of it every time I moved it. Also, the backspace key stopped working and not being able to backspace was driving me crazy! I actually managed to fix that by sliding an ordinary washer under the little hook arm that grabs the carriage and pulls it back. And I cleared most of the crud out of the mechanism with a few well-aimed shots of canned air.

This is one ruggedly-built machine, in case you can’t tell from the photo. I own quite a few portables, but this is the only one that’s as solid as the hundred-year-old cast-iron desktops I have. I think I know now why typewriter nerds get all warm and gooey about Olivettis.

The mouse is for my desktop, not the Olivetti.