Although computers have penetrated into various fields of activity, typewriters are still used, especially in various government agencies in West Sumatra, Indonesia. But the use of this tool is increasingly reduced, so that typewriter service is also increasingly rare ..
One who is still active is Burhan. This 65-year-old man has been working for decades. According to Burhan, his ability to repair typewriters was not obtained from schools or courses. But obtained from his father who is also a typewriter service. In fact, he admitted, this work has been carried out for three generations, because his grandfather had been working on this since the Dutch colonial era.
Currently Burhan is repairing two typewriters belonging to the Government of West Sumatra Province. The two machines could no longer be used, because the letters were sticky, jumped and the ribbon wasn't spinning. But with his expertise, these two machines can be used again.
When typewriters were still the main tool, or before the existence of computers, Burhan claimed he could fix a hundred typewriters every day. But at this time, he could only fix ten typewriters. Even then only in government agencies, such as the Padang City Hall office and the West Sumatra Governor's office. He set a service fee of 100 thousand rupiahs per machine.
As the number of typewriters decreases. typewriter service becomes scarce. Burhan admitted, at this time only he was still active in the city of Padang, because other service interpreters had switched to other professions, or had died.
Although the role of typewriters was very large in the past decades, many generations born in the 90s did not know and were good at using typewriters. One of them is Febrian. The journalist in one of the Indonesian newspapers, admitted that this was the first time he tried a typewriter, when he saw Burhan repairing the device in one of the rooms in the West Sumatra Governor's office.
According to Febrian, although it is rarely used, typewriters should be maintained, because they are part of the history and writing culture.