Paper.
An early iPhone/iPod "to do" app.
Hot: Record text at a significant rate using a stylus. Recognizes all handwriting. Draw any shape, include shading, color, various media (colored pencil, pen, marker, charcoal, chalk, paint, etc.) Some styluses allow corrective features like erase. Foldable (can’t fold it more than seven times in half, though. I’ve tried, a lot.) Lightweight and cheap. Ubiquitous, multi-user, and you can send it across the world through the mail. Back it up or distribute copies with a photocopier. Still the best way to archive data. Requires exercise of precision manual dexterity. Visceral connection to text, personal stamp on writing via “handwriting”.
Not: Can’t be password protected, unless you have a lot of time on your hands and love encrypting things. Can’t be shared across distance in real time. Fragile. Absorbs liquid. Flammable. And inflammable.
Compass and straight edge.
Hot: Draw accurate circles. Draw straight lines. Use with paper (see above) for best results. All you need for having a great time in geometry class. That, and a dynamic teacher. (See this post and comment thread.)
Not: Sharp point on compass can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Rulers used as mock swords. Similar limitations to paper in terms of distance collaboration. Not as editable nor automatic as computer simulations.
Books.
Hot: See paper. Great gifts. Look good on shelves. Easily annotated, replaced and distributed. No software or hardware necessary to use. Easy on the eyes for long form reading. Never obsolete. Shallow learning curve.
Not: No backlighting. No keyboard. No harddrive. No mp3 functionality. No USB port. No Facebook integration, despite the social networking site’s self-identification with this product category.
[An aside on the transitory nature of online text: Coming to understand text as a more or less concrete phenomenon as opposed to the transitory text of a chat, or the malleable text of a wiki, has its benefits. Understanding text as something that we must measure ourselves against, as opposed to something that we must change to fit our current desires, also has its benefits. I will refer you to "Animal Farm" for an unsettling allegory of the wiki (with "super editors") as a political tool. Orwell was way ahead of his time, it seems.]
Click here for an awesome timeline of the history of the book. Any other low-tech tools you love? Drop them in the comments! It’s good to appreciate what we already have once in a while.
Related posts:
I grew up using computers, and 95%+ of my writing occurs at a keyboard. I envy those who can record their thoughts clearly using pen and paper. As a teacher, I’m actually pretty good on a whiteboard. So I guess it’s probably just a matter of practicing more…
Writing changes when you use a pen vs. a keyboard. That’s an important point. You can literally change a person’s thought process and the end result when you change the writing tool. I think more research and observation should be done on this point. Someone should start a data-driven analysis of the world’s literature.