The Hermes 3000 was a lightweight, segment-shifted portable typewriter manufactured by Paillard-Bolex. William Kotzwinkle’s 1972 novel was named Hermes 3000 after the machine. During his acceptance speech for “Best Screenplay (Brokeback Mountain)” at the 2006 Golden Globes, author Larry McMurtry specifically mentioned his Hermes 3000, stating: “Most heartfelt, I thank my typewriter. My typewriter is a Hermes 3000, surely one of the noblest instruments of European genius. It has kept me for thirty years out of the dry embrace of the computer”. Other notable users of the machine are Sam Shepard, Eugène Ionesco and Stephen Fry. Beat writer Jack Kerouac wrote his final novel, Vanity of Duluoz, on the Hermes 3000 in 1966.
Hermes 3000
