MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

Barty · 05-20-2016, 01:50 PM

Some vintage photos of authors and their word processors (the non human variety).

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...thful-machine/

From a history of the early years of word processing

Asimov: “I end up with letter-perfect copy and no one can tell it wasn’t letter-perfect all the time. … Then I have it printed—br-r-rp, br-r-p, br-r-p—and as each perfect page is formed, my heart swells with pride.”

Crichton (1983): “When you type, the words appear on the screen … you can move around on the screen, change what you’ve written, pull blocks of text, put them elsewhere. You have complete freedom.”

Andrei Codrescu: “let you write with light on glass, not ink on paper, which was mind-blowing. It felt both godlike and ephemeral.”

GRRM still famously uses WordStar in DOS. Roger Ebert loved Xywrite, a truly geeky and endlessly tweakable tool. There must be some sf writer out there using emacs. The current rage is stripped down writing tool like scrivener. The ultimate hipster tool must be this $500 e-writer with an e-ink screen

http://www.wired.com/2016/02/freewrite/

It doesn't even have Delete key or arrow keys; you can only type, type, type, and backspace.

My first word processor was something called HomeWord. It produced justified text, and it was amazing to see my home work printed out type set like a book! (well, except for the ugly dot matrix print). I then graduated to WordStar. I remember finding a book that showed you how to hex edit the program to get all kinds of nifty customizations (this was back in the day when computer mags printed assembly code listing of entire programs in their issues). Not being a touch typist, I found all the ctrl+this, ctrl+that horrendous. WordPerfect was a relief (yes, it's strictly for philistines). Then came the GUI and the WYSIWIG editors, which somehow took all the thrill out of it. I still haven't gotten used to the new Word with its giant ribbons and icons.

I was too young for the typewriter. My English teacher never tired of telling me how good I had it, not having to type my paper, with footnotes. The horrors, the horrors! Incidentally, my older brother and sister claim the most useful class they took in high school was ... typing.

05-20-2016, 01:50 PM	#1
Barty doofus Posts: 2,527 Karma: 13088847 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Voyage	The way we wrote Some vintage photos of authors and their word processors (the non human variety). http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...thful-machine/ From a history of the early years of word processing Asimov: “I end up with letter-perfect copy and no one can tell it wasn’t letter-perfect all the time. … Then I have it printed—br-r-rp, br-r-p, br-r-p—and as each perfect page is formed, my heart swells with pride.” Crichton (1983): “When you type, the words appear on the screen … you can move around on the screen, change what you’ve written, pull blocks of text, put them elsewhere. You have complete freedom.” Andrei Codrescu: “let you write with light on glass, not ink on paper, which was mind-blowing. It felt both godlike and ephemeral.” GRRM still famously uses WordStar in DOS. Roger Ebert loved Xywrite, a truly geeky and endlessly tweakable tool. There must be some sf writer out there using emacs. The current rage is stripped down writing tool like scrivener. The ultimate hipster tool must be this $500 e-writer with an e-ink screen http://www.wired.com/2016/02/freewrite/ It doesn't even have Delete key or arrow keys; you can only type, type, type, and backspace. My first word processor was something called HomeWord. It produced justified text, and it was amazing to see my home work printed out type set like a book! (well, except for the ugly dot matrix print). I then graduated to WordStar. I remember finding a book that showed you how to hex edit the program to get all kinds of nifty customizations (this was back in the day when computer mags printed assembly code listing of entire programs in their issues). Not being a touch typist, I found all the ctrl+this, ctrl+that horrendous. WordPerfect was a relief (yes, it's strictly for philistines). Then came the GUI and the WYSIWIG editors, which somehow took all the thrill out of it. I still haven't gotten used to the new Word with its giant ribbons and icons. I was too young for the typewriter. My English teacher never tired of telling me how good I had it, not having to type my paper, with footnotes. The horrors, the horrors! Incidentally, my older brother and sister claim the most useful class they took in high school was ... typing.