From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (lwin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Pioneers of word processing? Date: 4 Sep 2000 02:45:47 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS Lines: 5 Message-ID: <8ov2cr$sqf@netaxs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bbs.cpcn.com Originator: root@bbs.cpcn.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news-xfer.newsread.com!bad-news.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!netaxs.newsread.com!bbs.cpcn.com!root Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:63033 Are there any people who could be credited with major contributions toward developing Word Processing? Unlike spreadsheets, W/P existed long before PCs. For example, IBM had magnetic card typewriters. Other companies had paper tape machines. ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Pioneers of word processing? Date: 4 Sep 2000 02:58:28 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 5 Message-ID: <8ov34k$cmh$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> References: <8ov2cr$sqf@netaxs.com> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet10 X-Trace: freenet9.carleton.ca 968036308 13009 134.117.136.30 (4 Sep 2000 02:58:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: complaints@ncf.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 4 Sep 2000 02:58:28 GMT X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet10.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!torn!cunews!freenet-news!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:63300 lwin (lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com) writes: > Are there any people who could be credited with major contributions > toward developing Word Processing? Teachers. ###### From: Eric Fischer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Pioneers of word processing? Date: 4 Sep 2000 03:55:46 GMT Organization: EnterAct Corp. Lines: 60 Message-ID: <8ov6g2$1hql$1@news.enteract.com> References: <8ov2cr$sqf@netaxs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: shell-3.enteract.com X-Trace: news.enteract.com 968039746 51029 207.229.143.42 (4 Sep 2000 03:55:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@enteract.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 4 Sep 2000 03:55:46 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Originator: enf@enteract.com (Eric Fischer) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!schlund.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.enteract.com!news.enteract.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:63258 lwin wrote: > Are there any people who could be credited with major contributions > toward developing Word Processing? Unlike spreadsheets, W/P existed > long before PCs. For example, IBM had magnetic card typewriters. > Other companies had paper tape machines. I can't say much about non-computer text processing tools, but even restricting discussion to word processing programs for computers, there are a lot of people that could be credited with significant contributions. Ted Nelson says that he and Douglas Engelbart independently invented word processing in 1960. Bob Bemer (on his web site) says he proposed word processing in an internal IBM memo in 1959 and (in an article in the Annals of the History of Computing that I seem to have mislaid) mentions having produced an issue of an IBM newsletter (in 1958, maybe?) by punching all the text onto cards and printing them out. In 1959, Martin E. Somin of the MIT Electrical Engineering Department wrote a program, "Editing Text for Immediate Display," that showed text on a display and (through some unspecified user interfaces) allowed it to be changed. By this time card-oriented editors meant for programs instead of text were already in use, including MI BCD ED by F. J. Corbato and M. Merwin. In 1960 or 1961, Michael P. Barnett and Kalon L. Kelley wrote a series of typesetting programs for the IBM 709 and the Photon typesetter, and at least two editors. One was a fairly simple line editor; the other was an elaborate context editor that could reflow text after insertions and deletions. For the DEC PDP-1 circa 1961-1962, there were the Colossal Typewriter (by John McCarthy and Roland Silver), Expensive Typewriter (by Steve Piner, and extended by Peter Deutsch), and TECO (by Dan Murphy) editors and the TJ-2 formatter (author unknown to me). In 1962 or 1963 on the Compatible Time Sharing System there was the memo/modify/ditto creator/editor/formatter trio by M. J. Leslie Lowry, F. J. Corbato, and J. R. Steinberg, and then later typset and runoff by Jerry Saltzer. It's not clear whether Somin's display editor ever really worked, so the first of that type may have been PDP-6 TECO by R. Greenblatt, J. Holloway, and S. Nelson. Bravo "designed by Butler Lampson and Charles Simonyi, and implemented mainly by Tom Malloy, with substantial contributions from Carol Hankins, Greg Kusnick, Kate Rosenbloom and Bob Shur" in 1979 may have been the first word processor to show proportionally spaced fonts and formatting in real time. Lisa Write (author unknown to me) established the way we expect GUI word processors to behave now. I'm sure there are many other important programs and authors that should be listed but I hope this covers the most basic ones. eric ###### Message-ID: <39B32AA5.AAB2B5AF@cwnet.com> Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2000 21:52:53 -0700 From: Dale DePriest X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Pioneers of word processing? References: <8ov2cr$sqf@netaxs.com> <8ov6g2$1hql$1@news.enteract.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.162.108.56 X-Trace: 3 Sep 2000 21:57:31 -0700, 205.162.108.56 Lines: 74 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!schlund.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newspeer1.nac.net!newspeer.cwnet.com!news2.cwnet.com!205.162.108.56 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:63027 While not directly related to word processing but very related to folklore it is said that the original Unix developement was justified on the basis of developing a better word processor. Dale Eric Fischer wrote: > > lwin wrote: > > > Are there any people who could be credited with major contributions > > toward developing Word Processing? Unlike spreadsheets, W/P existed > > long before PCs. For example, IBM had magnetic card typewriters. > > Other companies had paper tape machines. > > I can't say much about non-computer text processing tools, but even > restricting discussion to word processing programs for computers, > there are a lot of people that could be credited with significant > contributions. > > Ted Nelson says that he and Douglas Engelbart independently invented > word processing in 1960. Bob Bemer (on his web site) says he proposed > word processing in an internal IBM memo in 1959 and (in an article in > the Annals of the History of Computing that I seem to have mislaid) > mentions having produced an issue of an IBM newsletter (in 1958, maybe?) > by punching all the text onto cards and printing them out. > > In 1959, Martin E. Somin of the MIT Electrical Engineering Department > wrote a program, "Editing Text for Immediate Display," that showed > text on a display and (through some unspecified user interfaces) allowed > it to be changed. > > By this time card-oriented editors meant for programs instead of text > were already in use, including MI BCD ED by F. J. Corbato and M. Merwin. > > In 1960 or 1961, Michael P. Barnett and Kalon L. Kelley wrote a series > of typesetting programs for the IBM 709 and the Photon typesetter, and > at least two editors. One was a fairly simple line editor; the other > was an elaborate context editor that could reflow text after insertions > and deletions. > > For the DEC PDP-1 circa 1961-1962, there were the Colossal Typewriter > (by John McCarthy and Roland Silver), Expensive Typewriter (by Steve > Piner, and extended by Peter Deutsch), and TECO (by Dan Murphy) editors > and the TJ-2 formatter (author unknown to me). > > In 1962 or 1963 on the Compatible Time Sharing System there was the > memo/modify/ditto creator/editor/formatter trio by M. J. Leslie Lowry, > F. J. Corbato, and J. R. Steinberg, and then later typset and runoff by > Jerry Saltzer. > > It's not clear whether Somin's display editor ever really worked, so > the first of that type may have been PDP-6 TECO by R. Greenblatt, > J. Holloway, and S. Nelson. > > Bravo "designed by Butler Lampson and Charles Simonyi, and implemented > mainly by Tom Malloy, with substantial contributions from Carol Hankins, > Greg Kusnick, Kate Rosenbloom and Bob Shur" in 1979 may have been the > first word processor to show proportionally spaced fonts and formatting > in real time. > > Lisa Write (author unknown to me) established the way we expect GUI > word processors to behave now. > > I'm sure there are many other important programs and authors that should > be listed but I hope this covers the most basic ones. > > eric -- For GPS data see: Joe -- http://joe.mehaffey.com Peter -- http://www.vancouver-webpages.com/peter/ Karen -- http://www.gpsy.com/gpsinfo/ Dale -- http://users.cwnet.com/dalede ###### From: Charles Eicher Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Pioneers of word processing? Date: 3 Sep 2000 22:06:37 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 33 Message-ID: <8ovakt$22n@edrn.newsguy.com> References: <8ov2cr$sqf@netaxs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-165.newsdawg.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!edrn Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:63200 In article <8ov2cr$sqf@netaxs.com>, lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com says... > >Are there any people who could be credited with major contributions >toward developing Word Processing? > >Unlike spreadsheets, W/P existed long before PCs. For example, IBM >had magnetic card typewriters. Other companies had paper tape machines. The answer will surely depend on your definition of "Word Processing." Just how does this differ from "Typesetting?" What is your definition of "editing?" Every typesetter knows about line editing. Even modern programs like WordPerfect started as line editors. My first exposure to word processing was on an IBM 360 running ATS, which was a really awful line editor. Typesetting based on line editing goes back to the Linotype and Monotype machines of the 19th century. Of exceptional note is Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) who spent most of his personal fortune in a fruitless attempt to mechanize the Linotype machine into something that presumably resembled Word Processing. But obviously what you're talking about is computerized Word Processing. I think the early typesetting devices still qualify. For example, a Linotype machine can calculate kerning of type, and produce justified columns of type by calculating how much space to leave between words in each line. It is a computation of a sort, albeit one done mechanically. I don't mean to denigrate the advancements of the computer field, but it seems to me that Word Processing is nothing but a conversion of the already existing professional typesetting machines to smaller, cheaper, simpler hardware. ###### From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (lwin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Pioneers of word processing? Date: 4 Sep 2000 15:29:15 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS Lines: 3 Message-ID: <8p0f4b$j47@netaxs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bbs.cpcn.com Originator: root@bbs.cpcn.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news-xfer.newsread.com!bad-news.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!netaxs.newsread.com!bbs.cpcn.com!root Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:63458 In terms of storing text on punched cards and printing them out, this was done at least as early in WW II, when the sorter was used to produce various index directories. ###### From: "Tov Are Jacobsen" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Pioneers of word processing? Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2000 23:32:54 +0200 Organization: NTNU Lines: 14 Message-ID: <8p16t9$ruc$1@snipp.uninett.no> References: <8ov2cr$sqf@netaxs.com> <8ov6g2$1hql$1@news.enteract.com> <39B32AA5.AAB2B5AF@cwnet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: b191a.studby.ntnu.no X-Trace: snipp.uninett.no 968105705 28620 129.241.126.191 (4 Sep 2000 22:15:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news-abuse@uninett.no User-Agent: Pan/0.8.1beta4 (Unix) X-No-Productlinks: Yes Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!128.39.3.166!uninett.no!b191a!tovj Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:63217 Dale DePriest skrev i <39B32AA5.AAB2B5AF@cwnet.com>: > While not directly related to word processing but very related to > folklore it is said that the original Unix developement was justified on > the basis of developing a better word processor. A little know fact (mostly because the inventors of UNIX denies it, and claim to have hard evidence to support that notion) is that UNIX is not an OS ... just a somewhat bloated microkernel to run the Emacs operating system :-) -- Tov Are Jacobsen