The leap in word processing from typewriter to computer was made by Ami (later Amit Pro and Lotus)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amí
They abolished the use of twice hitting the carriage return for a new paragraph, as in the typewriter and Word Perfect - and replaced it with the neat “hitting the enter key once” that we are used to. As the styles were connected to the paragraph, they also introduced a more consistent use of typography, Of course there is LaTeX, but that would be a diversion from the topic, I think.
So, even if I left Ami for Microsoft Word, my heart remains with Ami - and I never ever hit the enter key twice after a paragraph.
Early word professors that I used (PFS Write) in DOS were automatically in overwrite mode. You had to change to insert mode. Yet, as I recall, when we moved to WordPerfect, the opposite was true. Going from an IBM Selectric to a word processor was an amazing improvement in productive ability. Then there was Correct-a-tape. Oy. Or what one of my daughters later called “whiter-out.” Our first billing software was by IBM…it consistent of ~eight 360 disks and each update added several more. The package was something like $4k+
Started with computers in the 70’s with card decks into the mainframe at school. Wrote my Master’s thesis on a Radio Shack Color Computer using a B&W TV for a 40 column monitor and a cassette player for data. Then on to a circa 1985 Kaypro 2000 laptop - one of the first. Used Xywrite for word processing until Windows killed it .
Early online experience was hours (paid for by the minute) on Compuserve - always shunned AOL. Partied when Hayes doubled speed on their $400 2400baud modem!
Recently moved and got rid of miscellaneous old stuff including some dram and parallel printer cables.
You surely had to conserve on RAM usage. I have a bunch of chips in a desk drawer at the office. I am waiting for Intel’s Above Board to come back into wide use. They are talking about being able to address 1024 worth of RAM. I do not believe it, and my amber monitor scans rather slowly. I read in PC World that they have a patent for a device that lets you click on items. Some sort of rodent, but I think these are all in prototype form.
My wife as two 38” LG monitors. You can really be productive with that amount of real estate. I have a 34” with Mac OS on the right and Win10 on the left. Imagine going back and having the tools we have today. Next we’ll get AOL accounts.
XTree was da bomb…Then when windows came I got ZTreeWin and still have it but I cant remember all the keyboard commands now was trying to use it the other day and couldn’t for the life of me get it to change directories to a different drive…so I gave up plus lost my .key file moons ago - probably on an old 2003 Thinkpad drive somewhere.
It was a wonderful product in its day, but how computing has advanced over the last 35 years or so since I bought my first PC (2Mb RAM and floppy drive - 10Mb(?) hard disk).
I remember on one occasion a few years later purchasing a 500Mb SCSI hard disk with separate SCSI controller card at a cost of over £700 for the two. That was a phenomenal amount of storage for its day - I thought I would never need any additional storage space ever again.
Xtree was a simple, elegant solution to file management. Its problem was that there was no concept of copy protection at the time and everyone just made a copy and gave it to their friends.
I’ve told this story before, but that won’t stop me from repeating it here. As a new recruit, I was taken to my company’s data center to marvel at their use of technology. There was a 10MB drive, showcased in a glass case, that was the size of a 50 gallon drum. People stood around and marveled as it slowly spun to satisfy various data requests. All circa 1978.
I worked as a Customer Engineer at IBM around then and had big iron system 360 systems with many rows of drives. I remember one time we upgraded the 3890 check sorter with double the memory it had, to a total of 4K of core storage…that’s little ferrite rings with 3 wires passing x,y,z through each one…cost a fortune then. Now my Apple Watch would probably run the whole data center.
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Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
79
Core storage – love it! I remember building a custom system, an energy management control system for Allen-Bradley, that used it. 1979. We put a 2K core memory board – it was some proprietary Motorola bus – into the development system, loaded up the program, then took the board out and put it into the control system box.
Was just telling my son that we used keypunch cards for data and ran them on a computer that took an entire basement floor with A/C to control the oppressive heat. Nothing in his academic career is comparable. Close is his high school controlling where they went on the web on their MacBook…which the school provided.
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