On Wed, 6 Jul 2016, Fred Cisin wrote: > Yes, the author seems to be young enough to think of "word-processing" > as starting with TRS80/Apple][.
I can forgive him. So few people actually got to put their hands on mainframe and "real" (non-micro) computers before the PC "revolution". I was in the same boat. However, I do agree there's some hubris in making claims like "first" etc... as others have already said. > Nowadays, the kids think that word processing can not be done without > on-screen font display. No, that was my generation (Gen-X) and came around in the mid 90s, IMHO. That was right about the time your average administrative assistant and tech-writer went from using character-based Wordperfect, to some flavor of GUI "office suite" that included a GUI word processor. Half-joking, but with a few notable exceptions, the current generation hasn't heard much of "word processing". To them, it's a widget that sometimes gets embedded when an application on their phone has the nerve to ask them to type something. If they are "technical" or a "developer" then they know that a word processor is that little javascript thingy you can embed in web pages when you "need to type". Yes, I'm being snide. There are just as many smart kids today as there were when mainframes ruled. It's just that most computing tasks these days seem to revolve around consuming media rather than creating it. Plus, the same fools you were previously able to simply ignore like the walking dead as they scurried home to watch TV are now all carrying computing devices (phones) and influencing (read: disturbing) our previously peaceful technical spaces. -Swift
