RE: [Fwd: I remember when...]

["Mike Hiatt" <mhiatt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There were Selectrics in 1969 - I used to write press releases on one for
the Public Information Office at North Texas State University on the the two
afternoons each week that I wasn't in my sophomore reporting class in the
Journalism Department. In sophomore reporting we used Royal manuals. Until I
got the routine down, I would beat the Selectric to death the day after
pounding the manual and then could hardly budge the keys on the manual the
day after lightening my touch for the Selectric.

During my years as a journalist, I worked for a couple of newspapers that
used Compugraphic typesetting equipment. Even learned how to use them which
came in really handly for running my own weekly. Setting type on a
Compugraphic is where I learned how to enter text at a high rate of speed -
which amazes people to this day. You learn to see letters and type them and
don't try to read what you're typesetting. If the goal is simply to get the
text entered, you can type really fast this way.

Haven't been a journalist for almost 20 years now, but there are days that I
miss it dearly. And I love to walk into a printing company and smell the
inks and chemicals. OK, I'm strange, but it brings back great memories.

Mike Hiatt
Manager, Tech Pubs
VocalData, Inc.
Dallas (yep, that one)
mhiatt@vocaldata.com

Carolyn Stallard forwarded:

> Dick Gaskill wrote:
>
(snipped to save bandwidth)

> I wrote my first technical manual on (what else?) a MANUAL typewriter
> in 1972.  Electric typewriters were not invented yet either, never
> mind software.  When I finally got an IBM Selectric (and I still own
> it BTW) I was documenting MINICOMPUTERS.  But there was no software
> for the computer to write manuals on.
>
> And even when we got selectrics, we gave the hard copy to a nice lady
> who typed it all in again on a Compugraphic typesetting machine.  She
> gave the galleys to a layout gal, who hot-waxed the galleys onto a
> form.  Only she didn't read anything.  She just cut the galleys to
> fit.  And the title would be on the last line of a page and the
> associated text on the next page.  No such thing as "Keep with Next"
> in those days.  And yes, she cut her fingers with the exacto knife
> too.
>


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