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While preparing to start a desktop publishing (DTP) Special Interest Group (SIG)within my home users group (The User Group Network, or TUGNET, San Fernando Valley, Calif.), I ran across material that brought some chuckles, and memories. It took me back to the Stone Age of producing print material with very early microcomputers, before the term "desktop publishing" was coined. And even earlier.
That prompted this little article, which I share in the hope that you also might find it amusing, and that it might trigger memories of some of the more outrageous work-arounds you used back in the days when computers were less sophisticated. I feel also that it makes a good introduction for me and this new column, helping you "know" the faceless writer to some small degree . . .
Back in the '70s and early '80s, I produced newsletters and such using three typewriters: an old Olympic portable with Elite type, an IBM electric with proportional type (pre-Selectric, but I forget the model) and another machine with big Orator type. The latter normally was used for speeches, but I used it for headlines. Doing a typical newsletter involved switching a page from one typewriter to another frequently-and lots of WhiteOut!
Then came microcomputers. Wow, what progress. Or was it? Changing fonts and type >sizes wasn't a whole lot easier than with my old 3-typewriter setup. During user group meetings then, we had many discussions about utilities that made it possible to do such fancy things as bolding and italics. Wonder of wonders.
Doing two columns on a page was the Holy Grail we pursued, and you may not believe how I finally accomplished it. But I'll tell you anyway.
A full-page-width head ran at top, under the masthead. (I had cheated on that; had a friendly typesetter do it for me and make numerous repro copies, which I pasted on by hand.) Below the head I started entering the lead story, also full width, or two columns. I did about the first five or six lines like that, but then came the tricky part.
I had set the tabs so that I could type a line that went halfway across the page, the width of the left column. Then I would hit the tab key and go to where the second (right-hand) column started.
So, when I got to where I wanted to start the two columns, I did the first line of the head for story #2 in bold caps, hit the tab key, and wrote the next line for lead story. I continued that process all the way down the page: first a line for story #2, tab, and another line for the lead story.
I even had column 2, the lead story, justified! Column 1 was ragged right, but not terribly so. Took a lot of backing and filling to accomplish that.
The kicker is that I didn't write the stories in advance and then copy them into place; I made 'em up as I went along. It was one of my finest hours, folks! Of course, everybody else thought I was nuts. "Why didn't you just type the stuff up in single columns and paste 'em in place?" they asked.
Why, indeed? Like the man said about the mountain: it was there, a challenge not to be ignored.
Then came things like the 0.7 Beta version of Ventura Publisher, accompanied by a couple of dozen poorly-copied pages which eventually would grow to a full-fledged User Manual.
That was another challenge for a novice software tester. Now we have $75 DTP programs that are astoundingly powerful. And $500 software that can do what used to require teams of professionals and machines costing many, many thousands of dollars.
But I'm glad I was around during the Stone Age. It wasn't always easy, but it was fun.