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Tuesday, June 03, 2008
A look back at word processing
After reading the 1975 article on word processing (Business Week: The Office of the Future) referred to in my last entry, I thought it might be fun to do a little word processing hardware retrospective of my own.
In high school, I took touch typing and Gregg shorthand, among many other business courses. For purposes of this article, I'm going to skip references to shorthand and transcription. Since this was before word processors, I learned to type on both a manual and electric typewriter.
My first law office job started in March 1974 when I went to work for a solo who was just starting private practice after having been a prosecutor for 14 or so years. I groaned a little the first day on the job when I sat down at my desk. Why? The typewriter was an IBM Executive. The Executive was IBM's top of the line, no doubt. Despite the fact that its proportional spacing made it a secretary's nightmare, I mastered it. Sometime later, he bought me a Royal selectric with built-in correction tape. Yes! I could really make that thing fly. Everything I typed included at least two carbon copies (one for the client, one for the file). Wills and deeds could have absolutely no corrections.
Moving on. I was spirited away from there in 1978 when I went to work for a firm that consisted of eight lawyers, five secretaries, an accountant, and a receptionist. I was one of five secretaries. Since I was the youngest, and presumably most adaptable, I was chosen to be first secretary at the firm to get a word processor. I don't remember much about that word processor, except that it was a Xerox and I had to go to school for four and a half days to learn it.
In 1979 I moved to a very large firm in Chicago. Every secretary there had an IBM magnetic card typewriter on her desk. Wow! This was a great little set-up. Each magcard (about the size of your basic punch card), held one page of text. The input device was very much like an IBM selectric. If I recall correctly, there was a single line screen of red type on a black background. When you hit the return key, the screen cleared for the next line.
In 1981, I moved to another large Chicago firm when the lawyer I worked for at the first one moved to Philadelphia. The new firm had a much different set-up with a word processing department. Each secretary had a typewriter which was used for basic correspondence and short documents. If the secretary had a larger document, it got typed on pink paper, sent to word processing where it was scanned into the Wang. The Wang was like a mini computer - something between a PC and a mainframe. From the scan, a draft would be printed, which the lawyer would review, edit, and return to his secretary for editing on the Wang. There were about nine Wang terminals with printers scattered throughout the office. The secretary had to call word processing to schedule time on a terminal.
From there I moved to a small town in Western Michigan in 1984. That lawyer had a typewriter, but I soon convinced him that word processing was the way to go for his estate planning practice with all its large documents. We got a Royal word processor. I remember the sales person we bought it from telling us that for about the same amount of money we could get a personal computer. We told her, oh no, lawyers will never need personal computers. LOL.
In 1989 I moved back to Springfield, Illinois. When I went on the job interview for the job I would be in for about the next 10 years, I looked around the office and was relieved to see a PC on the secretary's desk.
And that, as they say, is that.
• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 1:01 PM
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