We rarely remember the contributions the humble word processor makes to our lives
We rarely remember the contributions the humble word processor makes to our lives
US president Harry Truman, who died in 1972, is supposed to have said that he wanted a one-handed economist because all his economists used to say stuff like 'on the one hand...and on the other'. We don't know if he got his wish, but around this time, a group of people at Xerox PARC led by Butler Lampson and Charles Simonyi created a word processor.
This word processor, called Bravo, was the first WYSIWYG document preparation program. Wait, I hear you say, why are we discussing a US president and a word processor that is almost four decades old?
Old to new
The answer to the second question we will come to the first one later is simple. The word processor that you are probably using right now to send a memo to your business partner probably came from Bravo just as you descended from the apes. While we can't speak for all word processors, the venerable Word from Microsoft did indeed come from Bravo.
In fact, on February 1, 1983, development on what was originally named Multi-Tool Word began. However, before this program was released on October 25, 1983 for the IBM PC, it was renamed to Microsoft Word, a name that has stuck for over a quarter of a century.
Big benefits
While many of us cannot live without word processors today, believe it or not, people have actually questioned the advantages of the word processor. In fact, in the book The Psychology of Writing, author Ronald Thomas Kellogg says that 'Haas found that experienced professionals wrote documents that were judged as poorer in content quality on personal computers relative to longhand'. This book says that this research is attributed to Does the Medium Make a Difference? Two Studies of Writing with Pen and Paper and with Computers by Christina Haas.
But this study was made exactly two decades ago, in July 1989, and today, we don't care if word processors make us more productive suffice it to say that they are extremely convenient for all of us. Modern word processors like Word help us correct our spelling mistakes and even do a reasonably decent job with grammar and help us to present our ideas concisely. What more do you want from a word processor, anyway? World peace?
Future peek
Having seen how Word has evolved over a long time, one naturally wants to know how will a word processor like Word look in 2033, 50 years after launch? When I asked Sanjay Manchanda of Microsoft India this question, he said that, "Word will probably still be the tool you use to capture and explain your creativity, but in 2033 it may let you express it in exciting ways for people reading on the Internet, on a mobile phone or any number of new devices."
This is great, and we have wrapped up this story, except for one thing the answer to the first question we asked at the beginning. We discussed Truman because he had a sign on his desk that said 'the buck stops here' because he knew that he couldn't blame any economist. Now, with a good word processor, the buck stops at your table too, so choose your words carefully when you write!
QUICK TAKE
>>A study in July 1989 questioned the productivity of word processors
>>However, today, we cannot live without one
>>Word processors will be there as long as the written word endures
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