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Snoopy had it right
I doubt if you can tell the difference, but I’m writing this column on a new computer. It’s the third or fourth one I’ve had – I’ve lost count – and I’ve never understood how any of them work.
The first was one of the original Apples which was nothing more than a primitive word processor, and I still have a few of the old floppy disks around someplace on which I saved some of my old columns. It would be interesting to read them. The only problem is that there isn’t a computer around these days that will accept those disks. It’s a bit like having a collection of old 78-rpm records and being unable to find a phonograph that will play them.
I wasn’t really anxious to replace my old computer. It seemed to work just fine even if, like me, it had slowed down quite a bit. But lately every time I’ve logged on to the Internet I’ve been getting nagging messages informing me that my operating system is outdated.
Actually, while I appreciate the computer’s ability to send e-mail and to serve as a research tool, it’s main function for me is as a word processor. All of those other bells and whistles that come with it – the ability to even play music or movies – don’t matter much to me. I’ve got a TV and stereo system for that.
As a word processor – the function I’m now using – the computer is really a glorified typewriter. The keyboard is pretty much the same as it has always been, a seemingly senseless jumble of the letters of the alphabet that was originally designed to arrange them in an order that coincided with the frequency of their use to prevent the keys from jamming when someone typed fast. Oh, they have added a row of new keys at the top with computer commands, but the letters are still in the same place as they were when I learned touch typing during my summer vacation in 1940 between my junior and senior years at Dumont High School.
As it turned out, when I got my first real job on a newspaper I was a bit embarrassed by my ability to touch type. I had been a high school sports correspondent for the then Bergen Evening Record and when I graduated in June of 1941 the paper offered me a full time job on the night sports desk that I could handle while attending classes during the day at Bergen Junior College in Teaneck. That was when I discovered that real newspapermen didn’t touch type like secretaries. They pounded out their copy with two fingers on clattering upright manual Underwoods or Remingtons at a speed that I couldn’t equal.
In those days typing was only one step removed from using a pencil. In fact, a pencil was still used to do most of the editing. If you made a mistake while typing, or wanted to change a word, the only way to do it was to X out the words you wanted to replace and type in the correction in the space above. Once the copy got to the copy editor’s desk any changes were made by pencil using a mysterious almost Da Vinci-like system of proofreader marks to indicate deletions, transpositions, upper or lower case changes, new paragraphs, etc. Then the copy went to the composing room where the manual process started all over again as the linotype operators with their own keyboards transformed the words on the paper into lead slugs.
Gradually, of course, typewriters began to improve. They went from those old manuals to electric and eventually to models that even made it possible to do some minor editing. But compare that to this word processor. If I misspell a word it will be automatically underlined and all I need do to correct it is to press a key. If I want to move something around all I have to do is highlight it and enter the proper command. I’ve even got immediate access to a dictionary and a thesaurus.
However, you still have to come up with the words. Even Snoopy, the beagle in the Peanuts comic strip, knew that. In one of my favorite strips, which I have tacked to my bulletin board, Snoopy is sitting at a typewriter and in the first panel he has typed the word “It…” After staring blankly at the typewriter for a panel he adds “It was…” Then he paces around before adding “It was a dark…” and finally, following more contemplation, the sentence becomes “It was a dark and stormy night.”
“Good writing is hard work,” he sighs in the final panel.
Snoppy had that right and even these new fangled computers don’t made it any easier.
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