But if there’s one lesson we already learned in tech is that everything comes back: once-solved problems reappear as a headache for the next generation.
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And so, a few decades earlier, you could buy a really expensive CompuWriter typesetting machine – but that big space in front was for paper you were typing *from*. The display was a tiny sliver of one line, off to the side.pic.twitter.com/yuk6r0Rdsl
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Or, remember that Xerox 850/860 machine from that we started with? If you couldn’t afford even the half-page screen, there was another option: a little display of 16 green letters.pic.twitter.com/nhS5LrBwe6
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A Berthold typesetting machine came with a beautiful and unique keyboard – and in the periphery, a “screen” that felt more like a calculator display, with room for only *eight* last characters you typed.pic.twitter.com/hLy1ZSCxOz
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And if you’re thinking “at least the calculators are safe,” here is the abominable Royal Digital 3 with only *four* digits and a special key to scroll to the left or right.pic.twitter.com/MPj0pOijEr
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(I wrote about Royal Digital 3 in my newsletter last year. It not only has the worst display, but also a pretty awful “keyboard”: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens/issues/the-worst-keyboard-ever-made-148939 …)
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But at last there *was* a display. Because we’re going to end one of the first computers ever, the otherwise glorious and memorable 1951’s UNIVAC, size of a room, its memory banks filled with mercury.pic.twitter.com/q8kHvTH2K4
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Where is its screen? *What* is its screen? Can you tell?
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Replying to @mwichary
I assume they also had a punch card printer that could display results, like ENIAC
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