First there was the manual typewriter, invented in 1867. It was followed
in the 1920s by the first electric typewriter. In the 1960s, the first dedicated
word processor was born. With the invention of the floppy disk in the 1970s,
word processing moved onto personal computers. Today nearly everyone writes
on a computer using word processing software, and those programs have grown
incredibly sophisticated, bearing little resemblance to the menu-driven, markup-based
programs of the 1970s.
Here's a brief history of machine writing tools, from the invention of the
typewriter to the rise of word processing on computers in the 1980s:
http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.stanford.edu/%7Ebkunde/fb%2Dpress/articles/wdprhist.html
Here are a couple of screenshots showing what the WordStar word processing
program looked like.
Compare the above screens to a view of a recent version of Microsoft Word,
with its graphical user interface and numerous tools and options:
Early word processors, like the original WordStar, required users to modify
the underlying code, or markup, that defined text features such as boldface
and italic. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the language of the web, is
based on similar principles. For example, to italicize a word on a website,
the underlying HTML code uses <em> before and </em> after the
word.
Today, many web developers still write this code by hand. Despite the availability
of sophisticated HTML text editors, some diehard hand-coders still write up
their HTML code using lowly text editors such as Notepad, which comes standard
on all Windows computers.
Here is a very simple web page, authored in Notepad:
Creating web pages in a simple text editor gives one an idea of what it was
like to write using the simple menu-driven and markup-based word processors
of the 1970s.
Here is the same page in HTML Kit, an advanced HTML text editor with a graphical
user interface:
WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get")
HTML editors, such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver, let authors create web pages
in "design view," with the program writing the underlying code for
them. Indeed, programs such as FrontPage are targeted at people who don't
know (and don't want to learn) any HTML code at all.
Here's how the same page looks in Dreamweaver:
Dreamweaver lets authors see the code and design
simultaneously. The Design View part of the window is the bottom of the split
panel on the right.
If you want to try it yourself, you can download
HTML Kit for free here:
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/download/
And you can get the trial version of Dreamweaver
here:
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=dreamweaver
FrontPage does not provide a trial version; however,
you can find trial versions of other WYSIWYG HTML editors on the web (try
a Google search).
- What effect, if any, does choice of writing tool
have on how a writer defines his or her purpose for writing? In your opinion,
has the evolution of the word processor from the markup-based text editors
of the 1970s to today's WYSIWYG programs such as MS Word and Dreamweaver
affected how people define their purpose for writing?
- If you were creating a website, what type of writing
tool do you think you would prefer—a simple text editor such as Notepad,
a sophisticated HTML editor such as HTML kit, or a WYSIWYG program such
as Dreamweaver? Why? (To find out more about HTML coding, see the HTML tutorials
on the CNET website: http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-3881-8-5893399-1.html)
