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Evelyn Berezin, Who Built the First True Word Processor, Has Died at 93 (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Evelyn Berezin, a computer pioneer who emancipated many a frazzled secretary from the shackles of the typewriter nearly a half-century ago by building and marketing the first computerized word processor, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 93.
In an age when computers were in their infancy and few women were involved in their development, Ms. Berezin (pronounced BEAR-a-zen) not only designed the first true word processor; in 1969, she was also a founder and the president of the Redactron Corporation, a tech start-up on Long Island that was the first company exclusively engaged in manufacturing and selling the revolutionary machines.
In an age when computers were in their infancy and few women were involved in their development, Ms. Berezin (pronounced BEAR-a-zen) not only designed the first true word processor; in 1969, she was also a founder and the president of the Redactron Corporation, a tech start-up on Long Island that was the first company exclusively engaged in manufacturing and selling the revolutionary machines.
Everything we have is an improvement of existing technologies going back thousands of years. We wouldn't be where we are today if someone didn't come up with a way to improve on what we had. The innovators will live on forever in the new technologies, whether or not we remember who made the improvement.
And a (truly wonderful) woman made popular the first computer "bug"; what's your point?
Not everyone is like you, and anyone who has a mother knows where the real strength of
a family comes from.
Aside from that, this is a generation which has / and is seeing the passing of many amazing
innovators that shaped many of the simple things we take for granted today. God Speed!
CAP === 'untimely'
And here I thought all innovation was done by (white) male privilege and they invented everything to keep the subjugation of woman in place.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
How many people are we going to go through to claim the accolade of creating the first this or the first TRUE that.
Yeah we get it. Someone died and a "journalist" wanted to applaud their great accomplishment which wasn't impressive enough to stand on it's own, so the True Scotsman gets rolled out. Ms. Berezin wouldn't have even recognized the phrase "tech-startup" at any point in her career, yet gets praise for that too.
Perhaps for demographic reasons this one will stick and this will be the last story about the inventor of the first true word processor we will get.
My my don't you have a chip on your shoulder... Would you like a hug?
Hope that was therapeutic! The 0.01% of 'great white males' that disagree with you can, indeed, "suck it". However, the other 99.99% of us, that agree with you, have to wonder why you have to make such gross and disparaging generalizations. There are assholes, and in many forms, sexes, and colors. But for the overwhelmingly large portion of the population - we're just people. People who are glad to see a pioneer and an innovator (regardless of any physical attribute) remembered.
This 'great white male'-splaining brought to you by privileged.com (not really, and no idea who/what owns that domain, so don't antagonize them for my bad joke).
There are assholes, and in many forms, sexes, and colors.
... and political persuasions.
You mean the fact that no one was keeping women back in the 1960s?
Uh... I'll be sure to stop being a misogynist prick as soon as I'm finished beating my wife.
A privileged white male needs his priorities, after all.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
It always sounds like women are new to the field of programming, but I think there were many women who made great contributions to the field in the 70s and part of 80s. For some reason the drop in representation came after and lasted for like 20 years.
Redactron, yes, but never Ms Berezin. What a fascinating career she had. She deserves more recognition than she got.
a computer pioneer who emancipated many a frazzled secretary from the shackles of a job nearly a half-century ago by building and marketing the first computerized word processor,
Too many years ahead of its time. Given the number of government documents that are issued nowadays with huge swaths of text hidden behind black boxes, Redactron should have been raking in the cash selling their machines to government offices.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The article doesn't say when she wrote it, only that she started a company in 1969. However, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... says the Expensive Typewriter written in 1961-2 for a PDP-1, with IBM Selectric output, "may be considered the first word processing program".
Some who had a mother knew alcoholism, narcissism, borderline, bipolar syndrome, autism, illness or death.
What a bunch of fake news... IBM had a editable and correctable word processor in 1964. It also had mail merge.
In 1968, Ms. Berezin began working on ideas for a true computer for word processing, using tiny chips, known as integrated circuits, or semiconductors, to record and retrieve keystrokes for text editing. Since 1964, I.B.M. had been making word processors using a Selectric Typewriter and a magnetic tape drive to save and retrieve keystrokes. The tape could be corrected and used to retype text, but since the machine lacked semiconductor chips, Ms. Berezin said, it was not a true computer.
And thus the vaunted NYTimes drops "Computerized" from the headline and crediting her with inventing "The First TRUE Word Processor" which means a wholly different thing.
This is the first I had ever heard of this system... it's really a shame she is gone now, because I would have loved to see someone interview her as part of a case study as to why that company failed.
It sounded like they had great machines that advanced well over time, a head start in the use of microprocessors, and a. lot of high end clients. So how was it that the company was bypassed by so many others? Was it to specialized where IBM was more general computing? That doesn't explain how other competitors like Wang on Olivetti also surpassed them later on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It makes me wonder: Would you have been as much critical if the article in question was about a man, and not a woman ?
Jusk askin...
" However, the other 99.99%"
LOL. It's not even close to that number, but good on ya for being hopeful I guess.
Laying it on awfully thick, aren't you, Shlomo?
The first (or at least an earlier one) would be the IBM MT/ST. Like the Redactron, it was based on an IBM Selectric.
Strait from the Fortran manual - if you ask my mother :-}
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Being ugly is an impediment to finding love. Incels suffer pretty serious psychological issues, and yeah, the opposite sex and well even many of the same gender, shy away from the kind of behaviors Incels are known for.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You might want to read up on the history of why she started her own company...
That truly is a shame. What's your point?
If someone asks me if I have stopped beating my wife, the response would be “Why?”
The Bear-a-zyne lady is obviously one of them. We should reconsider using word processors.
Ms Berezin did something, apparently some development work that she tried to commercialize. It was not as revolutionary as the dogmatic NY Times wants us to believe.
Word processors did, however, see wide use in the 70s and probably into the 80s. They were specialized minimal computers with screens that were sold to be used by typists, and were used by companies whose main output was documents.