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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.
Well well well historical fact like this sure will stick in the throats of all the above and make them rage, and I'm happy to see it. Suck it, 'great white males', you can't escape the fact that women do some awesome things for our species and deserve much better from men all over the world. Get correct, gentlemen, you're embarassing the rest of us -- and yourselves.
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.
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.
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".
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...
The first (or at least an earlier one) would be the IBM MT/ST. Like the Redactron, it was based on an IBM Selectric.
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.