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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 here I thought all innovation was done by (white) male privilege and they invented everything to keep the subjugation of woman in place.
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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.
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.
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True that. Men invaded the field when "programming" stopped being related to "inputting things on a keyboard" e.g. being a secretary. Salaries rose, men arrived, and suddenly programming became a thing women couldn't do anymore.
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".
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.
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Myself, very. When it comes to technical history, I'm absolutely obnoxious.
Ezekiel 23:20
" However, the other 99.99%"
LOL. It's not even close to that number, but good on ya for being hopeful I guess.
Her chief competitor, International Business Machines, made devices that relied on electronic relays and tapes, not semiconductor chips.
This is absolute bullshit. IBM was one of the leaders in digital circuit packaging at that time. Fuck, they already had standardized semiconductor logical modules five years before this alleged invention. Electronic relays, my ass.
The whole article is garbage.
Ezekiel 23:20
The first (or at least an earlier one) would be the IBM MT/ST. Like the Redactron, it was based on an IBM Selectric.
No, actually, they weren't.
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Actually - yeah. You see this isn't about sexism or racism or classism - it's about history and facts and not giving everybody a participation award. It's even in question whether the Wright Brothers were really and truly FIRST in inventing the airplane.
In fact I wasn't even skeptical going into the article - I was more curious about what her thought processes had been in "INVENTING WORD PROCESSING" - what was her aha moment, what made her come up with the concept of editing dynamically when liquid paper sufficed for most typos (solely invented by a woman) Turns out word processing as a concept already existed and she was just the first to digitize the process which, while still impressive, isn't on the level of upending an entire industry single handedly.
Digitizing an already existing "analog" process is a natural progression in invention.
To be fair IBM had the capacity to do this but they didn't (for whatever reason, no one thought of it, management didn't see the need, sales wouldn't have been that much different vs dev costs, etc) (think DOS and Microsoft) She saw the need and ran with it - kudos.
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You might want to read up on the history of why she started her own company...
In an interview, she acknowledged that she knew that IBM could easily improve their word processors to match hers, but being IBM she also knew that they would still be expensive, and the market would still be open to her.
Probably not, because when a man is recognized for his achievement we all know, without even saying, that the man accomplished something standing on the shoulders of others that came before him.
Whereas when a woman is recognized for her achievement, every story invariably has a huge feminist, sexist,& misandrist SJW agenda and is spun into a story which portrays her as a brave courageous one-woman-army heroine who struggled, battled, and clashed everyday against male-created roadblocks that were erected everywhere she turned. The brave courageous woman never gave up and soldiered on and used her superior feminine ingenuity and intellect to overcome, beat, overthrow, and succeed against the misogynistic hierarchy created by all men who tried to destroy her work and accomplishments in her crusade against male domination.
So ya, nowadays every time there is a story about some woman's historical accomplishment I always take it with a grain of critical salt.
> It makes me wonder: Would you have been as much critical if the article in question was about a man, and not a woman ?
No, the claim to the worlds first true word processor would require the same preponderance of evidence regardless as to the gender. While we could admire the ingenuity, a device the size of a small refrigerator that requires an IBM Selectric typewriter to function does not qualify as the first true word processor. I realize that it is currently fashionable to find a female equivalent of the male inventor, but distorting the historical record doesn't help.
Turns out word processing as a concept already existed and she was just the first to digitize the process
How does it make sense to say that when this actually happened a decade earlier, around 1960 or so?
Ezekiel 23:20