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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.
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,
I think this is in reference to a piece of software, but to the hardware device known as a "word processor". They were basically mini-computers that booted directly into a word processing application (and had no other software applications), and had a build-in printing device and sometimes a built-in monitor. They were still being sold in the late-1980s, maybe even the first couple years of the 1990s, but were substantially less expensive than a PC & printer (that is, during the 1980s).
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
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