Our 5 favorite highlights in technical writing history

The history of Times New Roman

If asked to write something in a serif font, most people would probably pick Times New Roman. But have you ever wondered why this somewhat antiquated font remains so popular? The story starts with the London newspaper, The Times.

A look back: office printing

The desktop PC revolution of the 1980s brought with it an explosion in new desktop printing technologies. If you’d like to take a step back in time, watch this 1983 episode of The Computer Chronicles which explores office printing options available at that time.

For more about printing from this era, also read A look back: Printing in the 1980s with a video from a BBC program called Micro Live, originally broadcast on BBC Two, Saturday 27 October, 1984.

A look back: early word processing

In the late 1970s, the personal computer was still quite new, as was the concept of a desktop word processor. The ability to manipulate words on a screen was a novel concept, as host Luke Casey explains in this 11-minute BBC News production from 1979, asking “will word processors start a home working revolution?” It’s an interesting look back to see how far the word processor has come.

A look back: As-Easy-As for DOS

Technical writers rely on a variety of tools to get the job done. While we often think of word processors and markup systems for our work, technical writers also leverage spreadsheets to analyze and organize data so they can write about it. Turning the clock back to the 1980s and 1990s, you might have used Lotus 1-2-3 or As-Easy-As. Earlier this year, we interviewed TRIUS Inc co-founder Paris Karahalios for a fascinating look back at how As-Easy-As was developed, including the manual that came with it.

To learn more about this milestone shareware spreadsheet, download our free ebook, A Brief History of As-Easy-As, containing the full series of interviews with Paris about As-Easy-As.

For another spreadsheet from the past, also read A look back: LANPAR, the first spreadsheet featuring commentary from Rene Pardo about how LANPAR was created.

The IBM Selectric Ball

The original IBM Selectric typewriter was introduced in 1961, and was called simply the "Selectric." The IBM Selectric II typewriter (1971) supported both 10 and 12 characters per inch. The Selectric II sold very well and became the base model for other IBM typing devices including the Correcting Selectric (with a correcting ribbon) and Selectric Composer (used in typesetting).