[COFF] [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature

[Theodore Y. Ts'o]

On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 10:53:59AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> 
> I went to college with an electric typewriter and all my papers were done
> on it in the fall of my freshman year (until I got access to UNIX).  I did
> have an CS account for the PDP-10 and they had the XGP, but using it for
> something like your papers was somewhat frowned upon.    However, the UNIX
> boxes we often bought 'daisy wheel' typewriters that had RS-232C
> interfaces.  Using nroff, I could then do my papers and run it off in the
> admin's desk at night.

When I was in high school, we had a box that could be fitted over an
Olivetti electric typewriter's keyboard, which had solenoids to
"type".  The other end had a parallel port and it was connected to a
Heathkit H-89 CP/M system, and so rough drafts would be sent to the
dot matrix printer, but for the final copy, it could look like it came
out of a typewriter --- because technically, it did.  :-)

       	 	    		- Ted