When I was a student at North Osborn Elementary School on French Road near Seymour, the teacher made out our tests using special pencils Then she made copies on the hectograph by laying the master face down on a tray that contained gelatin for a minute or two so the ink transferred to the gelatin. Then she could make copies by pressing blank papers on to the gelatin. Of course, every time she made a copy, ink was removed and the copies got progressively lighter.
I thought this was high tech back then, though the process was invented around the time of the Civil War.
In high school, the big innovation was a punch card system. Each student has seven cards, one for each class we wanted to take. After the cards were punched the stacks and stacks of cards, probably a couple thousand of them, were sent off to be processed. In the end we got a print out of our class schedules. Really high tech.
It wasn't until I reached college that I saw a Xerox copy machine. Punch cards were still part of computer technology. Personal computers were far in the future.
In college I had a portable typewriter. Later, I got an electric typewriter, followed by a Selectric, which could change fonts. Wow, even higher tech!
I think I was in my 40s when I got my first computer, a Kaypro. It took the first 5.25 floppy disks with not much memory. The next computer took 3.5 inch diskettes with a bit more memory, but still, a single diskette only held a rough draft not a complete novel.
Next came the CD. I could get an entire novel on one CD. I still have boxes of these in storage though the floppy disks have long gone to the landfill.
These days, I use memory sticks the size of my thumb or memory cards the size of a quarter. The 8G card I picked up today holds the entire third draft of my novel. I probably could get another couple of books in there, too. I can insert it into my little notebook computer and continue to revise anywhere I travel. Come Hawaii in February, I can sit at the beach working on a non-fiction book I have in mind without carrying a heavy laptop and a stack of CDS.
Today Gary and I decided to spend part of November in the old farmhouse in Dixon, Illinois. No matter, have technology, will write.
We've come a long way since the hectograph.
I thought this was high tech back then, though the process was invented around the time of the Civil War.
In high school, the big innovation was a punch card system. Each student has seven cards, one for each class we wanted to take. After the cards were punched the stacks and stacks of cards, probably a couple thousand of them, were sent off to be processed. In the end we got a print out of our class schedules. Really high tech.
It wasn't until I reached college that I saw a Xerox copy machine. Punch cards were still part of computer technology. Personal computers were far in the future.
In college I had a portable typewriter. Later, I got an electric typewriter, followed by a Selectric, which could change fonts. Wow, even higher tech!
I think I was in my 40s when I got my first computer, a Kaypro. It took the first 5.25 floppy disks with not much memory. The next computer took 3.5 inch diskettes with a bit more memory, but still, a single diskette only held a rough draft not a complete novel.
Next came the CD. I could get an entire novel on one CD. I still have boxes of these in storage though the floppy disks have long gone to the landfill.
These days, I use memory sticks the size of my thumb or memory cards the size of a quarter. The 8G card I picked up today holds the entire third draft of my novel. I probably could get another couple of books in there, too. I can insert it into my little notebook computer and continue to revise anywhere I travel. Come Hawaii in February, I can sit at the beach working on a non-fiction book I have in mind without carrying a heavy laptop and a stack of CDS.
Today Gary and I decided to spend part of November in the old farmhouse in Dixon, Illinois. No matter, have technology, will write.
We've come a long way since the hectograph.
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