Re: Pre-Xy

[Writer892@xxxxxxxx]

 My first text editor was hard-wired in a 40-pound Teleram ``portable'' that
made its way into our newsroom circa 1978. Text was stored on formatted tape
``blocks.'' I don't remember how much data a block would hold but you had to
string six to eight together to create a 20'' story. It was highly susceptible
to static electricity and I once saw a guy, after losing about three hours of
work, pick one up, lift it to shoulder height and drop it to the floor.
The hard-wired Teleram was replaced with a more portable version -- only
about 20 pounds -- that had Teleram's proprietary word processor based on the CP/M
operating system. That lasted less than a year. It had the charming habit of
dropping a few lines of text from the monitor every once in a while. Text
wasn't gone. You just couldn't see it.
Teleram at one time had entry in probably 75% of the newspapers in the
country, but lost its way and later was replaced by the ubiquitous Radio Shack TRS
80, which was the first truly portable computer, even if it wasn't much more
than a word processor.
I've still got a Trash 80 sitting in my closet, and I think one of the sports
reporters at my old newspaper is still using a Teleram that had to be one of
the first computers with volatile ``bubble'' memory. It's got to be at least
20 years old.

Bob Ashley
Indianapolis