“I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.” –Bill Gates
* * *
I’m not sure I can agree with Mr. Gates about PCs being “the most empowering tool we’ve ever created.” There are a few other foundational things mankind has invented that are pretty good: the wheel, the printing press, indoor plumbing 😊. But Bill Gates isn’t the only person wired about the use of personal computers. You can find plenty of other quotes to store in the same file. For example:
“The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.” –Douglas Engelbart
Whether you soar to such heights of computerized adoration or stay with your hands firmly fixed on the keyboard, there’s no doubting the obvious. Personal computers have revolutionized the practice of writing books.
* * *
For example, Elaine Viets wrote a TKZ post a couple of weeks ago about typewriters that took us back to the days of mammoth Underwood machines, carbon paper, and whiteout and made us appreciate even more our personal computers and software.
“I am thankful the most important key in history was invented. It’s not the key to your house, your car, your boat, your safety deposit box, your bike lock or your private community. It’s the key to order, sanity, and peace of mind. The key is ‘Delete.’” –Elayne Boosler
* * *
So it’s only right that we celebrate August 12 as IBM PC Day since that was the date in 1981 when IBM released its first personal computer, the 5150.
IBM was late getting into the personal computer market, arriving after Apple, Commodore, and Tandy had already grabbed a share of the new users. But given the opportunity for growth in that field, IBM jumped in and developed the 5150 in just one year.
In order to get to market quickly, IBM contracted with a little-known software company named Microsoft to supply the operating system for the new PC.
The reaction to IBM’s entry in the personal computer domain was immediate. According to Wikipedia,
Reception was overwhelmingly positive, with analysts estimating sales volume in the billions of dollars in the first few years after release. After release, IBM’s PC immediately became the talk of the entire computing industry. Dealers were overwhelmed with orders, including customers offering pre-payment for machines with no guaranteed delivery date. By the time the machine began shipping, the term “PC” was becoming a household name.
Sales exceeded IBM’s expectations by as much as 800% (9x), with the company at one point shipping as many as 40,000 PCs per month.
The phenomenal success of the IBM PC changed the face of personal computing and created a watershed moment in the history of writing.
* * *
Although the ability to record words has been around for thousands of years, the strides made in the last fifty years have been dramatic. Along with the advent of the personal computer and word processing software, a host of applications have arisen to help authors get their books written well and published quickly. Thewritepractice.com lists ten of the best software apps for writers:
- Scrivener
- Google Docs
- Dabble
- Google Sheets OR Microsoft Excel
- Vellum
- ProWritingAid
- Publisher Rocket
- Atticus
- Freedom
- Microsoft Word
These advances (and more) help us write and deliver our books in a timely manner. But they are just tools for the writer. The real work comes from within as noted by JK Rowling below:
“I wrote first 2 Potters by hand and typed them on a 10 yr old typewriter. All a writer needs is talent and ink.” –JK Rowling
* * *
So TKZers: How have PCs changed your life? What was your first PC? Do you use any of the software listed? What other apps do you use to help you get your books written and published?
It’s the twenty-first century. Cassie Deakin learns that cops may have sophisticated equipment, but it still takes clear thinking and hard work to corner a murderer.
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.
I wonder about IBM’s model naming…
After all, “5150” – also the title to a Van Halen album – is the California police code generally used to respond to people who are considered threateningly unstable or “crazy,” – the “blue screen of death” both tells that the O/S is unstable, and the reactions of users facing the loss of whatever wasn’t saved often crossing the borders of sanity…
Good question, George. I don’t know why IBM chose 5150 to name its first PC, but IBM seemed to like to give their machines numbers instead of names.
Ah, the blue screen of death that usually appeared just before you hit the Save button. It may have created a whole new branch of psychotherapy for insanity brought on by computer usage.
I hear music is good therapy for a bad computer experience.
PCs are a mixed bag. The net eliminated the need to submit hard copies with an SASE, making it easier to submit your WIP to publishers.
OTOH, by making it easier to submit, publishers are quickly inundated, so waiting times are not much better.
Good morning, Mike. You make a good point. I bet publishers are more inundated than ever with manuscripts. I don’t envy them.
Have a great week.
Happy IBM PC day! I use Googledocs, Word, and Google Sheets, but sometimes I like to get away from the screen. After this first draft of my novel WIP is done, I’m going to write a bunch of short stories old school–with pen and paper!
And Happy IBM PC day back to you, Priscilla!
I’ve never used Google Sheets. I’m so used to Excel, I’ll probably stick with that one.
Great idea to produce short stories with pen and paper. I just had a conversation with someone over the weekend about the benefits of handwriting.
The thing that most stands out about those first PCs like the image at the top of this post is how doggone heavy those monitors were! 😎
Improvements in technology have been great though I’m wary about some things–such as the rush to adopt AI without much thought to possible negative consequences. And we have to be careful not to allow technology to sabotage interacting as human beings.
Have tried a few times to use Scrivener but just couldn’t get into it. Mostly stick with Word and Google docs. Will most likely experiment with formatting software in the coming months. It seems like new apps are introduced more and more often. Gives me tech fatigue. 😎
Good morning, Brenda!
The thing I remember about those old monitors was the bright green text and the blinking cursor.
I think you’ve come up with a great phrase: “tech fatigue.” It’s pandemic, but curable by long walks in the park and conversing with other humans (if you can find any who aren’t glued to their cell phones!)
Have a good week.
My first computer was the Kaypro. Love at first sight. Whopping 64KB RAM. Portable. I used it at my law firm, with a daisey wheel printer, and was the talk of the office for several weeks.
It didn’t keep up with times, so I fell in love with another–the Macintosh. Never hit it off with the PC.
Scrivener is my program of choice for planning and drafting. Word for editing.
The Kaypro! Wasn’t it like 8 gazzion dollars? I think I saw one or two any place other than a trade show.
Their ad was “the $1,595 computer that sells for $1,595.”
Morning, Jim!
Isn’t it interesting how we became emotionally attached to our first computers?
I understand the Kaypro was named after the surname of the family that owned the firm. Andrew Kay changed his surname from Kopischiansky since nobody could pronounce it. Good choice.
I remember contributing to a fund raiser for a charity to buy their PC. I want to say it was about $5,000.
Visicalc was the program that pushed the PC. Visicalc led to Lotus 1-2-3 and then Excel. I now live in Excel.
1981 also marked Micro-soft or Micro Soft losing their space and becoming Microsoft.
My first computer was a Timex/Sinclair ZX80. I wrote a roulette game for it. In college we had shared time on an HP3000. If you got to the lab early enough you could use the terminal with upper AND lower case letters.
Today I am using my Dell laptop. My iPad is in it’s case. The iPhone will link to the iPad and Apple Watch. There are a pair of Raspberry Pis in my office. One runs a network monitor, the other just sits right now. If you don’t know the Raspberry Pi it is a Linux computer that almost fits in an Altoids tin.
Hi Alan,
You must be related to my husband. He has a spreadsheet for everything. And he graphs anything that can be quantified.
We also owned a ZX80! If I remember correctly, it had a membrane keyboard, and I think we had to assemble the thing.
Your electronic setup sounds a lot like ours, but I had never heard of a Raspberry Pi before. Although most of my career was spent on Unix operating systems, I never owned a Linux box.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/ I prefer Raspberry Pi OS. Wild to run Word 365 on a palm sized Linux machine.
At last check Chateau Portman had 20 network devices on the network.
My first computer that I bought specifically for writing came from Radio Shack since I worked for them and got a discount. It was touted as “portable” but was roughly the same size and shape of a portable sewing machine. I moved through the ranks until now I use the MS Surface tablet/computer and have been for the past several years. I started on the Tandy word processing app called Scripsit, moved to WordPerfect, then tried WordStar. Once I moved machines to an IBM clone, I started using Word which I stuck with for decades. When it first came out, I tried Scrivener, but didn’t like how complicated it was. Now I use Dabble and Word in combo. It suits my needs. My real writing journey started back in the sixties with a notebook and a pencil and a glass of Pepsi on my desk. I still have notebooks, pens, pencils, and glasses of Pepsi, along with glasses for my eyes.
Good morning, Joe!
“My real writing journey started back in the sixties with a notebook and a pencil and a glass of Pepsi on my desk.” That’s all it takes, and a pencil is probably a better instrument than a pen.
Interesting about WordStar. That company went out of business (I think in the 90’s.) When my husband and I decided to create an LLC for our writing, we came up with a list of names, many of which were already taken. However, we were able to get the trademark for Wordstar (small “s”) and create Wordstar Publishing, LLC.
Have a great week.
Notebook and pencil.
A good friend started as an illustrator with paper and ink. He had a work table with a light source so his illustrations would fit a movie film cell. He had a digital tablet installed in his work table in place of the glass and light source. Most of his work is digital now. But there are still pens and paper ready. He still does some hand drawn work. Some things don’t change.
Anyone remember CPM or MS DOS?
Our first office computer was a Ferguson Big Board with 8″ floppies. We graduated to Kaypro 2 and 4 with 5″ floppies, then 10 with a hard drive. Tractor-fed green bar paper and dot matrix printer for reports, Word Star and a daisy wheel printer for business letters.
These days, I’m using a Mac with Word and Draft2Digital for formatting.
The best function ever for writers is cut and paste.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Kay!
I remember MS-DOS. I had a little utility that would change the OS number. Some software needed a specific version of DOS. The authors never thought about future versions. So, utility would tell the software DOS 6.5 was 4.0 and the thing would run.
Good morning, Debbie!
I remember all of those. Floppy disks (remember the 3.5 inch that was designed to fit in a man’s shirt pocket?), and dot matrix printers with the continuous feed paper. How things have changed!
I agree about cut and paste. Magic.
Have a great week!
Back at the start of my computer career I was a power DOS user. I could make a computer sit up and beg with DOS commands. I wrestled against Windows until it became the de facto operating system for Microsoft. I still use command line operations, but not nearly with as much aplomb as I once did.
I know what you mean, Joe. I was a software developer and comfortable with the command line. I even disdained the tiny icons when they appeared. (I compared them to pictures drawn on cave walls before people had written languages. 🙂 )
I never use the command line now unless forced to. But if I do, there’s something eerily sentimental about it.
I worked for Motorola at the time in Ft. Lauderdale and had some work time in or Boca Raton Pager plant (everyone had a Motorola display pager at the time and we were cranking those bad puppies out in a fully automated plant). I had lunch with the guys working on the 5150 and we talked about the developments since I also worked with microprocessors in our radio products. I met Bill Gates and thought he was a hustler. Never liked him but that caused me to not buy Microsoft. Not my best decision in life.
The keyboard was a thing of art. It felt just like an IBM Selectric typewriter and was a beast. It is probably the best keyboard ever made. People still swear by the M1 keyboard today.
When I was going to school, my University had professors that worked on designing the first transistor, the first IC, and the first processor. This was when 8 bit processors were just coming out. Being able to get one for development purposes was like having a few Christmases all at once. What a time to be an engineer!
Hi Fred. Wow. What a great professional background you have! You were born at just the right time.
Were those 8-bit processors the 8086? 8088? I believe the 5150 had the 8088 processor, right?
I hope you’re writing your memoirs!
Started using Xywrite (word processor) in my early magazine writing/publishing days (early-mid-’80s). When my wife and I started our marketing communications agency (in L.A.) in 1988, it was Mac all the way. In those early days, non-Mac PCs were not capable of doing sophisticated desktop publishing or graphics work. You HAD to have a Mac. And they were way cooler. Remember when Steve Jobs shook up the boring beige PC world with those colored Macs?
Anyway, these days . . . I’m currently writing this (and all my long-form writing) on a new iMac using Google Drive’s apps: Docs, Sheets, etc. For design, it’s Adobe InDesign and Photoshop.
But now I’m writing a screenplay (in Final Draft), and it’s a WHOLE NEW WORLD! It’s still about Stories, but man, they’ve got their own lingo and practices. In fact, I’m trying to find the equivalent of TKZ in that world—and have even reached out to the admins here with no response, HINT, HINT—so if you have any leads . . . I’m listening.
BTW: a great TV series about the birth of this PC world is: “Halt and Catch Fire.” I recommend it.
Harald, I highly recommend The Hollywood Standard by Chris Riley. Everything you need to know about the “lingo.”
Hi Jim. Yep, I have that book. It’s good, but it’s primarily about screenplay formatting. Absolutely important, but I’m looking for a community like TKZ. I’m on a couple screenwriting FB groups, but not like this. Still looking . . . (Thanks)
Good morning, Harald. What an interesting history you have with computing!
I remember Steve Jobs saying he had dropped out of college and decided to take a calligraphy course. He had no reason to think it would be important to his future, but all the typefaces and fonts that the Mac had were a direct result of that experience. File that under “You never know…”
I had not heard about “Halt and Catch Fire” before. I’d like to watch it. Good luck with that screenplay!
I see the improvements in computers through the lenses of a newspaper reporter who started out writing articles on a typewriter. And counting headlines (some letters are wider and count for more) to make sure they fit. And helping the pasteup folks cut stories down to fit a space with an Exacto knife and hot wax. What I love most about writing on a computer is “cut and paste.” I still remember typing scenes on a typewriter, cutting up scenes, and taping them together in a new order before retyping them. Now I work in Word on a PC and I’m happy, happy. I’m fortunate my husband is a computer whizz (he bought an Amiga early on, if any of you remember those). He takes care of my technical needs.
Good morning, Kelly!
You certainly have the background to appreciate word processing. I remember the monospace fonts. (I used Courier to write “It’s IBM PC Day!” on the computer screen in the image above since it’s a monospace font.)
Cut and Paste is turning out to be everybody’s favorite part of word processing!
Have a great writing week.
Our first computer was a heavy clunker with Windows 98 installed.
Right now, I have a stack of 3×5 cards sitting next to my laptop (nod to JSB and his Sunday post yesterday), and I intend to use them to outline a new story I’ve got in my head. Just looking at them makes me happy. Why?
Getting away from a screen for awhile is a good thing! 🙂
Morning, Deb!
I think we’ve all had clunkers. How times have changed!
Good luck with those index cards. Getting away from the screen is definitely good for the soul.
Have a great week.
Happy IBM PC Day, Kay! PCs definitely changed my life, both as a writer and a librarian. My first PC was an Atari ST in January 1986, which ran a GEM, a sorta clone of Mac OS, and I bought a daisy-wheel printer to go with it, and wrote college papers and short stories on it.
When I started at the library in 1987, we didn’t have PCs, just big “dumb” terminals. Our first PC didn’t arrive until 1990. The bigger change for the library was when we began accessing the internet in the late 1990s. Things changed profoundly over time after that.
I use Pages to write the first drafts of my novels and my novel journals. Because MS Word is now cloud based and my writing computer is not connected to the internet, I use Libri Office to revise. Word I use on my laptop to go over feedback, and to compose TKZ posts.
Vellum is my book formatting software. Freedom for the laptops when needed to away from distracting websites. Publisher Rocket I use when researching keywords.
Have a great week!
Good morning, Dale!
It’s fascinating to see how everyone has found their way in the electronic labyrinth called personal computing! It’s interesting that your writing computer isn’t connected to the internet. That sounds like a very good idea.
I also use Vellum to format, and I love it. And Publisher Rocket is great for researching keywords.
Have a good writing week.
I was an early user. An Apple IIC in the early Eighties. I’m still using Apples. I was an accidental beta tester for their early word processing software because it was designed for people who wrote letters and work stuff, not novels, so I found some major bugs. I was on a first name basis with some of the Apple software guys. Good times.
Hi Marilynn,
What an interesting experience you’ve had. Good times indeed.
I am happy to show love to the IBM-PC. My first computer at home was an IBM-PCXT, which cost a whopping $3,000 in the 1980s. The computer guy who sold it to me said, ‘You have 64K memory, but you’ll probably never use it all.”
(That store is now out of business.)
I wrote several books on that machine and two novels. I finally retired it when I saw it in an exhibit at the Smithsonian on antiques. I now use a Dell Optiplex 9020. I use Word Perfect and Word to write. I prefer Work Perfect, but Word is used by publishers.
Hi Elaine,
Once upon a time 64K sounded like a big number. 🙂 Not so much now.
That’s so funny about the Smithsonian. My husband and I were wandering around in the Smithsonian years ago and saw a display with the bubble chamber that he used for experiments at Brookhaven Labs. It was an “Oh my gosh” moment.
Same for me, Kay. I’d been thinking about a new computer, but that clinched it.
My first computer was…uh, I can’t remember what kind it was other than it was a PC. lol And ran. DOS. I first used it to enter checks into a DacEasy…didn’t know I was supposed to save everything before I just pressed the button that turned it off…took me three times of entering a years worth of checks to learn what I was doing wrong. lol
I wrote in WordPerfect and that may be why the transition to Scrivener was easy for me. I typed my first short story on a blue Hermes portable typewriter and if computers hadn’t come along, I probably never would have written a book. I was a terrible typist!
I’m Mac all the way…and use Word when I’m forced to, although I do like Excel.
Hi Patricia,
It seems like it was just recently that those first PCs came out, but it’s been over 40 years!
I love your story about just turning the computer off. I’m sure you’re not the only one who did that. I guess that’s why there’s autosave now.
I love my Macs for some things, but prefer my HP Windows for others.
Have a good week.
Hi Kay! Sorry I haven’t been around TKZ lately. Good topic, and I’ll throw my 2 cents in. I try to KISS – PC Windows 11 with the latest Office Word and Grammarly Premium. Oh, and ChatGPT4. It’s amazing what they do for productivity. I’ve never been an Apple guy. I guess that’s because I started on PC, learned what it could do for me, and stayed with that system, And my phone is Android. Now my wife, Rita, is an Apple fan all the way. Same with our daughter. But our son is total PC. Must be a male / female thing.
Hi Garry! Thanks for stopping in. I’ve missed seeing you here.
Keeping things simple is a very wise decision, and it’s interesting that people tend to gravitate to Windows or Apple. But it’s sort of like writing — whatever works for you is what you should do.
Have a great week.
Late to the dance as usual. The first personal computer I owned was an Apple IIVX that came from the bookstore at Cal State Long Beach my alma mater and it cost around three thousand dollars in 1995.
When I enrolled at Drake I splurged on a Hayes 1200 baud brick and thought I was some kinda upper level scientist.
I converted over to PCs around 1998 and have never looked back. I like desktops because hardware is dirt cheap to buy, and if you stay about three steps behind the bleeding edge of technology you can get a lot of computing done very inexpensively if you’re mechanically inclined.
Laptops are difficult to maintain and repair. My current box is an HP desktop that I got about 12 years ago. It runs 16 hours a day, 365 days a year and has required about ten bucks worth of maintenance in that time. Every six months or so I take it out to the garage and blow the accumulated cat fur out of it with sompressed air. That pencils out to about 70,000 hours. Who says things arent built to last?
For my writing I use MS Word that came free with one of my teaching gigs. It’s about the same thing as Open Office, which is free.
A little story. When I was mechanicking at Garrett we had a program to allow turboprop operators to use up the temperature magin on a deteriorating engine. It involved doing a ten point dynamometer run taking about twelve data points. Then, to get the magic number you had to sit down with a ten key and run the calculations which took about a day, and if you screwed up you had to start all over again.
Then Garrett provided us with a programmable TI calculator and a bundle of magnetic strips to program it. The calculations only took about four or five hours and if you screwed up you had to start all over again.
My crew chief brought his Apple II to work one day-this was in 1982-and wrote a program to do the calculations and connected a dot matrix printer. You’d enter the power run data points and in about twenty seconds the printer spat out your tables and numbers.
Revolutionary.
I also have an old HP laptop that has served me well. I’m a big fan.
Great story about the evolution of computing power. They say we’re in the “information age,” but maybe the “calculation age” is more like it.
Have a good week.