Cockeyed Optimist

The evolution of early text editors into modern WYSIWYG [1] word processors

The first primitive forerunners of the present sophisticated word processing packages were basic line editors, intended merely for producing unformatted text for simple documents, programs and scripts. These files were nothing more than streams of ASCII [2] (or EBCDIC [3]) codes, and were limited to alphanumeric characters (in the very early years, upper-case only) and a few formatting characters, such as new-lines and tabs.

As well in those days, the appearance of the text characters, on paper or screen, was almost completely outside the control of the author (depending, as described below, on the hardware of the printer or the display terminal).

Some typical editors of this kind will be mentioned below, when user interfaces are discussed.The computers available at the time of development of these basic editors were central mainframe or (huge to our eyes) “mini” computers, equipped with input and output devices (terminals and line printers) that, even though they had progressed beyond paper-tape or punched-card input and output, were still severely limited in their capabilities compared with present day personal computers.

It should be noted that the transition from mainframe or mini to the personal computer was not a single step or a steady progress — there were some lines of evolution that led to dead ends; for example, at one time, up to date offices used dedicated word processors, machines designed only for that single function (for a brief history, see Kunde; 1986).

The font, size and style of printed or displayed output were functions of the output device, not of the text itself. On some printing terminals characters were produced by a similar impact process to that of a typewriter, so that the letters and other symbols were fixed in appearance, changeable only by swapping daisy-wheels or ‘golf-balls’. On dot-matrix printers, or screen-based terminals, each character was produced on a small grid (say 7 by 9) of dots, in lines of fixed width (say 80 columns), so there was very little scope for variety of form and layout, except for a limited set of effects, such as bold or blinking characters on screen, or limited changes of font or style on paper, for those superior terminals or printers that could respond to embedded codes.

The idea of embedded codes led to the development and use of separate programs, post-processors (for example, the Unix ‘troff’), which could format a document in response to inserted codes (or ‘escape sequences’). Many academics (particularly mathematicians) sometimes prefer to work this way, even nowadays, and have access to highly developed packages (such as LaTeX) with which they can produce complex formats and mathematical notations not easy to achieve with a standard word processor.In effect, modern WYSIWYG word processors still make use of this principle of embedded codes, but these codes are for the most part hidden, and usually inserted ‘behind the scenes’ by the software, the author needing neither to know nor care how this happens.

Figure 1. Example of WordPerfect text

The sample text above is the result of conventional word processing techniques and is, normally, all that the user ever sees. However, a lot is going on beneath the surface, and this is what the content of the file looks like when the WordPerfect codes are revealed (of course, only WordPerfect knows how to interpret WordPerfect codes):

Figure 2. WordPerfect text with codes revealed

Between the primitive line editor and modern packages like WordPerfect or Microsoft Word, there has been a many-branched evolutionary tree, and as with the evolution of living creatures, some branches led to extinction and some persist to this day even though they may not be fully evolved. For example, many workers (particularly in computer science or information technology) are still happy to use such UNIX editors as vi or Pico [5].

The evolution of the computer/user interface.

Since it is probably true that, with enough effort, it is possible to achieve the same final effect — the same final product in the form of a printed document — whatever editing or word processing tool is used, the most obvious and visible distinction between programs at various stages of evolution is to be found in the interface between the user and the computer.

Looking first at a very minimal editor, vi, the interface is a virtually empty screen, giving very few cues to the user, apart from what text has already been entered and symbols (~) to indicate available blank lines, leaving the uninformed user to resort to guess-work:

Figure 3. Example screen from the vi editor.

A more advanced editor, Pico, at least has some of its commands displayed, so that a user new to the program has some chance of achieving a result:

Figure 4. Example screen from the Pico editor

This approach bears some similarity to that of the program WordStar [6] that became very popular in the 1980’s and was sold for use on several of the early microcomputers of the time. This is notable as being one of the first editing programs that was aimed at non-technical users, providing a help system which was visible at all times [7] on the screen being used as the work space. Because of this, and because of the facilities it provided, WordStar begins to approach the definition of a word processor rather than a text editor.

Here is the information that is displayed at the top of the standard WordStar screen:

Figure 5. The standard WordStar screen

The next major evolutionary step introduced the graphical user interface (GUI), overcoming the limitations of interfaces that were character based, with the introduction of windows, icons, menus and the use of the mouse — the WIMP [8] interface — and eventually brings us to the present era. For microcomputers, these interfaces are typified by the various Microsoft Windows [9] operating systems and the Macintosh [10]; there are also graphical interfaces to Unix (such as X Window) and even for mainframes.

Here is a screen shot taken from Microsoft Word (in many ways typical of current application programs, not only of word processors) showing a window with a menu bar; there are other features that may be displayed, such as toolbars and palettes, but even adding the menu bar alone makes a huge difference to the usability of the program, compared with WordStar and the earlier text editors:

Figure 6. Example screen from Microsoft Word

Selecting and pulling down each menu item provides a number of options that make sense and are usable by any user after a relatively brief introduction. In practice, many people have essentially taken such word processors and taught themselves to produce straightforward documents with very little exposure to training or manuals. It is likely that the student participants in the experiments to be described later fall largely into this category, especially since word processing seems now to be a standard activity in most high schools, some of which offer (or require) training sessions for their students.

So, this brief account has brought us to the present day position, where word processing software is immediately usable to even naive users; but only to a point. Anyone who wishes to produce even modest additional effects or features in a document will need to explore the system further using a trial-and-error strategy, or will need to have access to training, a manual or reference guide in book form, on-line manuals (like the Unix ones mentioned above) or an on-line help system, the focus of this study.

Notes

[1] WYSIWYG = What You See Is What You Get

[2] ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange.

[3] EBCDIC = Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (an IBM code, once competing with ASCII)

[4] WordPerfect was published by Novell, Inc; later by the Corel Corporation.

[5] Pico is © Copyright, University of Washington

[6] For a ‘potted history’ of WordStar, see the web site http://www.wordstar.org/wordstar/history/history.htm

[7] In the era before screensavers, it was often visible even when WordStar was not running, due to “burn-in”

[8] WIMP = Windows, icons, menus, pointer

[9] Microsoft, Windows and Word are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation

[10] Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc.

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