4 ms·

How about the long forgotten buzzword "desktop publishing", or WYSIWYG word processing?

by mongol 5y ago

smackeyacky 5y ago
The buzzwords that sold millions of LaserWriters and the macs that drove them.
EricE 5y ago
Desktop publishing was more than a buzzword! I had a Mac Plus in High School and I was one of the more popular people in my class. I also ended up typesetting the school newspaper, eventually I got a few of my peers trained up to do it too. The portability of the Mac Plus came in handy as I would bring it to school once a month to get the paper done. Had to get my mom to drive me to a service bureau near the university that would laser print pages - $1 a page. Our highschool paper looked better than most of the indy papers in town. It was revolutionary tech that we now just take for granted. I remember getting excited over the first bubblejet printers - finally affordable laser like quality!
- neilv 5y ago
  Oh yeah, the $1 color(?) laser prints! And the $1-per-page faxing. I had a childhood very tiny shrinkwrap software business then, and my packaging was based on paper inserts in clamshell packaging (lower startup costs than actual shrinkwrap machine and supplies). Places were offering color laser prints for $1 per page. That was a little too painful, and my tools for mastering were limited (monochrome paint programs that wouldn't even display square pixels, and some bits manually taped up). I ended up using a normal print shop for offset printing, using one standard (unmixed) color, and I think the guy gave the little kid a discount, and also fixed the tape-up. First product had a standard blue on white paper stock (with a couple colored circle stickers like for garage sales, printed with things like version number on my 9-pin printer), and the second was standard red on canary stock. We actually did a youth group newsletter a similar way, except with more tape-up (every little big was printed separately), and just 5-cent photocopying.

How about the long forgotten buzzword "desktop publishing", or WYSIWYG word processing?

by mongol 5y ago

How about the long forgotten buzzword "desktop publishing", or WYSIWYG word processing?

smackeyacky 5y ago

The buzzwords that sold millions of LaserWriters and the macs that drove them.

EricE 5y ago

Desktop publishing was more than a buzzword! I had a Mac Plus in High School and I was one of the more popular people in my class. I also ended up typesetting the school newspaper, eventually I got a few of my peers trained up to do it too. The portability of the Mac Plus came in handy as I would bring it to school once a month to get the paper done. Had to get my mom to drive me to a service bureau near the university that would laser print pages - $1 a page. Our highschool paper looked better than most of the indy papers in town. It was revolutionary tech that we now just take for granted. I remember getting excited over the first bubblejet printers - finally affordable laser like quality!

neilv 5y ago
Oh yeah, the $1 color(?) laser prints! And the $1-per-page faxing. I had a childhood very tiny shrinkwrap software business then, and my packaging was based on paper inserts in clamshell packaging (lower startup costs than actual shrinkwrap machine and supplies). Places were offering color laser prints for $1 per page. That was a little too painful, and my tools for mastering were limited (monochrome paint programs that wouldn't even display square pixels, and some bits manually taped up). I ended up using a normal print shop for offset printing, using one standard (unmixed) color, and I think the guy gave the little kid a discount, and also fixed the tape-up. First product had a standard blue on white paper stock (with a couple colored circle stickers like for garage sales, printed with things like version number on my 9-pin printer), and the second was standard red on canary stock. We actually did a youth group newsletter a similar way, except with more tape-up (every little big was printed separately), and just 5-cent photocopying.