That brings back the memories. I was one of the first students to submit a word processed paper at my college. "Just in case," I had bought a cheap and slow dai

That brings back the memories. I was one of the first students to submit a word processed paper at my college. "Just in case," I had bought a cheap and slow daisywheel printer. I cooked up this idea to prepare my pages with correction fluid before printing them, but never found it necessary. I ended up asking one professor if it was OK to use word processing. He said, just this once. The next week, there was an all-faculty meeting (small college), and they actually discussed whether word processing should be allowed. The profs who were already using word processing spoke up in its defense -- from the physics department. They reassured everybody that the computer was not doing the writing. The college came out with a statement saying it was OK, but that we were on our honor to not use a spell checker. By the time I graduated, every prof was using a word processor. What I don't think the profs figured out, for several more years, was how to grade a paper that's mechanically perfect. All of my papers got A's, and I chose courses where the grade was based solely on written work. I think in terms of efficiency and aesthetics, using a word processor bumped my GPA by easily half a point by graduation. I was already a good typist thanks to programming. Many years later, when my kids were in grade school, the writing assignments included formatting requirements, including margins in inches, for documents that would never be printed. These requirements came from the ironically named "Modern" Language Association. Today, teachers say, any format you want, just get it in by the deadline.