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Evelyn Berezin, Who Built the First True Word Processor, Has Died at 93 (nytimes.com) 93

An anonymous reader shares a report: Evelyn Berezin, a computer pioneer who emancipated many a frazzled secretary from the shackles of the typewriter nearly a half-century ago by building and marketing the first computerized word processor, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 93.

In an age when computers were in their infancy and few women were involved in their development, Ms. Berezin (pronounced BEAR-a-zen) not only designed the first true word processor; in 1969, she was also a founder and the president of the Redactron Corporation, a tech start-up on Long Island that was the first company exclusively engaged in manufacturing and selling the revolutionary machines.

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Evelyn Berezin, Who Built the First True Word Processor, Has Died at 93

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  • by Drethon ( 1445051 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2018 @11:53AM (#57786530)

    Everything we have is an improvement of existing technologies going back thousands of years. We wouldn't be where we are today if someone didn't come up with a way to improve on what we had. The innovators will live on forever in the new technologies, whether or not we remember who made the improvement.

    • We wouldn't be where we are today if someone didn't come up with a way to improve on what we had.

      So you mean idea appropriation, both within and between cultures? My, don't let the SJWs hear that. They might have to give up their iStuff since Marconi, an ITIALIAN, basically invented radio waves which has been used, well, everywhere.

      I've used a Teletype model 33 (GO Paper Tape!), an IBM Selectric, and have seen a Wang network. I'm far away from her, but have never heard of Redactron or Mrs. Berezin before. I hope she had a good life and mostly had fun doing it.

      I guess she was using discreet 7400

      • Regarding Marconi...there were others investigating radio at the time, but his real genius was building a profitable company around his discovery and monopolizing the radio communications business for years.

        • In particular, Marconi's 1894 demonstration of radio transmission/reception followed up Hertz's 1888 demonstration.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    How many people are we going to go through to claim the accolade of creating the first this or the first TRUE that.

    Yeah we get it. Someone died and a "journalist" wanted to applaud their great accomplishment which wasn't impressive enough to stand on it's own, so the True Scotsman gets rolled out. Ms. Berezin wouldn't have even recognized the phrase "tech-startup" at any point in her career, yet gets praise for that too.

    Perhaps for demographic reasons this one will stick and this will be the last story abou

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Redactron, yes, but never Ms Berezin. What a fascinating career she had. She deserves more recognition than she got.

  • by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2018 @12:35PM (#57786896) Journal

    a computer pioneer who emancipated many a frazzled secretary from the shackles of a job nearly a half-century ago by building and marketing the first computerized word processor,

  • Too many years ahead of its time. Given the number of government documents that are issued nowadays with huge swaths of text hidden behind black boxes, Redactron should have been raking in the cash selling their machines to government offices.

  • The article doesn't say when she wrote it, only that she started a company in 1969. However, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] says the Expensive Typewriter written in 1961-2 for a PDP-1, with IBM Selectric output, "may be considered the first word processing program".
    • I think this is in reference to a piece of software, but to the hardware device known as a "word processor". They were basically mini-computers that booted directly into a word processing application (and had no other software applications), and had a build-in printing device and sometimes a built-in monitor. They were still being sold in the late-1980s, maybe even the first couple years of the 1990s, but were substantially less expensive than a PC & printer (that is, during the 1980s).
      • The problem is the ambiguous definition. Sure, it may have been the first turnkey word-processing hardware system (a *very* limited one), but word processing in general existed before (and was even more advanced that this system - quality type justification programs were available for the PDP-1, for example).
  • Hmmm... (Score:4, Informative)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2018 @01:36PM (#57787310)
    Buried in the FTFA

    In 1968, Ms. Berezin began working on ideas for a true computer for word processing, using tiny chips, known as integrated circuits, or semiconductors, to record and retrieve keystrokes for text editing. Since 1964, I.B.M. had been making word processors using a Selectric Typewriter and a magnetic tape drive to save and retrieve keystrokes. The tape could be corrected and used to retype text, but since the machine lacked semiconductor chips, Ms. Berezin said, it was not a true computer.

    And thus the vaunted NYTimes drops "Computerized" from the headline and crediting her with inventing "The First TRUE Word Processor" which means a wholly different thing.

    • And that should be "Buried in TFA"
      sigh... so much for word processing...
  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2018 @01:51PM (#57787422)

    This is the first I had ever heard of this system... it's really a shame she is gone now, because I would have loved to see someone interview her as part of a case study as to why that company failed.

    It sounded like they had great machines that advanced well over time, a head start in the use of microprocessors, and a. lot of high end clients. So how was it that the company was bypassed by so many others? Was it to specialized where IBM was more general computing? That doesn't explain how other competitors like Wang on Olivetti also surpassed them later on.

    • TFA says it got acquired by Burroughs though, so not a total failure. That's a common trajectory for a lot of start-ups and bigger companies also. In fact, Burroughs itself was acquired a few years later. I don't see anything unusual about it, just the usual competition and consolidation.

    • It failed because interest rates in that era were extremely high and that added to the cost of doing business. Once interest rates go back up you will see a LOT of companies fail very quickly because they can't make their loan obligations. It is not normal for companies to have $20 billion in debt like they have been this decade.
      • It failed because interest rates in that era were extremely high and that added to the cost of doing business.

        That was true for competitors also though, who had to take out more loans to catch up. Redactron already had a good revenue stream and lots of customers, so high interest rates should have served to protect their position, not harm it.

    • by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2018 @04:56PM (#57788786)
      There are interviews where the curious can find more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] or if you have the patience for a 3+ hour interview, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
      • Thanks, I probably will take a look (even the longer one sounds interesting!!). Too much short form content these days with no depth.

    • Probably for the same reason I have failed to be successful as a business (aka profiting in a big way from my projects). I consider myself an innovator and someone who pushed the boundaries of technology at various points in time. See this [slashdot.org] and this [slashdot.org] for public examples. However my problem is I'm not motivated by money, I'm not a good marketer, and I'm not interested in being a businessman.

      Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, etc didn't become billionaires because they were the best software developers in

    • by makomk ( 752139 )

      From what I can tell, it was basically a technological dead end - she created a computerized version of IBM's older electromechanical MT/ST that didn't offer enough of an advantage over the older tech to justify itself, the company also didn't have the financial backing to undercut IBM because most customers rented rather than buying, and its whole approach was about to be obsoleted by actual recognizably-modern word processing systems with screens and interactive editing of text which other companies creat

  • The first (or at least an earlier one) would be the IBM MT/ST [wikipedia.org]. Like the Redactron, it was based on an IBM Selectric.

I had the rare misfortune of being one of the first people to try and implement a PL/1 compiler. -- T. Cheatham

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