Monday, April 09, 2012

The Wang

When we're talking about revising papers in my UVU writing classes, I make sure my students know I went through my entire undergrad program using a typewriter. And that we had to do full-blown footnotes! No cushy in-text citations. It's my walking-uphill-both-ways story.

I didn't learn how to use a computer until the summer I graduated from college. I took a job working for the staff attorneys at the federal court where I interned my senior year. One of my tasks was to listen to recordings of case summaries and type them up on the computer in a format that would fit on index cards, which meant I had to do a ton of abbreviating. (If I was a tweeter, all that experience would come in handy.) I also had to type up court opinions which easily ran 20-30 pages and included a boatload of lengthy footnotes. Thankfully, the software had just been updated with a cutting edge feature: automatic repagination. That meant I didn't have to repaginate the text and footnotes by hand every time someone made a revision.

We used Wang computers at the court. That doesn't date me too badly, does it?

1 comment:

Kazzy said...

If it dates you, my friend, it certainly dates me!