A colleague sent out these links about student journalists at Florida Atlantic University putting together their final newspaper of the term using (almost) entirely pre-computer methods:
Naturally, my coworkers were mainly interested in scoffing at the kids who don’t know how to use any of the stuff that to (most of) my coworkers was second nature for awhile. So i found it refreshing when the blogger noted:
Some pessimists predicted ALL ON PAPER would be an exercise in futility. It’s proven to be a lesson in humility — for both the student journalists struggling with the old tech for the first time, and for the veteran journalists trying to recall how it all worked a few decades ago.
One of my coworkers commented to one of the few people in the office younger than i am, “You’re too young to know how to use any of that stuff.” I’m glad they didn’t try that line with me, because i might have cursed at them while pointing out that:
(a) I did learn how to type on a manual typewriter. And, godalmighty, i do not miss it for a minute. I tried typing a single poem on my ’50s cub reporter typewriter for Cipher #2, and, damn, do those things take muscles i do not have anymore.
(b) I did layout for my high school yearbook by hand. And, again, bloody hell if i ever have to do math for a layout again.
Yet for all of the scoffing my (aged) colleagues engage in at how the kids today don’t know how to use this ancient tech, i bet none of my coworkers wants to come up to my apartment and play around with my electronic stenciler and Rex Rotary duplicator. And while all my coworkers gathered around to bid fond farewell to the IBM Selectric when it was sent to surplus earlier this year, none of them exactly threw themselves on it to save it from its fate. WHINERS. Zinesters 4 eva!