Old & New (2)

• Computers

  • Teletype
  • Typewriters
  • Page

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It is well to understand some of the “rules” governing known and familiar media, including the relationship of old and new media, as one begins to wrestle with effective use of the newest media of all, the electronic. The first communicating computers imitated teletype machines--one line at a time--then typewriters. It took a while for the underlying metaphor to change to the page. That was clumsy until the graphics page, with apparent success, imitated the Gutenberg page almost perfectly, black-on-white, with the freedom of the fonts.

Computers employing the graphical interface skipped back over television, radio, and film and landed on Mr. Gutenberg's doorstep. Or so it seems. It was a matter of incredible comfort to a large sector of the market to be able to see on a computer a white page with black print on it. All of a sudden, the computer became the ideal Gutenberg machine. And screens were made to look more and more like the printed page, with headers and footers, and right and left justification.