Expensive Typewriter was a text editing program that ran on the DEC PDP-1 computer that had been recently delivered at MIT. Since it could drive an IBM Selectric typewriter (a letter-quality printer), it may be considered the first word processing program, although it was not WYSIWYG, having no CRT display. It was written and improved between 1961 and 1962 by Steve Piner and L. Peter Deutsch.
In the spirit of an earlier editor, named "Colossal Typewriter", it was called "Expensive Typewriter" because at the time the PDP-1 cost a lot of money (approximately 100,000 USD).
Famous quotes containing the words expensive and/or typewriter:
“Being dismantled before our eyes are not just individual programs that politicians cite as too expensive but the whole idea that society has a stake in the well-being of children down the block and the security of families on the other side of town. Whether or not kids eat well, are nurtured and have a roof over their heads is not just a consequence of how their parents behave. It is also a responsibility of society—but now apparently a diminishing one.”
—Richard B. Stolley (20th century)
“Oh demon within,
I am afraid and seldom put my hand up
to my mouth and stitch it up
covering you, smothering you
from the public voyeury eyes
of my typewriter keys.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)