Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing

379 Pages·2016·14.301 MB·English

by  Matthew G. Kirschenbaum

Track Changes

Track Changes
A LITERARY HISTORY OF WORD PROCESSING

MATTHEW G. KIRSCHENBAUM
THE BELKNAP PRESS OF
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2016
Copyright © 2016 by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish
their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear
in this book and Harvard University Press was aware of a trademark claim,
the designations have been printed in initial capital letters.
First printing
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Kirschenbaum, Matthew G., author.
Title: Track changes : a literary history of word pro cessing / Matthew G. Kirschenbaum.
Description: Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2015041450 | ISBN 9780674417076 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Word processing— History. | Writing— Technological innovations. |
Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)— Technological innovations.
Classifi cation: LCC Z52.4 .K57 2016 | DDC 005.52— dc23 LC rec ord
available at http:// lccn . loc . gov / 2015041450
For my parents,
Arlene and Mel,
Who brought home an Apple

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction: It Is Known . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
1. Word Pro cessing as a Literary Subject . . . . .14
2. P erfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
3. A round 1981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
4. North of Boston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74
5. S ignposts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92
6. Typing on Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
7. U nseen Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139
8. T hink Tape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166
9. R eveal Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184
10. W hat Remains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .207
After Word Pro cessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235
Author’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .249
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .251
Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .329
Acknowl edgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .331
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .335
Illustrations follow p. 126
“Well, salvage what ever you can,
threadbare mementos glimmering in recollection.”
— Ecclesias (a word pro cessor) in Henry Roth,
A Star Shines over Mt. Morris Park (1994)
Preface
Track Changes began, as many books do, with a question: What was the
fi rst novel written with a word proc essor? Being an Eng lish professor inter-
ested in the history of writing as well as computers, I thought it was the
sort of thing I should know, but I didn’t. It is a commonplace of literary
history that Mark Twain’s long, meandering memoir Life on the Missis-
sippi (1883) was the fi rst piece of belles lettres to be submitted to a pub-
lisher as a typescript: “I was the fi rst person in the world to apply the type-
machine to lit er a ture,” he informs us in a sketch written some years after
the fact and featured in an ad by the typewriter’s manufacturer, Remington,
otherw ise best known for fi rearms.1 In fact, the book was typed for him by
an assistant. Within a de cade, in a gesture that would soon become com-
monplace, Oscar Wilde entrusted the manuscript of The Picture of Dorian
Gray to Miss Dickens’s Typewriting Serv ice in London.2 Other equally
famous early adopters can also be named: Friedrich Nietzs che, for example,
and Henry James, who reportedly was so enamored of the sound of the
keys of his secretary’s typewriter that they became a kind of metronome—
he found he c ouldn’t dictate without their rhythmic counterpoint.3 (James
is typically thought to have begun dictating his prose after he suffered a
repetitive strain injury writing by hand.) But when it came to computers and
word pro cessing, it appeared there were no widely recognized historical
counter parts to Twain and his typist.
In the course of my research I was able to answer my question to my own
satisfaction—t hat is what researchers do a fter all, and thus my candidates
for who was fi rst are duly presented in the pages that follow. But fi rsts are
ix