Document envy.
Those for whom today's versions of Word are their first encounter with a word
processor probably find it difficult to understand that once upon a time word
processors did just, and only, that. My Einstein-using friends were often awestruck
by the documents that I was able to produce on my early (I think it was 1.5) version
of MacWrite. While they were producing text documents in which the margins were
predetermined and the height of each letter of the alphabet was the same, I not
only was changing the size and style of my fonts, but also pasting (albeit primitive)
graphics between my paragraphs, and even doing some basic photo-offset-ready
layout. Apple understood, way back then, that the integration of what until
then seemed to be separate computer-generated elements was part of the promise
of the personal computer, though of course we would have to wait until the arrival of web
in order to help us realize the real potential of that integration.
Go to: Doing
things the hard way.