tmo

As I watched a YT video, I see “The TV Typewriter”, a device by Don Lancaster from 1973, which was allegedly the first time someone typed a character on a keyboard and that character rendered itself on a screen. I heard many times that NASA sent an “e-mail” via an Intranet and it was actually someone typing real-time on a computer, and those words rendering in real-time on another computer screen on the other side of the room, the building, whatever.

Also, the Lancaster claim, which stems from a remark Steve Wozniak made in his book, iWoz (publishing date unknown, by me) that in 1976 (three years after Lancaster's TV Typewriter), that he (Woz) was the first to render a character on-screen via keyboard with his first iteration of the Apple I.

Lots of differences throughout. NASA did a thing within NASA and likely no one knew of it. Lancaster did The TV Typewriter and made it into a “thing”? A by-mail DIY kit? (not clear on that). Wozniak (and Jobs) used the Apple I as a jumping point to make the Apple II and it's variants which turned into the highest selling computer of that time, and in that time, and of ALL time (to that point).

But seeing the Lancaster thing made me think that I wanted to render some characters on my computer screen myself. Hence this entry.

Also, didn't calculators exist in the 1960s? Isn't that rendering characters on a screen? Were LED billboards in existence in that time? Same difference? Yes/no?

Anyway, I liked writing this little character rendering. Albeit, many beat me to the punch over a half century ago ;)