Bank Street Writer

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Bank Street Writer
Initial release1981; 43 years ago (1981)
PlatformApple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, MSX, Macintosh, IBM PC, IBM PCjr
TypeWord processor

Bank Street Writer is a word processor for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, MSX, Macintosh, IBM PC, and IBM PCjr computers. It was designed in 1981 by a team of educators at the Bank Street College of Education in New York City, software developer Franklin E. Smith, and programmers at Intentional Educations in Watertown, Massachusetts. The software was sold in two versions: one for elementary school students published by Scholastic and a general version from Broderbund.

History

Prior to the advent of the Bank Street Writer, most word processors ran on networked minicomputers.[1] The most popular word processor for the personal computer was Apple Writer,[citation needed] which (prior to the version II release) operated in Apple's text mode where all text consisted of uppercase letters. Apple Writer used a black-on-white character to represent an actual capital letter. Microcomputer word processors of the early 1980s typically had no menus; so to perform basic functions such as copying and pasting, a writer had to type a series of keystrokes. The Bank Street Writer operated in graphics mode, where characters were displayed normally with lower and upper case letters, and it provided helpful prompts during editing.

The Bank Street Writer was initially designed for use in schools. The name was a modern-day reference to the Bank Street Readers, a widely respected early learning book series created in the 1960s by Bank Street College. The school version of the Bank Street Writer was published by Scholastic Inc. and included a series of workbooks and other teacher and student materials. The Bank Street Writer became the leading word processor used in elementary schools throughout most of the 1980s. During this period, Bank Street College, led by its president, Richard Ruopp,[2] did pioneering work in the use of technology in elementary schools. Among the results were the Bank Street Writer and The Voyage of the Mimi, a groundbreaking science-based TV series.

The interface contains menus listing the operations the word processor can perform, such as "cut" and "paste", and brief directions for how to perform each function. The design addressed the need for a word processor that would enable elementary school children to use a computer to write stories and essays. Bank Street Writer is a modal editor[3] - pressing the Esc key toggled between editing mode and menu mode.

Softsel Hot List,[4] from Softsel Distributing[5] of Inglewood, California
.

Reception

II Computing listed Bank Street Writer eighth on the magazine's list of top Apple II non-game, non-educational software as of late 1985, based on sales and market-share data.[6]

At its introduction, the program was the subject of a laudatory story in Time about how the Bank Street Writer ("BSW") was introducing word processing into the classroom. From the article: "Children who once struggled to write two-page stories are churning out five pages or more." and "Most important, the children cheerfully tackle the messy business of revision." The article concluded: "Judging from recent sales, however, a good proportion of BSW users are adults. Designing a program for children, the Bank Street team inadvertently responded to a challenge the entire software industry faces: making computers accessible to people who do not understand machines and do not want to read manuals."[7]

PC Magazine criticized BSW's user friendly approach of only offering one way to access functionality as limiting for more experienced users, saying there should be a way to bypass the menus.[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ "In the beginning, there was the word processor". ZDNet. Retrieved 2022-06-03.
  2. ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (November 30, 1997). "Richard Ruopp, 65; Led Bank Street College". The New York Times.
  3. PC Magazine
    . 15 May 1984.
  4. ^ "Softsel Hotlist Charts Biggest Hits in Software and Hardware". Chicago Tribune. March 20, 1988.
  5. ^ Softsel/Merisel Company Profile
  6. ^ Ciraolo, Michael (Oct–Nov 1985). "Top Software / A List of Favorites". II Computing. p. 51. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  7. ^ "Words at the Flick of a Key". Time. March 14, 1983.
  8. ^ Leyenberger, Arthur (July–August 1983). "Bank Street Writer". ANALOG Computing. pp. 125–126.
  9. ^ "The Bank Street Writer". Antic. September 1983.
  10. ^ Gingras, Daniel J. (December 1984). "Low-cost Word Processing on the Apple". Byte. pp. A30–A37.
  11. ^ Bobo, Ervin (August 1987). "Review: Bank Street Writer Plus". Compute!: 56.
  12. ^ "InfoWorld Mar. 5 1984". 5 March 1984.
  13. ^ "Bank Street Writer". PC Magazine. January 28, 1986.

External links