Scattered around our office are eight Macintosh computers, all chugging along to produce the words, photos, e-mails and bookkeeping that make publishing The Nyack Villager possible.
Our Macs range from a 15-year old Quadra to some hi-tech Imacs and two powerful MacPros.
We bought our first Macintosh in 1985—the famous 512K. A year later we added the new Mac SE. Both were actually made in the USA.
The Mac 512K; the screen was the size of a postcard; the slot was for a single sided 400K floppy disk.
To publish something before computers, we had to typewrite the words and then carry the page over to a type setting company. We’d specify the style and size of type and their typesetters would set the type.
A day or two later, we would get back a printed image of the page of typeset. If we found the smallest error, it would all have to be redone. We then would prepare a ‘board’ for each page, paste up the page of typeset and by hand, attach the headlines and artwork.
The boards then went to Ryan press, where their technicians would process and add our photos and then make the layout into a printing plate. After a final proof reading, if all was ok, they printed several thousand copies.
The Mac SE came with two landmark applications: MacWrite and MacPaint; with its revolutionary new operating system, artwork could now be transferred from MacPaint and inserted into a MacWrite text document, allowing for real-time layout and design. We could now make changes without redoing an entire page.
The computer magic that made this happen was named WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzy-wig)—an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. For the first time, both text and graphics appeared on a screen and allowed direct editing.
A combination of Macintosh with WYSIWYG and the LaserWriter printer, enabled us and thousands of others to do desktop publishing.
The first issue of The Nyack Villager was printed in September, 1994 and has been mailed out every month since. It would not have been possible had it not been for the Macintosh computers from the late Steve Jobs’ Apple Inc.
Thanks Steve.
Shel Haber, a stage, film and television art director, is co-publisher of The Nyack Villager.