The inventor of the electronic printer, Evelyn Berezin, passes away at the age of 93 (1925-2018)
image captionThe Depression forced her to sell her company
Evelyn Berezin, the woman who invented what many consider to be the first electronic word processing, has passed away at the age of 93.
Berezin called her invention the “Data Secretary” when her company promoted it in 1971.
She developed her company, Redaktron, so that the number of its employees increased from nine people to 500, and Business Week magazine considered her one of the top businesswomen in the United States in 1976.
She designed a computer-based flight reservation system and was tested by United Airlines in 1962.
The Computer History Museum reported that the system operated for 11 years without any glitches in its central system.
Other systems were developed, including an automated banking system and systems that calculate betting on horse racing.
Berezin said in an interview in 2015 that she established her own project in the mid-1960s after she concluded that her chances of success as an employee remained limited.
Image caption: Some early models of word processors had a screen
She said that she initially thought about developing an electronic computer to count money, but in the end she settled on electronic word processing.
The device I developed was a meter high, had a keyboard, was electronically controlled, and was followed by a printer, and could record what the user typed for editing at a later time.
The initial device lacked a screen, and competitors soon appeared, such as the Lexitron, which had a screen.
Then the Berezin device, in turn, was equipped with a screen.
The company flourished and demand for its products increased, had it not been for the economic recession in the 1970s, which forced customers to rent machines instead of buying them, and Berezin was eventually forced to sell the company.
She died on December 8 in Manhattan after refusing treatment for cancer.
Source: websites