It was disconcerting to find a new screen layout to Word on my new notebook. But fortunately the Library had copy of Word 2010 for Dummies on the shelf which may be all I need to get familiar with my new best friend.
At one point author Dan Gookin writes ‘Yes, it’s return even though the key is known as Enter on a PC. Don’t blame me for this odd nomenclature. I only write the books – not the programs.’
Well Dan Gookin bought his first computer in 1982, after physically destroying three typewriters, probably by hitting Return with too much violence & sending the carriage whizzing back too hard.
But I am even older & I think I know the origin of the ‘confusion’ – it is the bastard child of the typewriter & the comptometer, born of the conventions of typing words versus entering data: confusion between input & output.
A typist had to manually return the carriage to the left hand margin & turn the paper roll to begin a new line. The early printers or machines for communicating with a computer at a distance were all based on the typewriter, albeit as teletype, golf ball or dot matrix rather than letters on the end of levers.
The machines which were used to key input data to punched cards or direct to disc sent the data on its way only after ENTER was pressed, sometimes after entering the line a second time as a check on accuracy - I wonder why this was overwhelmingly a female occupation?
For a time computer keyboards had a key marked RETURN/ENTER to accommodate both traditions, but RETURN has virtually lost its meaning when the word processor works out for itself when it has reached the end of a line & those who can remember manual typewriters are a dying breed.
Old joke: A caller once rang a help line to complain that ‘There is no ANY key on this computer.’
