Computer-Aided Transcription Machines Before Windows

[Lisa Booker]

Does anyone know what CAT machines were used before DOS/Windows came along? I'm trying to recall a computer I had that I used for scoping. I bought it used back in 1994. Thanks.

[Mary Jo Cochran]

Radio Shack compuers were used for the first PC CAT systems. For word processing I used WordStar. That was not dos.

[Lisa Booker]

It was a dedicated system. I believe Xscribe was the manufacturer

[Judy]

It was probably Xscribe. They were one of the first ones. They had a completely dedicated computer that that's all you could do was edit transcripts. Boy, were they heavy.

[Lisa Booker]

I guess that's what it was called. Do you remember the names of any others?

[Kathy Nielsen]

There was Xscribe XEC-5, which was a dedicated computer system that did not use DOS.
Then there was Xscribe 2001 which was a DOS-based program.
There was Baron Transcriptor X, I think it was.
There was also Cimarron.

[Lisa Booker]

XEC-5Thats it!!!!!

[Lisa Booker]

Thanks.

[Mary K. Levy]

There was one stand alone unit by Stenograph, I think, called the Baron. It had a big disk with the program on it, and then the disks for the work done. It was called "flopping in" and "flopping out," with the big disk, believe it or not. I am talking late '90s now. It was made like the Lanier Word Processing system, only for court work.

[Mark Kislingbury]

I started in January 1983.

At that time, Datapoint made a huge mainframe computer with a TINY black screen with green letters (7"x6"?), and you put your HUGE dictionary disk into the slot (It was the size of a huge hubcap), closed the door, let it whir up to speed, and it would translate 100 pages in say an hour!!!! The software was made by Baron Data, out of California, a GREAT company.

Then they made a smaller, "personal" one called the Baron Solosystem. It used 7- or 10-inch floppies and had a bigger screen. It translated very slowly, but it worked.

Then I was in heaven when they made the Oz! I purchased that in 1985. The "tower" and monitor were stuck to a flat base. I could work at home now, with my OWN computer!! It used maybe 5" floppies.

I remember one time trying to "break" a 300-page file in the middle, meaning, break it into two files at page 150. A half hour later it was still working on it, so I turned it off and figured out some other way to "break" it. Very slow! But I truly loved the Oz.

Then, OzPC came out, which meant we could finally put our beloved Oz software on an IBM-compatible PC. The program was faster and even better now. Could do realtime!

Then, Stenograph bought Baron Data, and OzPC became Stenograph property. They made a "new" software to make everybody pay more, but it was virtually identical, and they called it "Premiere Power." I never migrated to it because I never saw the need! I stayed with OzPC for many years.

In 1999, I switched to digitalCAT, which is made by Stenovations - it was one of THE first programs to be fully Windows 32-bit compatible. Been on it ever since.

[Lisa Booker]

Wow, that was a great history lesson. I started in the court reporting business (scopist) with Premier Power and Eclipse, but did have an XEC-5 which I learned after I bought it that it was on its way out the door.

[Ellen Rubin]

Well, there was cimarron -- not sure how to spell it. I have XEC-5, which was an X-scribe program that predated DOS and ran on a dedicated machine. There was Baron Data, which I believe predated DOS. any of that sound familiar?

[nancy gruber]

I loved the Cimarron system and find myself, even after 16 years on Eclipse, still executing a few of the same commands, like the double dash. The only diversion on that early PC was a suite of games like Jeopardy and bowling.