Any Other Dinosaurs Out There?

[Janet]

I was just looking at Jennie's blog about her HP printer, and it got me thinking how if I never printed another transcript page in my lifetime, I'd be thrilled. I now send in all of my work via e-mail. I have come to take it for granted, I guess, how much better things are today than they used to be.

I can remember working on a transcript on my Baron Oz system. I bought it with another court reporter, because the monthly payments were about the same as a mortgage payment. I would then print the transcript on my dot matrix printer. That thing would shriek shrilly (say that three times fast) as it was slowly, slowly, slowly printing. Then when the printing was done, I'd have to tear off the sides of each page carefully so that they wouldn't tear. I remember the exciting day when my partner and I bought a burster and decollator to improve the manual process of separating the pages.

Before that terrific, new technology, I would dictate my steno notes into a dictaphone, and I would drive about an hour to get to my typist's house to deliver and pick up work.

Okay, I can go further back than that, too. Before dictating, I used to type the transcripts on the newest typewriter on the market, the IBM Selectric -- no, not the correcting one, the one before that. If it was a multiple-copy order, I'd stick the carbon paper in between each page and pray to God that I didn't make a mistake. When I did make a mistake, I'd have to take that white eraser that looked like a pencil with a little blue brush on the end of it, and I'd have to get the carbon all over myself while I went in and erased each copy. Then, of course, I'd touch my face for some reason, and then I'd be blue, literally. Imagine having a date after working on a transcript -- pretty!

Every once in a while, we'd have someone stop in the office that wanted something typed. I had one guy come in. He told me that there could not be one, single typo/correction on the page. He stood behind me as I was typing. First page in, type type type -- oops. Next, oops, oops, oops. Oops oops, oops. I ripped the pieces of paper out of the typewriter one by one, feeling the heat of man's glare burning through me. Wow! I might have a nightmare about that tonight. It was awful.

Today, though, I am a realtime reporter. I love my job. Wow, what technology has done for us!

Janet

[Janet]

Okay, after you both mentioned the Stenorette, I think that's what I had, too. I looked up a dictaphone, and, no, I didn't have that thing!

Jenny, I forget how much the Oz was, but I know it was a lot! My partner wanted to sell it when we got "new" systems, but you couldn't give them away by then.

[Jenny Griffin, RMR CRR CCRR CRC]

My first new writer was the avocado green one. Remember that? I still have my Stenorette too, Tami. Right after I bought it I got on the TomCAT system and spent $30,000 on a huge computer with a giant noisy disk. My court reporter brother and sister, who are still my partners, helped with the monthly payment - luckily! And now I've got StenoCast RED, two Acer Aspire Ones, and I'm writing on the Gemini Grand! Pretty amazing. Please don't call me a dinosaur, though. I prefer to think of myself as a CM, CSR, CRR with lots of experience!

[Janet]

I had a manual typewriter, too, and a manual steno machine.

[Jennie Ann]

Wow, those do sound like the old days. I learned how to type in junior high school on a manual with no letters on the keys. I was the fastest and most accurate in my class, typing 95 WPM.

When they came out with electric typewiters, it took me a while to adjust. I remember going to a job interview for a clerk typist, and she gave me a five-minute typing test on an electric typewriter. I made so many errors on the electric typewriter, as I was used to banging on a manual. She told me I had made a lot of errors but offered to let me take the test again. I did eventually catch on to the electric typewriter technology.

We sure have come a long way. Today, with spell-check, I fly on the keyboard, though I must admit that I still type in WP5.1 for DOS. I convert all my documents into Word for all of my clients, but I'd rather fight than switch from my beautiful blue screen! :-)

When I got into court reporting, I bought an IBM Electronic 75 typewriter. It had a wee bit of memory in it for words, and they had spools of white tape for the correcting, as opposed to the little white pieces of paper for correcting. I think I went through the correcting white ribbons much faster than I did the black ribbons for typing. LOL

[Tami]

I'd like to think of myself as a Stegosaurus. :)

Yep, that all sounded familiar to me, Janet.

How about how we used to do our death penalty dailies?

Two reporters switched seats every 15 minutes. We'd give the other a nod, meaning I got this Q right here, and the other would run back to their office and frantically dictate into their Stenorettes -- I still have one because I'm just a sentimental girl -- for the remaining time minus a minute or two to get back into our seat in the courtroom. Our transcribers were right there by us in our office typing away into the night

Once I did a DP trial that took five months -- three months of jury VD. :(

Oh, those were the days . . .