h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can anyone confirm this story, which I heard some years ago, and about whose truth I have often wondered?

When engineers at the Telex Corporation were designing the earliest teletype machines, the economics of their design left room for only one version of the alphabet: they had to choose between upper-case and lower-case.

So they did some research on whether it was easier to read all-lower-case or all-upper-case text; and (as one might expect) they discovered that all lower case was significantly easier to read.

They took the results to their CEO, who read the report, and, when he had finished, said this:

"Your report, as far as it goes, is good, but you have forgotten something very important: if we make a machine that can only transmit lower-case characters, people will be unable to write the name of the Deity correctly. So you will use upper-case."

As a result, even today, there are people who have to SHOUT at their computers.

this sounds like an urban legend to me.

i think it is more likely that the original designers could not contemplate entire sentences in lower case, because without the initial capital they just looked wrong. ON THE OTHER HAND, A SENTENCE ENTIRELY IN CAPITALS LOOKS OK IF YOU DON'T THINK OF IT AS SHOUTING.

though i know a lot of people who only use lowercase (like drew - from [Details removed by moderator]) but not too meny people who use only uppercase.


Dancer (please don't send e-mails to the address mentioned above)

Among the earliest teletype machines were those that linked bews agancies like Reuters and Canadian Press to newspapers and radio stations. Yup, long before television!
I grew up in radio stations. All my earliest memories have these clunking tele-typewriters clattering away endlessly in the background bringing news to the newsroom from around the world.

They used only full caps because it was easier for announcers to read.
Copy (the scripts announcers read from), including all the local copy generated on in-house typewriters by news people and ad writers, was always written in full caps to match the larger, easier to read, text coming on the teletype machinery. Notes, asides and instructions (including pronunciation guides) and other material 'not for air' would be written in the usual upper and lower case way. (And separated by parentheses.)

The format for Dramatic scripts for Radio also put the spoken dialogue in Upper Case and all stage directions (not to be spoken) were written in regular upper/lower forms. Until recently, even movie and tv drama scripts called for the same format where the 'spoken' bits are written in full caps. (But word-processing has been changing this protocol.)

So whenever I see full caps I don't hear 'shouting' I just reflexively read it out loud, but not shouting loud, just radio announcer loud and clear.

jwf - always glad to stroll down Memory Lane.

LOL! I swear to god that 'bews agancies' was not there when I previewed that post. I meant, of course, news agencies.

jwf

Dancer

AT LAST! sOMEONE I CAN SHOUT AT WITHOUT CAUSING OFFENCE!

What happened to my ?

Apparently they don't like to be shouted at !?

Sorry.

smilies are case sensitive.


Dancer(and sensitive beings don't like to be shouted at )

OK got it - shout at ~jwf~ but not the smilies .

Hey don't shout !

Well, can anyone then explain to me why it is only a lousy program like Lotus that had a function where you could mark some letters, and then determine if they should be upper or lower case. It is really useful when you have accidently hit the caps lock button, and not noticed it untill you've written half an essay.

How could a mere computer program cope with the vagaries of English capitalisation? Could it manage e e cummings, James MacIntosh, 10 MWh of power, the rules about God and words quoted from other languages (Irish can start a word with bhF)?

No what I meant was if you had written an entire sentence in caps, you could just mark it and then press a button and it would turn lower case. It wouldn't have names in big and such, ot would all be lower case. But it was useful if you had accidently wirtten in caps.

You'll just have to learn to look at the screen, not the keyboard, when you are typing.

[Details removed by moderator]

Not seen that one before. What's all that about then?

*glad to see a few folks are still 'listening' in spite of the noise*

PS: Even the sound effects (SFX) and music bits (MUS) are written in Caps in the TRADitional format of a radio drama script, as if they were CHARACTERS with something to say. Which, if you appreciate radio drama, they are.
I'd love to see a few pages of the original HHGTTG radio scripts!

They were published in book form. I had them in Poland a dozen years ago , Took me ages to work out what SFX meant

mODERN VERSIONS OF MS WORD -

Will correct typing like the above on the fly.