The tools we left behind
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od oder ernn co opi pier ers er rs same place that mimeograph paper went wh modern copiers based on the Xerox process became readily available. This seems to be also true for paper for strip-chart recorders. Data can now be easily digitized and stored. I don’t remember the last time that I saw a paper strip chart in use. I note in closing this section that there are a number of sites available on the Internet that allow one to print various forms of graph paper.2 It seems somebody must be using them, but I wonder how much usage they really get. Another common tool that seems to be vanishing is the pencil.3 It is feasible that at some point in the distant future, this article may be read by people who don’t recognize this reference. A pencil is an exquisitely crafted wooden tube filled with graphite. The pencil could be sharpened to a point, exposing the graphite, and allowing one to write on paper, leaving information in the form of graphite tracks. In its most common form, one end of the pencil is banded with a metal band clasping the wooden tube and simultaneously clasping a small piece of rubber that could be used to erase the graphite. One could write and erase, write and erase, to the nth degree, until the written product was achieved. In the past, even this article that I’ve typed on my computer using my word processing program would have instead been written laboriously by hand using a pencil. caus ca aus usee Pencil and eraser were preferred over ink pens because xt. xt of the erasability, or non-permanence, of the text. h Trying to correct something written with ch h pen and ink was, and remains, much more problematic. The pencill ooff h re here he choice was a Number 2,, w where ntss th the he ha har rdrd the number represents harda hi ap hite te. Wh te When en n ness of the grap graphite. te w o e do or down w oorr the graphite wore enci en cil co ci ccould u d be ul broke, the pencil ain, ai n, eexposxpos xp os-os sharpened again, grap aphi ap hite hi te ing more of thee gr graphite oo ood o d in in until all of the w wood rppen ened ed d the pencil was sharpened h os osee away. Offices, in th those itt ie i s days, had vast quantities nds, nd s s, of pencils of various kinds, il as well as multiple pencil sharpeners.4 I don’t remember when I last saw a pencil
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sharpener at work. They too seem to have mostly vanished from the workspace, along with pencils, although I note that you can still buy them. They’ve probably all gone to the same place that the graph paper, strip charts, and mimeograph paper have gone. These are not the only tools we’ve left behind. Most technical offices had stores that contained various drawing tools. Remember
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