Daisywordpro Solves the Secretary’s Dilemma
One of the problems typically faced when a secretary gets a personal computer or word processor is where to put the typewriter that it’s replacing. Giving up that ancient device altogether is often impossible, since it’s so well-suited to such mundane tasks as addressing envelopes, typing memos on small notepaper and filling in the blanks on preprinted forms.
One solution is offered by a new piece of office equipment called the Daisywordpro, which truly is designed to replace the typewriter. It isn’t a computer, and it can’t do a what-if analysis on a spreadsheet or keep the company books on an accounting package.
What it can do is to fit on a secretary’s desk, do word processing, store a business mailing list, print form letters, produce a lovely, proportionally spaced and justified text and easily fill in the blanks on any preprinted form perfectly aligned with spaces and boxes, no matter how the form is designed.
Easy to Use
Like a typewriter, the Daisywordpro can put each keystroke immediately on paper; like a memory typewriter, it can display a line at a time so corrections can be made before the words are printed.
Another bonus is ease of use. In one day, a secretary can become proficient. Because it is basically a single-purpose system rather than an all-purpose computer, the Daisywordpro is tailored to its task from start to finish.
The keyboard is studded with dedicated special-purpose keys, each clearly labeled with its function, from printing to listing stored documents to creating underlined text. No numbered function keys to puzzle over here, as there are on IBM PCs.
In addition to the keyboard, the unit has two other components: a console with amber monitor and two 5-inch disk drives mounted horizontally underneath and a daisy-wheel printer with a lot more built-in intelligence than is the norm for computer printers.
A single switch turns everything on, and a message appears on the screen indicating what to do next. It even tells you how to put the disks into the drives. As soon as you do, the machine is smart enough to sense it and automatically read the programming information it needs without your having to type anything. (In a further effort to simplify, the disk drives are referred to as right and left, rather than A or B, or 0 or 1.)
Although the disks are the same double-sided style used on IBM and numerous other computers, they will not work in any computer. Nor can you use disks created on any computer in the Daisywordpro.
Instead of the cryptic 11-character names for files that many computer users have to content themselves with, the Daisywordpro uses a four-digit number followed by up to 58 characters to describe the file. The author also has three spaces in which to enter initials.
When you begin writing, you see the outline of part of a blank page on the screen, with margins and tab stops indicated at the top. As you type, the page rolls up, just as on a typewriter, so that the line you’re working on always remains at the same comfortable eye-level position.
If you want to emphasize a point, tap the key marked “bold face” and your text is bold on the screen until you tap it again. The same is true for underlining, subscripts and superscripts. There is also a thicker bold type called “shadow” that appears on your screen. Other features, such as over-strike, justification and proportional spacing, are available through keys bearing those labels but are not displayed on the screen.
Fills in Preprinted Forms
The best thing about the Daisywordpro is a program called DaisyForm, which automates the tiresome task of filling in preprinted forms. I don’t know of any other product that handles forms as well as this one.
Half of the intelligence of the system is built into the printer, which uses the respected Brother daisy-wheel printer chassis as its starting point. The printer is able to move in extremely small increments, both vertically and horizontally, and lets the console continually know where the print head is positioned on the paper.
Using DaisyForm, you can take advantage of that intelligence to train the system to repeatedly fill out a form, placing words, numbers and Xs in exactly the right spots. As you run through the first form to set the program’s memory, you show it the position of each blank to be filled in and the order you want to fill them, and you indicate whether the entry is a constant (your company name, for instance) or a variable that must be entered from the keyboard (such as employee names).
After that, all you do is set the form in place on the printer and watch while the printer automatically rolls it to the proper line, types in preprogrammed information and displays blank lines on the screen for you to fill in the unique data. An office that has a heavy workload of form completions may be able to justify having the system for that task alone.
$1,995 Price Tag
There is also a well-designed mailing list program, DaisyMerge, in which you simply fill in the blanks. Form letters are easily prepared from data in the mailing list.
The Daisywordpro is priced at $1,995, with a 200-word-per-minute printer. The price jumps to $2,695 for a 400-word-per-minute printer. Sheet feeders are available for $325 to $345, depending on which printer, and tractor-feed units for fan-fold paper at $175 or $195, depending on printer.
Daisywordpro Inc., 15162 Golden West Circle, Westminster, Calif. 92683, telephone (714) 893-1331, is a small start-up with few dealers, so you’ll have to contact them directly if you’re interested.
