> probably Dennies Richie sent his manuscript to a professional typist who provided services to the university,
Maybe, but I think everyone in a position like Ritchie's had a personal secretary whose main task was being a professional typist.
>* unless he was adept at spend several hours typing until he got professional results.
Typing was tedious and error prone, that's why people dictated to secretaries who wrote it down in shorthand to type it cleanly later.
I think the role of the secretary at that time is immensely undervalued. Not only had they be good in shorthand and typing but they also served as a kind of editor to check the manuscript for spelling and grammar errors.
Also, for everyone used to that system the introduction of the computer and the burden to type yourself was considered a step back.
> everyone in a position like Ritchie's had a personal secretary
maybe everyone in a position like the one he later had, definitely not while he wrote his PhD thesis... but even then, I don't think researchers at Bell Labs had personal secretaries.
Maybe, but I think everyone in a position like Ritchie's had a personal secretary whose main task was being a professional typist.
>* unless he was adept at spend several hours typing until he got professional results.
Typing was tedious and error prone, that's why people dictated to secretaries who wrote it down in shorthand to type it cleanly later.
I think the role of the secretary at that time is immensely undervalued. Not only had they be good in shorthand and typing but they also served as a kind of editor to check the manuscript for spelling and grammar errors.
Also, for everyone used to that system the introduction of the computer and the burden to type yourself was considered a step back.