On the first look, Desktop publishing seems to be something realized in the 1980s and today the technology is simply there. A closer look will show, that desktop publishing was at all times an advanced technology and creating the underlying hardware and software was very difficult.
Most technology historians see the start of DTP in the mid 1980s with the Apple Macintosh computer. But at this time, the technology was used in the reality. It took some years until the first user have discovered the new options. A more practical example for Desktop publishing in the reality can be seen on the Atari ST computer. Around the year 1990 the Signum II software was available. Signum II was a graphical textprocessing software which looks similar to a modern Word software. The disadvantage of Signum was, that the software needs a lot of RAM plus an externa harddrive, so the user has to spend extra money to upgrade the Computer.
In theory, it was possible in the year 1990 to write a longer text on the Atari ST with the Signum software. Books from this time are available which are describing the workflow. But it should be mentioned, that even the Atari ST was perceived as a cheap computer compared to the Apple computers, it was some sort of advanced technology to use in the year 1990s a PC or a homecomputer to create a document. Only some enthusiast tech-pionieers have done so, but not the majority of students at the university.
So we can assume, that in the year 1990s desktop publishing wasn't invented yet. The problem was, that the computer hardware at this time was missing of larger amount of RAM and most computers had no harddrive.
From a more realistic perspective, the DTP revolution was started with IBM compatible PCs and the Windows operating system around the year 1995. At this moment, the average PC was equipped with a harddrive and large amount of memory and was able to run graphical operating systems. The average student since the year 1995 was able to type in a text on a PC. On the other hand, the sad situation is, that until the year 1995 desktop publishing for the masses wasn't there. All the books, journals and documents were created somewhere else but not on a home computer with DTP software.
This might be a be surprise, because it opens up the question how academic journals and dissertations were produced from 1900 until 1995? Like i mentioned before the workflow wasn't realized with desktop publishing. But it was working in a more distributed fashion. The interesting situation is, that all the elements of a modern text processing software were available before the 1995 but not in a single location but in different larger machines and located in different companies. For example in the early 1980s printing machines were widespread available. Not on a desktop of a single user, but in a printing house. Also high quality photography was available and the ability to create longer texts. To create a book or an academic journal before the year 1995 the workflow can be described as:
- phototypesetting
- printing machine
- entering text into a terminal at a larger mainframe
- graphic design in a dedicated company
Desktop publishing wasn't inventing book printing from scratch, but desktop publishing has combined all the steps into a single software. The difference is, that before the year 1995 academic publishing was equal to group working. The steps in the workflow have to be coordinated. In contrast, desktop publishing since the year 1995 was grouped around a single person.
___Tutorials for Academic publishing___
The untrained user may wonder why universities have no courses in which the students learn how to publish a paper. Also the topic academic publishing isn't described very well in the literature. The simple reason is that in the past it was technical not possible that somebody can write or even publish a paper. Let us assume that the normal student is living in the year 1985. At this time DTP wasn't available in the reality. Without a harddrive and high resolution graphics it is simply not possible to create an academic paper. That means, if a single student at this time was motivated to create a paper and publish it somewhere it wasn't possible.
The ability for doing so was invented much later. The first tutorials can only be written and read if the underlying technology is available. That means, if it is possible to run the MS Word software under a graphical operating system it is possible to write a tutorial how to do so. This was only possible after the year 1995.
But if desktop publishing wasn't available before the year 1995, how was it possible to fill the university library with content? Somebody needs to know how to write books, conference proceedings and papers which is published. Yes, such a meta knowledge is available but book publishing before the invention of desktop publishing is working a bit different. Academic publishing before the year 1995 was equal to group working in which larger amount of people have to coordinate each other so that at the end a printed book and a printed journal is available. It is hard or even impossible to describe the overall process in a single tutorial because each subject is handled by specialists. This makes it hard to give general advice how create a paper or how to start a new academic journal. The only thing what is available for all the book publishing is, that it will need large amount of ressources. A machine which is able to print high quality journals will cost millions of US-Dollar, and running a text processing on a mainframe will cost even more.