
The Improbable Origins of PowerPoint - danso
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/cyberspace/the-improbable-origins-of-powerpoint
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chanandler_bong
The people who seem to rail the most against PowerPoint are the ones who
cannot create meaningful and well-designed presentations. It is like any other
tool, if you use it improperly, the results can be terrible. Used properly, it
is an effective and efficient way to display your information and ideas.

~~~
BjoernKW
While that's generally true PowerPoint (and other presentation software that
followed in its footstep) not only makes it easy to craft terrible
presentations by its default settings it almost guides you along that path the
most notorious example being that the default template for any new non-cover
slide is the bullet point.

Can you blame inexperienced presentation designers to then fill that blank
sheet with as many bullet points as they can?

Inexperienced presentation designers become experienced presentation designers
but those habits remain and can be very hard to unlearn, which is how you get
expertly crafted 50+ slides monstrosities of bullet-pointy splendour.

~~~
pvdebbe
Also the fact that if you stuff enough text into a slide it won't overflow
outside the slide, but rather Powerpoint helpfully starts to shrink the font
size!

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peterburkimsher
The original is much longer but also interesting to read:

[http://www.robertgaskins.com/powerpoint-history/sweating-
bul...](http://www.robertgaskins.com/powerpoint-history/sweating-
bullets/gaskins-sweating-bullets-webpdf-isbn-9780985142414.pdf)

One of the most powerful features of Presenter-became-PowerPoint was to change
the font. Ironically, these days there are still problems when trying to share
slides between computers if you used a custom font (or even a default font for
another language e.g. Chinese).

I get around that problem by exporting my slides to JPG, then creating a new
slideshow with the photos. The file size is larger, but the layout is
guaranteed to work.

I used the same trick to put a slideshow on my old digital camera, and
connected it using composite video to give a presentation in school (about
2006). I didn't want to carry a heavy laptop just to show slides.

I wish a simple WiFi-VGA gadget could be built to let smartphones show
presentations too. There are some HDMI dongles (Chromecast) but not all
projector stations have HDMI available.

~~~
mschuster91
> I wish a simple WiFi-VGA gadget could be built to let smartphones show
> presentations too.

get yourself an Airtame and a HDMI-VGA converter. Expensive but worth the
money...

~~~
peterburkimsher
It's not pocket-sized though. My old iPod Video can plug in with just a wire -
there's a composite video signal coming out of the headphone jack.

Imagine sitting around in a living room, hanging out with friends. Someone
grabs a guitar and starts singing. I want to show the lyrics. If I have a
laptop, I just pop open the lid and we read them from there.

If I don't have a laptop, I won't have my bag. So I won't have my HDMI-VGA
adaptors either. I wish I could just plug my phone into the TV, search for the
lyrics online, and start singing. My Bluetooth headset (Sony MW600) is very
small and easy to use for audio, and it takes only a few seconds to set up.
Why can't the same be done for video?

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ZenoArrow
> "These days, the business software market is shifting again, and Microsoft
> Office must now compete with similar bundles that are entirely free, from
> the likes of Google, LibreOffice, and others. Productivity software resides
> more often than not in the cloud, rather than on the user’s device.
> Meanwhile, the dominant mode of personal computing globally has firmly
> shifted from the desktop and laptop to the smartphone. As yet, no new vision
> of personal computing like the one that came from Xerox PARC in the 1970s
> has emerged. And so for the moment, it appears that PowerPoint, as we know
> it, is here to stay."

Whilst I'm sure PowerPoint will stick around for quite a bit longer, I'd
suggest Microsoft is already working on the spiritual successor to PowerPoint,
which is called Sway. Can think of Sway as web-based presentation software.
It's already part of the Office suite.

[https://sway.com/](https://sway.com/)

~~~
mirimir
> Meanwhile, the dominant mode of personal computing globally has firmly
> shifted from the desktop and laptop to the smartphone.

Do people actually work on smartphones? I mean, code, edit documents, use
spreadsheets etc?

~~~
mvdwoord
Although I prefer to lug around my laptop.. I know of people that do almost
entire days of work on a phone. Remote desktops, coding, massive amounts of
email, etc etc. I sat next to it many times and it continues to baffle me.
Datacenter automation/orchestration from a 5 inch screen. #Masochism. But I
must admit it's nice to travel light sometimes.

~~~
mirimir
Yes, traveling light is good. But as I say in the other subthread, I find it
hard to imagine how one works efficiently without a real keyboard. At one
point, long ago, I was carrying a folding keyboard. But, unless I was sitting
at a table or equivalent, there wasn't anywhere to put it. And it was rather
floppy. Also the screen. How do you keep it in front of your face, while
typing with both hands? Maybe adapt one of those harmonica holders ;)

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ggm
I miss foils. move the pen, to give a pointer to current word. move the sheet
of paper, to do a reveal of bullets.

I did 4 layer overlays to do transitions in complex diagrams.

I really miss OHPs.

~~~
blowski
I think you’ve forgotten about the bit where you had to prepare acetate
slides, carry a huge box around with you, clean all dirt off the top, get it
into focus, etc. Digital brings costs and benefits.

~~~
ggm
And rubbing your foils out by mistake with your sleeve: the talks there, it's
just been lempel-zif compressed into my once-white cuff.

Oh.and using permanent marker when you thought the annotations were
temporary...

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richev
Recommended reading: [https://www.amazon.com/Sweating-Bullets-Notes-Inventing-
Powe...](https://www.amazon.com/Sweating-Bullets-Notes-Inventing-
PowerPoint/dp/0985142421)

~~~
teh_klev
The PDF of that book is linked to in the article's sixth paragraph:

[http://www.robertgaskins.com/powerpoint-history/sweating-
bul...](http://www.robertgaskins.com/powerpoint-history/sweating-
bullets/gaskins-sweating-bullets-webpdf-isbn-9780985142414.pdf)

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CharlesDodgson
I'd love to know the Microsoft Publisher story. It reminds me of the 90's and
my mom making PTA newsletters!

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alvis
"As yet, no new vision of personal computing like the one that came from Xerox
PARC in the 1970s has emerged."

Despite many attempts, namely keynote, prezi and slide.js, the way we
communicate remains largely the same. Can't we come up with something better?

~~~
BjoernKW
That's an interesting question.

PowerPoint, Keynote and their ilk are largely skeuomorphic in that they mimic
actual slides on actual overhead projectors, which probably no one below the
age of 30 has ever encountered in real life.

Tools like Prezi on the other hand often focus too much on impressive
animations and transitions that carry little to no information. Presentations
created with Prezi often appear as all fluff and flim-flam. Besides, that
constant zooming in and out makes me sick when watching it on a large screen
at least.

There has to be a better way to communicate. I'm not exactly sure how it looks
like but to achieve it we probably have to forego metaphors from the 1970s as
well as superficial animations that carry no meaning.

~~~
mnw21cam
A while back, I gave a conference presentation, but instead of using
Powerpoint, I just had a directory with a load of mp4 videos. It turns out
that if you run xine with all of them on the command line, you can use the
right arrow to skip to the next one. Put a long-lived static image at the end
of each video, and you have a completely custom-built set of slides with
whatever transitions you want.

In my case, I used the videos to illustrate mathematical models and results.
It was a marginally more powerful method than using Powerpoint.

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chrisgd
It is the default presentation format for Investment Banks. How else are you
going to show the CEO of soon to IPO company how much his shares will be
worth?

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satya71
I recall using HPG and Lotus Freelance when I was in school. I don't know that
I made any compelling presentations with them though.

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CharlesDodgson
I'm so glad someone write this story, I remember thinking it would be
interesting, I wasn't disappointed.

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brd529
Wish they had mentioned aldus persuasion which pioneered the “outline view”
(PowerPoint quickly copied it).

