Drafts
TitlePagew.jpg A draft of the first three chapters went out to the committee on June 12. I’ll spare you the intermediate comments, which I’ve preserved and which even now I read with pleasure. They continued to like the product, as it grew. Chapter Four followed only a week later; then Chapter Six and Appendix II on July 21; Chapter Five and Appendix I on July 28.

Most of August went to computer runs,1 and then I took the first two weeks of September as accumulated Abt Associates vacation. Some vacation! I’d come to my office at 5 p.m., just as everybody was leaving, and I’d work through ’til 9 a.m., as folks arrived. Then home to sleep ’til normal closing time the same afternoon. Abt was kind enough to let me use an Adler2 standard electric typewriter. At the end of the two weeks, I’d typed3 the final version and submitted it for approval.
While typing, I listened to medieval music, played on some cassette tapes dubbed from New York Pro Musica vinyl recordings. I’m going to try to remember which specific number brought my cricket out: in the wee hours of the morning, but only when this particular item came up, he’d hop solemnly through the door and chirp in time to the music. Then he’d retreat.
1At Avco in Wilmington. They had a big IBM machine that ran under JCL. I had to submit boxes of Hollerith cards and receive wide, green-striped, dot-matrix output. A vague recollection says that CPU seconds were kinda expensive; don’t recall how I managed that end of it.
2A German brand: you could see where the swastika had been removed from the logo medallion on the front.
3Some guys marry girls for their typing skills. That isn’t the deal for us. Valerie hates the qwerty, cordially. And I’ve very seldom had a secretary, ’cause I’m generally a better typist than anybody I’d be likely to hire.
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