Reading through the AIP author instructions for submitting a book manuscript, somehow brings back memories of manuscript submission in the late seventies and early eighties: separate figures, mark the approximate position of the figures in text. Clearly not adapted to LaTeX submissions.
Submitting manuscripts
I do recall placing a thick envelope with a Phys. Rev. A manuscript on Calcium ion isotope shifts in a letter box, double spaced, triplicate. (It involved a collaboration with several groups, and I recall manuscript parts being faxed between us – no attached documents in the e-mail yet.)
It looks like it may have been my first manuscript submission coming back after having my third child. Is that why I remember it? Did I also reflect that submissions might soon be electronic?
Checking the AIP page author resources brings up a Style guide for authors, with a 4th edition from 1990, reprinted in 1997, which gives some background.
The introduction notes that since the third edition, from 1978, manuscripts were produced using “computer controlled photo-composition” (rather than “monotype composition”) and that the next steps would be for authors to transfer their digitized manuscripts “without the need for re-keyboarding”.
Certainly I must have been using electronic submissions to the APS in 1995 – I do recall sending a manuscript to International Journal of Supercomputing Applications and High-Performance Computing about Turnaround Times at a Supercomputing Center, published in Dec 1995 as a Perspective – and being surprised that they only accepted submissions on paper.
Writing manuscripts
Submission is one thing. Writing is another. As a post-doc in Seattle, I recall sneaking in to the secretary’s office after hours for some typing. The writing certainly involved some literal cut and paste. I very much appreciated how she (JoAnn, I think) very efficiently fixed all the renumbering of reference numbers for the long paper after it was suggested that we insert a reference number 2. (I thought it was about 100 references. Checking now, I see that it is only 31. Still I very much appreciated her fixing it.)
I did write my thesis in 1978 using nroff on a PDP, printing pages on a Diablo Wheel Printer, which did it best to create substitutes for Greek letters including the greek letter phi replaced by ø (to be fixed later on an IBM typewriter, inserting the ball for Symbols and Greek letters). But I really cannot recall when I first used a computer to produce manuscripts for articles.
I must have started to use WriteNow and MathType on a Mac, at least in 1987, since I was initially frustrated (for about a week) at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara Jan-March 1988, where I had to learn TeX. Yes, I learned that “difficult to learn” does not have to mean “difficult to use”. For anything with complicated math, it is really hard to beat. I have now discovered that Donald Knuth released the first version of TeX in 1978.
And now I have produced a book with 12 chapters in LaTeX – and keep getting amazed. I am just learning about the indexing feature.
Literature search for writing
My last research paper within atomic physics was about hyperfine structure in the 4d state of the Sr+ ion, published in 2002. (It was a request from the NPL who were looking for the transition as possible candidate for a clock frequency, and wanted to know where to look). The calculation took me three summers, but writing the paper, I was so fascinated by the cross-referencing and citation features of on-line reference lists. What a change from finding the right volume of Physics Abstracts, to find abstract numbers to find the right abstract and then find the right volume of abstracts!
To all the PhD students of the new millennium – you have no idea what you miss!
Research, Rabbits and Roller Coasters 