The Coming Revolution
in Writing and Reading

Preliminary Script

Chapter I, A New Relationship between People and Text

Micromovie sequence:

1.

Dramatic changes

will soon be seen

in the way people read and write.

2.

This interactive movie describes

the causes and nature of the changes

– and the impact the changes

are likely to have on human society.

3.

One of the principal agents of change

is the multiprocessing computer.

4.

Another fundamental change agent

– one that is now being developed –

is interactive movable type.

5.
Interactive movable type
is a software invention
that will do for electronic publishing
what movable metal type
did for print-on-paper publishing.

6.

As movable metal type

brought about explosive growth

in the consumption

of print-on-paper publications,

interactive movable type

will bring about explosive growth

in the consumption

of electronic publications.

7.

But, movable metal type’s primary purpose

was to make printing easier.

Interactive movable type’s primary purpose

is to make reading easier.

8.
Interactive movable type
will make reading easier
by changing the relationship
between the reader
and the words and/or characters in text.

9.

Unlike conventional text,

which is passive and unresponsive

to the needs of the reader,

text comes alive

with interactive movable type.

10.
Text set in interactive movable type
is sensitive and responsive
to the particular capabilities,
limitations, needs, and desires
of each reader.

11.
Interactive movable type
enables each user
to make optimal use
of his or her particular visual, aural,
cognitive, and motor capabilities
when reading text,
however limited or extensive
those capabilities may be.

12.

The scenes in this movie

show how any document

set in interactive movable type

can be designed

– and readily redesigned –

to suit the needs of each individual

who consumes the document.

The scenes demonstrate the different ways

that text will be presented

and consumed in the future.

13.

One of the principal differences

between today’s methods

of presenting text

and those of tomorrow

is in the typographies

that will be used.

14.

Since the invention of writing,

particularly since the invention of movable metal type,

the convention has been to use linear typographies,

that is, to display text as lines of print.

15.

But, with text presented

as lines of script or lines of print,

we are unable to make effective use

of our visual systems

when processing that text

because the human visual system

is not a linear system.

16.

The human visual system

is a planar system.

The human eye’s visual field

is a two-dimensional plane.

17.

To read text displayed as lines of print,

readers must severely constrict their visual fields.

Readers must limit their vertical span of apprehension

to the line they are reading.

They must blind themselves cortically

(that is, in the visual cortex of the brain)

to the lines above and the lines below

the line they are reading.

18.

With interactive movable type

readers can shed their shackles

and make use

of their powerful

planar visual processing systems.

19.

To illustrate how interactive movable type

will enable the reader to better utilize

his or her visual capabilities,

look at the 10-word sentence:

The quick red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog.

It cannot be clearly apprehended in a single fixation by a human eye.

20.

But, if that same sentence

is displayed in the mu typography, like this:

The
quick red fox
jumps over
the lazy brown
dog.

it becomes possible for a human reader
to see and comprehend the complete sentence
with a single fixation.

21.

Mu (pronounced with a long u, as in music)

is an acronym for meaning unit.

A meaning unit is defined, in English,

as either a sentence or a logical subdivision of a sentence.

With interactive movable type our sample sentence

can be displayed as five meaning units

in a one-line mu format:

22.

…or as five meaning units in a two-line mu format as:

23.

…or as three meaning units in a three-line mu format as:

24.

or as two meaning units in a four-line mu format as:

25.

. . . or as one meaning unit in a five-line mu format

(as a 5/10 muglyph –

that is as a five line muglyph with 10 words):

The
quick red fox
jumps over
the lazy brown
dog.

26.

With text set in interactive movable type,

the reader has the choice

of having the text presented

in either the conventional linear typography

– or in the mu typography

in a one-line, two-line, three-line,

four-line, or five-line mu format.

27.

Typographical format is only one

of the many choices that readers will have

when consuming text set in interactive movable type.

The next chapter will introduce you to the mudoc

(mudoc is a contraction of meaning unit document),

the kind of electronic publication that will be used

to deliver interactive text to readers.

You will see some of the additional choices

that interactive movable type will bring to readers.

You will also see how both publishers and readers

will control the presentation of interactive text.

   On to Production Notes for Chapter I
                                   Back to The Coming Revolution Playbill

©1999, The Mudoc Corporation (rev. 09/26/00)
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