DESK-TOP

noun and adjective Also written desktop (Science and Technology) noun: A personal computer which fits on the top surface of a desk (short for desk-top computer). Also, a representation of a desk-top on a VDU screen. adjective: Using a desk-top computer system to produce printed documents to a publishable standard of typesetting, layout, etc.; especially in the phrase desk-top publishing (abbreviation DTP). Etymology: A specialized use of the transparent compound desk-top. History and Usage: The desk-top computer goes back to the seventies, but only started to be called a desk-top for short in the mid eighties. At about the same time, computer manufacturers whose systems made use of icons and other features of WIMPS (see WIMPÜ) started to use desk-top widely as a way of referring to the representation of the top of a working desk that appeared on the screen. Desk-top publishing depends on software packages that were only first marketed in the mid eighties. Essentially it makes available to the computer user a page make-up and design facility which makes it possible to create any arrangement on the 'page' of text and graphics output from other packages such as word processing and spreadsheets, using a wide variety of different type-styles and sizes. The design can then be printed using a laser printer. These systems proved very popular for the production of documents on a small scale, bypassing the cost of commercial typesetting and design. By 1990 the dividing line between desk-top and conventional typesetting systems had blurred; this book, for example, was typeset using DTP software, but output on a high-quality image setter. Given today's low cost desktop publishing systems, almost anyone could set up as a newsletter publisher, working from home. Guardian 10 Aug. 1989, p. 29 There's nothing remotely hostile about a desktop with icons for both Unix and DOS applications. PC User 11 Oct. 1989, p. 203 It was in fact set on a personal computer DTP system (feel the quality, never mind the width!). Creative Review Mar. 1990, p. 47