WYSIWYG

acronym Also written wysiwyg or (erroneously) wysiwig (Science and Technology) Short for what you see is what you get, a slogan applied to computer systems in which what appears on the screen exactly mirrors the eventual output. Etymology: The initial letters of What You See Is What You Get. History and Usage: A feature of advanced high-resolution VDU displays, WYSIWYG first appeared on the mass computing scene in the early eighties and became increasingly important as the desk-top publishing boom gained momentum in the middle of the decade. True Wysiwig would show bold, extended and italic characters...on the screen and the only way that will happen is with a very high resolution display (which in turn will normally require a graphics card). Daily Telegraph 8 Oct. 1990, p. 27