Antedatings of computing "wizard"

[Hugo]

Computing, a software assistance "wizard" (OED: November 1992)

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In 1991, Microsoft release Publisher 1.0, that, according to a 15 October 2001 Microsoft article "pioneered Microsoft's "wizards":

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We realized early on that to make a mid-range desktop publishing program successful, we had to address the fact that a lot of people simply don't have the design skills necessary to make a page look good," says Ed Ringness, the original development lead for Publisher 1.0. "No matter how easy we made it to use the tools, people wouldn't know what the tools were for. So the idea behind wizards was to get these people jump-started and do a lot of the design for them early on."

Page Wizards were an ingenious and simple way to solve the conundrum. Using a set of document templates created by professional designers, the wizard guides users through the initial setup of their publication, such as a newsletter or brochure. Once the content is in place, the user is then free to modify the document however he or she wants.
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http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/2001/oct01/10-15publisher.aspx

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There's a handful of mentions of Page Wizards in magazines indexed by Google Books from 1991, the earliest I found is InfoWorld from 22nd July 1991 (Vol. 13, No. 29):

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Publisher for Windows, expected to sell for under $200, will also be Microsoft's first desktop publishing package. Publisher includes Page Wizard, a tool for building a page to user specifications, such as the number of columns and picture placement;
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http://books.google.com/books?id=f1AEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA7&dq=PageWizards%20OR%20PageWizard%20OR%20%22page%20wizard%22%20OR%20%22page%20wizards%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=73WZT_boGtSL4gSwxZjFBg&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw

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And InfoWorld from 5th August 1991 has a whole article on "'Wizards' make Microsoft applications smarter":

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Maples has described a similar technology several times in recent years and said more than two years ago that he hoped to ship applications containing the technology by the end of 1990. At that time Microsoft said a full-blown version of this technology would use multimedia to communicate with the user, such as through voice and perhaps a talking head. However, a common-denominator multimedia PC platform is not yet available.
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http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nFAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA6&dq=PageWizards%20OR%20PageWizard%20OR%20%22page%20wizard%22%20OR%20%22page%20wizards%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=73WZT_boGtSL4gSwxZjFBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=PageWizards%20OR%20PageWizard%20OR%20%22page%20wizard%22%20OR%20%22page%20wizards%22&f=false

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>From Usenet. First, 31st January 1992, comp.windows.ms:

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The last straw came with new MS apps such as MS Publisher. After swapping my screen resolutions a few times, some of the fonts in MS Publisher (especially Page Wizard displays/prompts) are now too small to be readable. Now MS Publisher does not have a PREV.FON. So how the heck do I get it to adjust for the resolution changes?
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http://groups.google.com/group/comp.windows.ms/browse_thread/thread/ed8fed8201dd0501/6252697c1d75b1d?q=excel%20wizard#06252697c1d75b1d

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Second, 21st March 1992, comp.windows.ms:

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I called up Microsoft and they are now taking order for Excel 4.0. The upgrade cost 111.45 including shipping and handling and will ship in one month. Some of the enhanced features are an icon bar like Word for Windows 2.0, also similar cut and paste ie. drag and drop features, an Ami Pro type movable icon block. Fill format something which enables formating like the fill down feature. A few more statistical functions, better translation of 123 Macros. And something called the Graphing Wizardwhich is supposed to make graphs even simpler to make. That's all I could get from the sales rep. Anyone have more info. on this. ?
[End]

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.windows.ms/browse_thread/thread/7f2a3942d5b79c36/f391cfe2979ae393?q=excel%20wizard#f391cfe2979ae393

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Hugo

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