Who is Mavis Beacon? Where is Mavis Beacon? Glad you asked. Here’s the trailer for Seeking Mavis Beacon.
Secondly only to the peerless Typing Of The Dead in the league table of typing tutor software? That’d be something you youngsters out there have likely barely heard of: Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
Back in ye days of olde when computers had things like floppy disk drives and CD-ROMs in them, this was a piece of software that sold by the truckload. Never mind that nobody seemed to know who Mavis Beacon herself was: bottom line was, lots of people learned to type because of the product that bore her name.
At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, a documentary feature debuted that sought to answer the question of just who Mavis is, and whatever happened to her?
Entitled Seeking Mavis Beacon, the film was in turn picked up for American distribution by Neon, and it’s on the verge of release in US now.
Proof? There’s a trailer and a synopsis. Let’s, for the sake of tradition, do them in that order. The trailer first…
And the synopsis…
The most recognizable woman in technology lives in our collective imagination. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught millions globally, but the software’s Haitian-born cover model vanished decades ago. Two DIY detectives search for the model while posing questions about identity and artificial intelligence.
No word as of yet for a UK release though, but keeping an eye out for one. Moreover, hoping for news on a new interconnected cinematic universe of films based around PC utility software from the early 1990s. How about Norton Anti-Virus: The Movie? That’d be a good start. Maybe Lotus Smartsuite, although in fairness that’s more likely to be a television miniseries.
If you’re unfamiliar with Typing Of The Dead, incidentally, do seek it out. With due apologies to Mavis, it remains the greatest typing tutor software ever made.
