“What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG)

Entry in progress—B.P.
     
Wikipedia: WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG (/ˈwɪziwɪɡ/ WIZ-ee-wig) is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. In computing, a WYSIWYG editor is a system in which content (text and graphics) can be edited in a form closely resembling its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product,[2] such as a printed document, web page, or slide presentation.
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Etymology
The phrase “what you see is what you get”, from which the acronym derives, was a catchphrase popularized by Flip Wilson’s drag persona Geraldine, first appearing in September 1969, then regularly in the early 1970s on The Flip Wilson Show. The phrase was a statement demanding acceptance of Geraldine’s entire personality and appearance.
 
Furthermore, multiple hit songs and albums debuted in 1971 that could have also contributed to popularizing this phrase, including “What You See Is What You Get” by Stoney & Meatloaf, Stand by Me (Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get) by Bernard Purdie and Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get by The Dramatics.
 
As it relates to computing, there are multiple claims to first use of the phrase:
 
. In mid-1975, John W. Seybold, the founder of Seybold Publications, and researchers at PARC, incorporated Gypsy software into Bravo to create Bravo 3, which allowed text to be printed as displayed. Charles Simonyi and the other engineers appropriated Flip Wilson’s popular phrase around that time.
. Barbara Beeton reports that the term was coined by Bill Tunnicliffe, in a presentation at a 1978 committee meeting involving the Graphic Communications Association (GCA), the American Mathematical Society (AMS), and the Printing Industries of America (PIA).
. The phrase was coined in 1982[18] by Larry Sinclair, an engineer at Information International, Inc. (“Triple I”) to express the idea that what the user sees on the screen is what the user gets on the printer while using the “page layout system”, a pre-press typesetting system first shown at ANPS in Las Vegas.
. Around 1974, Karen Thacker, the technophobe wife of Xerox hardware designer Charles “Chuck” Thacker, was introduced to a Xerox Alto running Bravo, and commented, “You mean, what I see is what I get?”
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
what you see is what you get: there is no disparity between appearance and reality; (now esp. in Computing) an image, preview, etc., gives a true representation of the result of a process; cf. wysiwyg n.
1936   Chicago Tribune 2 May 23/7 (advt.)  Sight your subject through the telescopic finder and press the automatic button. That’s all there is to it. What you see is what you get.
1955   Washington Post 4 Sept. g4/1 (advt.)  The complete G.E. kitchen is in the price of the home… No extras—what you see is what you get!
1980   Times 1 Apr. 12/5   He’s legit—you know, what you see is what you get.
1982   Byte Apr. 264/2   ‘What you see is what you get’ (or WYSIWYG) refers to the situation in which the display screen portrays an accurate rendition of the printed page.
wysiwyg, n. 
1982   Byte Apr. 264/2   ‘What you see is what you get’ (or WYSIWYG) refers to the situation in which the display screen portrays an accurate rendition of the printed page.
1982   Economist 1 May 8   If he wishes to converse with computer buffs, he will have to cope with neologisms such as ‘wysiwyg’ (what you see is what you get), pronounced ‘whizziwig’.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/business/16SEYB.html
John W. Seybold, 88, Innovator in Printing, Is Dead
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: March 16, 2004
John W. Seybold, a pioneer in the field of computerized typesetting, which
transformed the publishing industry, died on Sunday at a hospice in Haverford,
Pa. He was 88.
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In 1964 Rocappi produced the first computer-typeset product guide, an
automotive directory for McGraw-Hill. The project made heavy use of macros, programs
to simplify the repetitive creation of listings, an application that Mr.
Seybold pioneered.

The company created a pagination program that made it possible to control the
appearance of text on a printed page with software. The task had previously
been done manually by printers who worked with individual lines of typed text
formed from hot lead.

It was Mr. Seybold, according to his son Andrew, who first used “what you see
is what you get” in reference to computerized word processing, after watching
“The Flip Wilson Show,” on which Mr. Wilson used the phrase to describe his
female character Geraldine.

The phrase came to be abbreviated as WYSIWYG and was popularized by computer
systems developed at the Palo Alto Research Center of Xerox in the early
1970’s.