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Marcus Tullius Tiro, a former slave, became Cicero's secretary in 63 B.C. He is
history's first recorded shorthand recorder. His first recording was of a speech
by Cato. Tiro used a variety of abbreviations for often-used words. He omitted words
that he could easily remember or know by their context. He also devised a pattern
of shorthand where a single sign stood for an entire sentence. This primitive system
was the stenography two thousand years ago. The ampersand (&) is the only sign
of Tiro that is still in use today; it is used in several hundred languages.
A monk named John of Tilbury created the first system of abbreviated writing for
English speaking people in the year 1180. In 1588, Dr. Timothie Bright invented
the first practical system of shorthand for the English language. His system had
no alphabet and was made up of more than 500 characters that had to be memorized.
It was not until 1772, that shorthand was officially recognized in England when
Thomas Gurney was named shorthand writer for the government and his system was used
widely in both Houses of Parliament. Isaac Pitman, in 1837, developed his system
using phonetics. This system was the premier system of shorthand for decades. Although
his system was replaced by Gregg Shorthand in the United States, it is still the
system of shorthand in England. John Robert Gregg invented shorthand that used symbols
and cursive for words.
 The shorthand machine ended the Gregg system's popularity in the United States.
In 1879, Miles Bartholomew, an official court reporter, received a patent for his
typewriting machine that used a letter for each stroke. As the shorthand machine
was refined, it became apparent that the conversion of shorthand to final transcript
needed to speed up. In the 1950's, the military and IBM worked to develop a computerized
system that could translate foreign languages into English. This project led IBM
to create software to translate shorthand symbols into English. In the 1970's, CAT,
computer aided transcription, was born. The drawing to the right
shows the layout of the stenograph machine's keys.
This system took the recorded symbols from reporters and translated them into English
that could then be printed out on a high speed printer. The court reporting industry
has adapted to technological computer changes in the last few decades. The history
of court reporting will no doubt be filled with new technology but will always
require the human touch.
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Summarized from the history recorded at http://www.ncraonline.org/about/history/CourtReporter.shtml
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