My dad used to be a Professor at a major State university, and he talked about how one of his older colleagues, who was a professor of Electrical Engineering, had his secretary (yes, he had a secretary) print out his emails for him every morning and put them in his physical inbox. He'd read them, type up his responses, print them out, and have her transcribe and send the responses later in the day.
This must still be somewhat common. I recall e-mails from administration at my previous French lab had in their signature something to the effect of "Think of the environment, do not print this e-mail".
I actually had an example of something similar before my eyes. My advisor's advisor's advisor (...), emeritus, occupied the office next to mine and printed his Fortran code to work on at home. He debugged on paper, then typed it down the next day in the office. His whole career had been at the crossroads of math and computer science, his main contribution algorithms and software, and he did not have a computer at home (says he). This software debugged by hand (and typed with the index fingers) is still used in commercial software!
I'm confused, did he type them up on a computer that was not connected to the internet/school network but was physically connected to a printer close by? Why didn't he and the secretary copy emails from/to some form of portable storage?
Before "Information Systems" there was no need for a company/college wide network; computers with printers on the same desk were a replacement for the typewriter.
Just sad really.