HISTORY OF WORD PROCESSIN
ji...@inode.com
wordprocessing? Who started the concept (with computers that is, don't
talk about pencils and pens and such)?
On another note, who started the concept of databases as in dBASE,
Clipper, etc.
E-mail replies to:
ji...@cornell.edu mul...@acfcluster.nyu.edu
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Jim Haynes
Well I know we were doing word processing experimentally at General
Electric in Phoenix in the 1966-68 time frame. This ran on a Datanet 30
processor and used IBM 1050 and 2741 terminals. I don't remember now
the name of the guy who was developing it. I remember it had some
connection with Calvin Mooers' TRAC language; but I'm not sure if the
word processor was written in TRAC.
Now in the 1963-1966 time frame I was working at Teletype. We didn't have
an upper/lower case terminal in production at the time, but were working
on the Model 37 and 38 (which eventually came to market too late to be
interesting). I believe people at Bell Labs were interested in word
processing at the time, in connection with Multics. Even tho we didn't
have up/low terminals there was some diddling with upper-case-only word
processing on things such as the Dartmouth Time Sharing System and probably
at MIT on CTSS, the predecessor of Multics. Note too, from the Thompson
and Ritchie papers, that the first use of Unix aside from the developers
was a word-processing system for patent applications. This suggests that
the writing of nroff and troff and their predecessor roff was going on
at least in the early history of Unix, and probably back in Multics days.
I'm also aware of some upper-case-only work done at Burroughs - again I
forget the person's name but the software ran on B5500s and was used to
produce things like the software release notes.
Now if you want to get really ancient - this hardly qualifies as word
processing in the modern sense, but the Linotype is word processing in
the sense that the operator evens the margins and that sort of thing
as the type is being set. And there was the Teletypesetter version of
that, where the operator did his/her thing on a paper tape punch and
then the tape could be transmitted by wire to produce a tape to run the
Linotype. Teletype did produce an up/low printer for use in connection
with this; but it printed ragged margins since it didn't have variable-
width spacing. It was used simply to view what was on the punched tape.
You could try to learn something about the Friden Flexowriter, the
up/low machine based on the IBM electric typewriter mechanism and using
paper tape. These were used with some very early computers, not for
word processing but for I/O; but perhaps somebody wrote a word processing
program to take advantage of it. Then there's the Varityper - I don't know
what one is, but I have this vague memory of hearing about something
with variable-pitch typing and maybe a paper tape that you run through
it twice to get even margins.
--
hay...@cats.ucsc.edu
hay...@cats.bitnet
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Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879
by hay...@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes):
> ... Note too, from the Thompson
> and Ritchie papers, that the first use of Unix aside from the developers
> was a word-processing system for patent applications. This suggests that
> the writing of nroff and troff and their predecessor roff was going on
> at least in the early history of Unix, and probably back in Multics days.
I happen to have a copy of the Murray Hill Computing Honeywell GCOS Roff
Text Formatter manual, dated October 1972. M. D. McIlroy wrote ROFF for
the GE 600/H 6000 under G[E]COS, with a 1971 release date. This is based
on Saltzer's RUNOFF, with the citation pointing to the CTSS book edited
by Crisman and published by MIT Press in 1965.
When I was at Bell Labs in 1973, UNIX had become a "word processing
system" fairly recently. Prior to this, UNIX was developed without official
sanction from the management of the labs (all technical staff members were
allowed 20% of their time for personal projects, so this wasn't unusual).
By having the labs support UNIX officially as a word processing system,
Kernighan and Ritchie and Thompson and McIlroy were able to devote more of
their time to UNIX than the 20% they would otherwise have been allowed.
I should say that when I was at Bell Labs in '73 and '74, I knew UNIX
users, but I used GCOS and spent my time working on a command language
interpreter (shell) for a different system, a cluster of 3 workstations
based and a file server, based on DDP 516 minicomputers and a slotted ring
LAN.
Gerald Hall
>Everyone knows the history of Spreadsheets with VisiCalc, but what about
>wordprocessing? Who started the concept (with computers that is, don't
>talk about pencils and pens and such)?
>
The first official funding of UNIX at Bell Labs was for "word processing"
('ed' and 'troff'). This would have been about 1970 I think.
I guess part of the question is how to define "word processing" since
you probably don't want to include keypunch input directed to line
printers.
--
/
/ Jerry, CalmaSD UNIX SysAdmin, +1 619 587 3065
/
Dennis Ritchie
"Prior to [1973], UNIX was developed without official
sanction from the management of the labs (all technical staff members were
allowed 20% of their time for personal projects, so this wasn't unusual).
By having the labs support UNIX officially as a word processing system,
Kernighan and Ritchie and Thompson and McIlroy were able to devote more of
their time to UNIX than the 20% they would otherwise have been allowed."
I don't know what criteria were used in merit review by BTL research
management prior to 1973, but based on the feedback I got from my boss
then, and allowing for the fact that McIlroy was Ken's department
head, this is inexact. Proto-unix (ca. 1968-69) failed to be
supported by management to the extent that they refused to buy a $500K
PDP-10 for us, and it took a bit of subterfuge to get a $50K PDP-11.
However, I'm certain the effort was never regarded as a "personal project"
distinct from real work. Ken's and later my efforts with the PDP-7
were fully supported in terms of time commitment. In particular, Doug
McIlroy was extraordinarily supportive, and enthusiastic, and he dove
in himself just about instantly. My own merit reviews took a
significant turn for the better when I joined Ken in working on Unix.
It is true that word-processing and formatting (using Teletype model
37s) for the Bell Labs patent group was the first productive
application of Unix outside our immediate group. And for the
sake of history, here is the sequence of terminals I have used at
home, all paid for by my employer. Dates are approximate.
1968: IBM 1050 (14.5 cps)
1970: Teletype 37 (15 cps)
1975: GE Terminet 300 (30 cps)
1978: HP 2621 (120 cps)
1983: Jerq (Blit) (120, later 960 cps)
1990: Gnot (Plan 9) (960 cps)
1992: Gnot (Plan 9) (8192 cps ISDN)
Dennis Ritchie
Charlie Gibbs
(Jim Haynes) writes:
> Then there's the Varityper - I don't know
>what one is, but I have this vague memory of hearing about something
>with variable-pitch typing and maybe a paper tape that you run through
>it twice to get even margins.
I vaguely recall banging out some stuff on something like that
when I was a teenager scrounging for summer work, which would put it
at about 1967 or so. I think the thing was called a "Justowriter" -
maybe it was a from a different manufacturer. You'd type ragged
copy and it would punch a paper tape. Every so often a light would
come on and you'd have to hit return soon afterwards so it would
have room to adjust things. When you ran the tape back through, the
text came out justified. A pretty neat trick, I thought at the time.
Charli...@mindlink.bc.ca
"I'm cursed with hair from HELL!" -- Night Court
Jim Haynes
In article <19...@mindlink.bc.ca> Charli...@mindlink.bc.ca (Charlie Gibbs) writes:
>at about 1967 or so. I think the thing was called a "Justowriter" -
>maybe it was a from a different manufacturer. You'd type ragged
else. Believe Justowriter was made by Friden, who were more famous for
the Flexowriter. I never saw one and don't know how it worked; but
I remember hearing that you type the text in once, and it punches a paper
tape at the time; and then you play the paper tape back through and it
justifies the margins.
Sylvia Dutcher
>an upper/lower case terminal in production at the time, but were working
>on the Model 37 and 38 (which eventually came to market too late to be
>interesting). I believe people at Bell Labs were interested in word
>processing at the time, in connection with Multics. Even tho we didn't
>have up/low terminals there was some diddling with upper-case-only word
>processing on things such as the Dartmouth Time Sharing System and probably
>at MIT on CTSS, the predecessor of Multics.
on an IBM 7094, used IBM selectric terminals. The early ones were gray-
blue squarish boxes, the later cream colored aerodynamically-styled. Both
hand changeable typeballs supporting upper and lower case. At M.I.T. at
that time there were also a few video displays, including a green
scope with a character generator and storage scope. You'd display a page
on it, edit it, then there'd be a bright flash of light while the display
erased. The trick was to find the terminal unattended, log in on your
CTSS account, edit the document (say, a term paper) on the video tube,
then print it out using RUNOFF on one of the spiffy IBM printers.
Of course one should mention TECO (Tape Editor and Corrector) that
(I think) Peter Sampson modified to run on the PDP-1 video display
and Sampson and others ported to the PDP-6.
By word processors, I'm assuming the questor meant systems using
video terminals. Text manipulation systems go much further back.
Turing described one...
.
Rich Alderson
>Everyone knows the history of Spreadsheets with VisiCalc, but what about
>wordprocessing? Who started the concept (with computers that is, don't
>talk about pencils and pens and such)?
Well, there was the Expensive Typewriter program on the PDP-1 at the MIT AI
Lab, which used the Friden Flexowriter, c. 1960.
Of course, wordprocessing was a separate domain from computing for much of its
history, with things like IBM Magnetic-Tape Selectric Typewriters and Xerox
Memorywriters, followed later by systems with CRTs and the like. Such things
were used not only in offices, but by large metropolitan newspapers like the
Chicago Tribune (which used a large DECsystem-10 based system for years).
--
Rich Alderson 'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take
such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@leland.stanford.edu _The Lost Road_
Jon. Hallett
[...]
>Who started the concept (with computers that is, don't talk about
>pencils and pens and such)?
[...]
Ted Nelson's `Computer Lib/Dream Machines' has a bit to say about word
processing. I'd be more precise but my copy is at home. I seem to
remember that Doug Englebart (the mouse man) is mentioned in
connection with WP. Nelson also presents a word processor that he
designed in the early sixties.
And for my next unsubstantiated rumour... Over Christmas I read the
autobiography of a German WWII fighter pilot called Ulrich Steinhilper
(sp?). In the `about the author' blurb it mentions that after the war
he joined IBM. It goes on to say that he was credited for the
creation of the WP concept.
I hope someone can flesh this out.
Rich Greenberg
>Everyone knows the history of Spreadsheets with VisiCalc, but what about
>wordprocessing? Who started the concept (with computers that is, don't
>talk about pencils and pens and such)?
Well, the concept preceeded the micro. I used SCRIPT, which was a standard
part of CMS under IBM's first virtual storage system, CP-67.
Terminals were ttys and 2741s. Time frame: early 70's.
This early WP has evolved into IBM's current DCF/GML product line.
--
Rich Greenberg Work: rm...@juts.ccc.amdahl.com 310-417-8999
N6LRT Play: ri...@hatch.socal.com 310-649-0238
What? Me speak for Amdahl? Surely you jest....
The One True Dave
>In article <417467...@inode.com>, jig1@inode writes:
>>Everyone knows the history of Spreadsheets with VisiCalc, but what about
>>wordprocessing? Who started the concept (with computers that is, don't
>>talk about pencils and pens and such)?
>
>Well, there was the Expensive Typewriter program on the PDP-1 at the MIT AI
>Lab, which used the Friden Flexowriter, c. 1960.
>
>Of course, wordprocessing was a separate domain from computing for much of its
>history, with things like IBM Magnetic-Tape Selectric Typewriters and Xerox
>Memorywriters, followed later by systems with CRTs and the like. Such things
>were used not only in offices, but by large metropolitan newspapers like the
>Chicago Tribune (which used a large DECsystem-10 based system for years).
I may be wrong (correct me if I am) but I do believe that word processing
as we know it started with Wang Labs in the late 60's/early 70's. Dr.
Wang apparently got tired of making programmable calculators and slipped
into the world of office minicomputers. His word processing program was
simply called "Wang Word Processing." In fact, I'm pretty certain that
was where the term came from. (The package was unique in that it was 99%
identical across the Wang line, and remains so to this day. If you used
Wang WP on a 2200, you can use it on one of the big virtual systems
(VS100?) or a PC. The look and feel, the menus and keystrokes, are all
the same.)
Just about everything before this, from what I understand, was text
editing, not word processing per se.
-Dave
(no .sig.)
Patrick Tufts
was also hardwired for BASIC - in fact, aside from I/O strobing
commands, there was no lower level than BASIC. The 2200 series was
around in 1973, possibly earlier. At the time, they were considered
mini-computers (cassette tape and ~8k or 16k of memory).
--Pat
Thomas G Schlatter
>
>Wang WP on a 2200, you can use it on one of the big virtual systems
>(VS100?) or a PC. The look and feel, the menus and keystrokes, are all
>the same.)
I believe their latest is the VS7000.
Anyone have any comments about Wang?
From what I'm told, they're great machines, produced by a
company that still thinks that people will go with the
proprietary lock-in at all levels.
Two of a friend's favorite acronyms for WANG (he works in a Wang shop):
We Are No Good
Wait And Never Get it
The One True Dave
Actually, proprietary lock-in is an IBM problem. There are some Wang
machines that run a superset of similar IBM machines (all the instructions
plus a few.) In fact, there were cases where code written on a Wang mini
would run on two different IBM machines, whereas code written on one
of the IBM machines wouldn't run on the other.
I don't know how, so don't ask. But it's true.
The VS-10000 is supposed to be coming out/is out. (Of course, as your
friend says, you'll probably wait and never get it.)
Wang builds a good machine, though. I have a Wang PC at home (382, that's
a 20mhz 386DX.) A bit old, but very reliable.
Lars Poulsen
>as we know it started with Wang Labs in the late 60's/early 70's. Dr.
>Wang apparently got tired of making programmable calculators and slipped
>into the world of office minicomputers. His word processing program was
>simply called "Wang Word Processing." In fact, I'm pretty certain that
>was where the term came from. (The package was unique in that it was 99%
>identical across the Wang line, and remains so to this day. If you used
>Wang WP on a 2200, you can use it on one of the big virtual systems
>(VS100?) or a PC. The look and feel, the menus and keystrokes, are all
>the same.)
My first experience with machine-readable documentation was the Univac
Exec-8 Operating System Programmer's Reference Manual (fondly known as
the PRM; I used to know the UP-xxxx number by heart). I got in touch
with this in late 1970, but it was not new then. (It was very poorly
done, in UPPER-CASE ONLY, SINCE THE NATIVE CHARACTERSET WAS 6-BIT
FIELDATA AND THE OFFICIAL COPY WAS OFFSET PRINTED OFF COPY PRINTED ON A
MISADJUSTED DRUM PRINTER.)
At that time, IBM had been producing manuals in SCRIBE for several
years, and the IBM 2741 Selectric Terminal was the industry standard
for what I believe IBM at that time called Text Processing.
I was working at the Copenhagen University Academic Computer Center
(RECKU, now part of UNI-C) and at the request of the biology department,
we installed terminal device drivers for the IBM 2741 and clones. In
1972, we upgraded the operating system, and the old driver did not work
anymore, so we wrote a new one. About 5000 lines of assembly language,
and worked very shortly after we got the new system to test on. At the
same time, the "Document Processor" formatting software, and the editor
became available in ASCII versions so we could write lower-case
documents.
In 1975 I moved to a small real-time integration house, and I missed the
document processor so bad that I re-implemented most of it in PDP-11
Fortran to do our project documentation on. The other programmer, as
well as the manager and our customers all thought that was pretty
strange.
In 1977 we took over the local distribution for Wang Labs, just as Wang
went from "programmable calculators" to "Word Processing", and it was a
flying start.
The WPS system had fairly little in common with any Wang system that
went before it. It was 8080-based, and used an appletalk-like LAN
interface between the terminal unit and the smart disk drive (file
server). Each workstation had its own port on the file server, and the
cabling was twin coax; one cable was BNC the other TNC to avoid getting
them crossed.
The 2200 system had terminals that were similar to the WPS workstations,
but were attached with regular RS-232, although they used 11-bit async
format in order to be incompatible with everybody else (8E1 format, I
think). When the VS family came out, it used the WPS workstation with a
relabeled keyboard as a data entry terminal.
Both the WPS and VS systems loaded the operating code into the
workstation at system boot time. Around 1979, the WPS option became
available for VS. When you started the WPS program, the system would
reload the workstation with the WPS program instead of the data entry
code, and run a program to emulate the WPS file server on the VS. Thus,
it was fairly trivial to achieve keystroke compatibility between the
systems.
The idea of reloading the workstation caught on, and was soon added to
the WPS system, which was then renamed the OIS (Office Information
System). To support the enhancement, the OIS had a larger processor (6
MHz Z80 ??) with several switchable memory banks. I think there were 3
different workstation loads: Word Processing, OIS Basic, and File System
Utilities. OIS Basic was dismal; there was no file or record locking,
and the documentation warned sharply against implementing anything
critical (such as business applications) on the system.
WPS for 2200 was a separate implementation; I think it was done by a 3rd
party and implemented completely in 2200 basic.
---
Fun stuff. Sometimes I miss it...
--
/ Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer Internet E-mail: la...@CMC.COM
CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l Telephone: +1-805-968-4262
Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083 TeleFAX: +1-805-968-8256
Paul M. Wexelblat
Can anybody date WordStar (no jokes please) I know the original
was done by J. R. Barnaby on an Imsai (I think) but don't
remember when; surely the first PC Word Processing Program.
--
...Wex
Daniel P. B. Smith
> I may be wrong (correct me if I am) but I do believe that word processing
>as we know it started with Wang Labs in the late 60's/early 70's.
Probably not. First, of all, I believe the term Word Processing was
actually invented by IBM. They certainly publicized it heavily in a series
of ads around 1974 or 1975. It included typewriters, I believe not just
mag-card selectrics but plain old correcting Selectrics.
In "Lessons," Dr. Wang writes that in 1974, "there were one or two
CRT-based word processor available. They were made by such companies as
AES and Vydec. Koplow and his team took a look at these machines but
did not see anything worthy of emulation."
Lars Poulsen's comments about Wang equipment are accurate. I'm not sure
it's fair to call the 928 interface "Appletalk-like," though. I do want
to stress the magnitude of the achievement the WPS and OIS represented.
It was basically client-server network computing, with a microcomputer
in every terminal. Another remarkable feature of the OIS was the WISE
networking system, basically a distributed file server. What's remarkable
was the incredible ease with which it could be installed, set up, and
maintained.
The WPS/OIS/Alliance line was more or less deliberately scuttled by
Wang Labs in the mid eighties, because they felt that profit margins were
higher on the VS, and the salespeople wanted to sell "real" computers
to corporate MIS types rather than "just word processors" to departments.
The combination of a VS emulating the OIS "master" (server) with
intelligent terminals meant that the VS was the ONLY minicomputer system
that could really support full-screen, interactive, high performance
word processing. The difference between a VAX trying to do all the work
itself and stuff characters through a 9600 bps bottleneck, and a VS
running WP, was really dramatic. But, unfortunately, because they'd
abandoned the base technology and weren't evolving it technically,
what started out perhaps five years ahead of its time became more
and more of an albatross around the company's neck.
For example, word processing was based on the Z80 processor, and this
was never changed or upgraded. By the end, if you attached a PC to
a VS to serve as a terminal, it had to include an add-in card with a
Z80 chip on it.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith
dpbs...@world.std.com
Daniel P. B. Smith
>Can anybody date WordStar (no jokes please) I know the original
>was done by J. R. Barnaby on an Imsai (I think) but don't
>remember when; surely the first PC Word Processing Program.
Hmmm... an Imsai? I wonder. The first microcomputer word processor I
ever heard about was Electric Pencil. "Fire in the Valley" attributes
it to Michael Shrayer and dates it at 1976.
By golly, "Fire in the Valley" says that Seymour Rubinstein left IMSAI
to found MicroPro, and its first products were SuperSort and WordMaster,
by "Rob Barnaby." "The second was a text editor that Barnaby had begun
working on while still at IMSAI." The release date for Word Master
seems to be September 1978 but it seems to have been just a text editor;
"MicroPro was inundated with requests for a word processor like
Electric Pencil. WordStar was the elaboration of WordMaster into an
actual word processor." They indicated it was released in mid-1979.
EasyWriter for the Apple ][ was another early product. Fire in the Valley
doesn't seem to have a date, but it was roughly contemporary with WordStar.
The first word processor for the IBM PC was definitely EasyWriter. It was
one of the product actually marketed by IBM, along with PC-DOS and
Visicalc. WordStar was distinctly later.
I remember an article or letter or something by Steve Wozniak, in
Softalk I think, probably circa 1980, in which he complains bitterly about
having tried all the [native-mode] word processors available for the Apple ][
and not finding any of them much good. "You have to go to CP/M [i.e. WordStar]
and that makes me mad." Peeling rated all the Apple WP programs at the time
and said, of WordStar, "this is the blow-away program." They recommended
it despite its high cost and the need to buy a Microsoft SoftCard add-in
to enable the Apple to run CP/M.
Juergen Nickelsen
M. Wexelblat) writes:
My memory is vague, but wasn't "Electric [or Electronic] Pencil" on
the Apple ][ the first word processing program on a PC?
--
Juergen Nickelsen
George Baltz
> My first experience with machine-readable documentation was the Univac
> Exec-8 Operating System Programmer's Reference Manual (fondly known as
> the PRM; I used to know the UP-xxxx number by heart). I got in touch
> with this in late 1970, but it was not new then. (It was very poorly
> done, in UPPER-CASE ONLY, SINCE THE NATIVE CHARACTERSET WAS 6-BIT
> FIELDATA AND THE OFFICIAL COPY WAS OFFSET PRINTED OFF COPY PRINTED ON A
> MISADJUSTED DRUM PRINTER.)
UP-4144, a number forever burned into my neurons. I even have an
original, upper-case only, hand-bound(glopped) copy of the '1108 OPERATING
SYSTEM EXEC PRM (VERSION 22.5)'! Unfortunately, there are no dates or OS
level references in it, so I can't date it precisely. If, however, the
22.5 refers to the OS level, then it would be 1968 or 69 - the earliest
System Memorandum is for Exec 26, from Sept 1970.
> At that time, IBM had been producing manuals in SCRIBE for several
> years, and the IBM 2741 Selectric Terminal was the industry standard
> for what I believe IBM at that time called Text Processing.
> I was working at the Copenhagen University Academic Computer Center
> (RECKU, now part of UNI-C) and at the request of the biology department,
> we installed terminal device drivers for the IBM 2741 and clones. In
> 1972, we upgraded the operating system, and the old driver did not work
> anymore, so we wrote a new one. About 5000 lines of assembly language,
> and worked very shortly after we got the new system to test on. At the
> same time, the "Document Processor" formatting software, and the editor
> became available in ASCII versions so we could write lower-case
> documents.
The SM announces the ASCII printer support for level 26. I think our
local ED did ASCII then, but most text was in FIELDDATA for many years.
> Fun stuff. Sometimes I miss it...
Me, too.....
--
George Baltz N3GB 301-405-3059 g...@n3gb.umd.edu
Captain (Emeritus), UMD Hors d'Oeuvres Team
Computer Science Center, U of Maryland "I got FREE checking at BCCI"
College Park, MD 20742-2411 - "Murphy Brown"
Keep poster happy...........grrrrr
Anders Thulin
>My memory is vague, but wasn't "Electric [or Electronic] Pencil" on
>the Apple ][ the first word processing program on a PC?
There are some signs there were some word processor even earlier.
In one of Omar Khayyam's quatrains we find a clear indication to
a very early release of Moving Finger:
The Moving finger writes, and having writ
moves on. Nor all thay piety nor wit
shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
(or something very close to that.)
Sounds like a rather bad beta release without any way to delete lines.
:-) of course.
--
Anders Thulin a...@linkoping.trab.se 013-23 55 32
Telia Research AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden