A look back: early word processing

What was your first word processor? For the younger generation, you might have grown up with Google Docs and saving all of your work in the “Cloud.” Others might have started in the 1990s or early 2000s with Microsoft Word on Windows. In the 1980s, you might have typed your first papers using MacWrite on Mac, but more likely you used a DOS word processor like WordPerfect or WordStar.

It’s easy to think that word processing has been around forever, but it was really the desktop PC that brought computers into the home and truly made them a personal computer. The Commodore PET (1977) and TRS-80 (1977) were among the first “personal computers,” but it was the Apple II (1977) and IBM PC (1981) that truly delivered on the promise of a computer in every home.

In the late 1970s, the personal computer was still quite new, as was the concept of a desktop word processor. The ability to manipulate words on a screen was a novel concept, as host Luke Casey explains in this 11-minute BBC News production from 1979, asking “will word processors start a home working revolution?” It’s an interesting look back to see how far the word processor has come.