"FIRST"??!? (Was: word processor history -- interesting article

Fred Cisin cisin at xenosoft.com
Wed Jul 6 16:13:30 CDT 2016


jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu writes:
> Depends what you mean by "word processor". If you mean 'software 
> intended to format text', you need to look back to things like TJ2:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TJ-2
> and 'runoff', both circa 1963. Much  earlier than any of the 'word
> processors'
> this person wrote  about.

On Wed, 6 Jul 2016, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote:
> Many people used   program editors to write  articles and  books in the
> early days! Myself included...  Ed#

EXACTLY.
THAT article is writing about the "first"
well known (that he knew of),
best-selling author
to use a "home computer" for word processing,
to write a published,
best selling book.

AND be publicized for doing so, since merely submitting a manuscript 
doesn't count once the publisher has re-typed it, nor would anybody know 
about it.

So, who would be the "first" to meet that author's criteria?


In 1969, at Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Bldg 26) had cow-
orkers using Selectric terminals on timesharing to do text editing,
but I don't think that any of them ever got published.
In late 1971, I knew a guy using a Silent 700, acoustic coupled to 
who-knows-where.  But, the lower case was so bad, that it needed to be 
printed out on something else before showing his work to anybody.



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