Summary: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?

[Zane Healy]

On Dec 2, 2014, at 6:29 AM, Mark Wickens <mark at wickensonline.co.uk> wrote:

> Jacob, I went along a similar journey with VAX to find a terminal based
> word processor. I used ALLIN1 back in the day so knew that was a
> possibility - the word processing module is a successor of WPS-8 called
> WPS-PLUS - this was a stand-alone application for a while before ALLIN1
> came along.

I've not gotten either of these running on my VMS systems.  I should have a GUI based app running on my Alpha, but have mainly used DECdocument.  DECdocument is what all the VMS documentation was written in, and is another programming language type solution.

> What I have found is that terminal based word processing software is pretty
> thin on the ground across the board. The other alternative I've played with
> is WordPerfect for Unix. I have that running on a Sun Ultra 5 under Solaris
> 2.9 - there is both a graphical and command line executable. Others have
> tried to find similar software - a word processor you can telnet to
> effectively - but there isn't a great deal out there.

WordPerfect was available for VMS, but I've never seen an install kit in the wild.  I know it was available on the VAX, not sure about Alpha, and I'm pretty sure it didn't make it to Itanium.

I'm sure there are plenty of obscure solutions on both the PDP-11 and VMS sides, the problem is the companies that made them no longer exist, and in most cases the software itself likely no longer exists.

Speaking of obscure solutions.  I rather liked MUSE under VulcanOS on Harris minicomputers.  I used that a *LOT* in the late 80's.

Zane