Kemners Surplus - Real time walkthrough

[Chuck Guzis]

On 2/18/19 2:31 PM, TeoZ wrote:
> I passed on mint complete word processors at a recyclers ages ago
> because I had no use for them. I almost picked up a huge IBM typewriter
> but changed my mind.
> Everybody has limited space so we try not to fill it with things way
> outside of our normal collecting. If anything I regret not grabbing some
> terminals when I had the chance.
> 
> I guess if you are in the business of reading old word processing
> floppies with proprietary formats then snagging a few machines might be
> worth it.

WuPros are interesting from the standpoint that their reign was
comparatively brief, barely more than a decade.  After the IBM PC
arrived, they were pretty much history--but even before that, the 8-bit
personal systems could meet perhaps 90% of a company's word processing
workload.

By the time that graphic-interface operating systems were available
(e.g. MacOS, Windows), WPs were a quaint throwback.

The very low-end word processors (most notably Brother) hung on for
awhile longer, aimed to the computer-phobic crowd--or those who wanted a
little more than a smart typewriter.  By about 1995, anyone with a
moderately powerful personal system could out-perform an expensive
document preparation package on a high-end workstation.  You too, could
have beautiful typefaces and formatting, complete with grammar and
spelling errors.

I can remember sitting in discussions about "killer apps" (they may have
not been called that), but word processing, spreadsheet and the basic
accounting (AP, AR, GL, Payroll and Inventory) suite were essentially
the way you sold a business computer.

--Chuck