Remembering the Office of the Future: The Origins of Word Processing and Office Automation
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Remembering the Office of the Future:
The Origins of Word Processing
and Office Automation
Thomas Haigh
University of Wisconsin
Word processing entered the American office in 1970 as an idea
about reorganizing typists, but its meaning soon shifted to describe
computerized text editing. The designers of word processing systems
combined existing technologies to exploit the falling costs of
interactive computing, creating a new business quite separate from
the emerging world of the personal computer.
Most people first experienced word processing using a word processor, we think of a software
as an application of the personal computer. package, such as Microsoft Word. However, in
During the 1980s, word processing rivaled and the early 1970s, when the idea of word process-
eventually overtook spreadsheet creation as the ing first gained prominence, it referred to a new
most widespread business application for per- way of organizing work: an ideal of centralizing
sonal computers.1 By the end of that decade, the typing and transcription in the hands of spe-
typewriter had been banished to the corner of cialists equipped with technologies such as auto-
most offices, used only to fill out forms and matic typewriters. The word processing concept
address envelopes. By the early 1990s, high-qual- was promoted by IBM to present its typewriter
ity printers and powerful personal computers and dictating machine division as a comple-
were a fixture in middle-class American house- ment to its “data processing” business. Within
holds. Email, which emerged as another key the word processing center, automatic typewriters
application for personal computers with the and dictating machines were rechristened word
spread of the Internet in the mid-1990s, essen- processing machines, to be operated by word
tially extended word processing technology to processing operators rather than secretaries or
electronic message transmission. To the casual stenographers. Quickly, however, the term
observer, word processing might thus appear to acquired a more specialized meaning to refer
be among the most creative and important appli- almost exclusively to computerized text editing
cations originated by the personal computer. systems aimed at office applications.
But in fact word processing was already the Computerized word processing does not fit
center of a thriving industry well before the the conventional concept of a distinct inven-
personal computer gained general acceptance tion, attributable to a particular time, place, and
in business. Historians have not yet explored brilliant mind. The creation of a distinct market
word processing’s development, and so to pro- for computerized word processing systems dur-
vide a rounded treatment, I examine the story ing the early 1970s was more a matter of repack-
from multiple perspectives. I review the con- aging, integrating, and marketing technologies
ceptual development of word processing and already devised for different purposes. Word
office automation; the development of word processing software’s core technical capabilities
processing’s constituent hardware and software were taken from text editors, used to manipu-
technologies; the relationship of word process- late program code on time-sharing computer
ing to changes in the organization of office systems since the 1960s. Word processing sys-
work; and the business history of the word pro- tems also drew on techniques in a number of
cessing industry. broader, longer established fields in which com-
puters were used to store, retrieve, index, and
Word processing: Overview format textual information.
Word processing’s origins are complex and During the 1970s, the falling cost of inter-
various: Consider the genesis of the term word active computer access made it practical to
processing. Today, when someone talks about apply the same techniques to ordinary admin-
6 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Published by the IEEE Computer Society 1058-6180/06/$20.00 © 2006 IEEEistrative work, meaning that word processing’s
invention as a new computer application was
more a matter of marketing than of any software
breakthrough. During the 1970s, the first wide-
ly used computerized word processing systems
were not application programs for general-
purpose personal computers but minicomputer-
based systems and special-purpose computer
packages dedicated to clerical work. By the end
of the 1970s, when someone spoke of purchas-
ing a “word processor,” he or she would have
most likely been referring to a specialized com-
puter system such as Wang Labs’ Word
Processing System. Only later did people begin
to assume that a word processor was a program
rather than a machine. Figure 1. Steinhilper’s chart, which he claims to
By the late 1970s, the computer industry was have devised in 1955, reflects his original sense of
promoting a new vision—office automation— word processing as a concept that would put
of which word processing was just a small part. IBM’s Office Products Division on an equal footing
The most advanced word processing systems of with its Data Processing Division. (Courtesy of
the early 1980s, such as the famous-in-retro- Ulrich Steinhilper.)
spect Xerox Star, were created not as self-con-
tained applications for stand-alone personal tion of personal computers in the early 1980s
computers but as office automation systems for triggered a 10-year detour away from the net-
networked workstations. In the paperless office worked office model being promoted by the
of the future, a multifunction networked work- leading office automation equipment suppliers
station with word processing, email, and graph- of the period. In a pair of articles elsewhere in
ical and voice capabilities would sit on the desks this issue, Tim Bergin details the history of per-
of every manager and every professional. sonal computer word processing packages; con-
I argue that office automation represented a sequently, my analysis here is confined to a
decisive break with the earlier concept of word sketch comparing their abilities with those of
processing, based as it was on the segregation earlier specialized systems.
of document preparation in the hands of spe-
cialist clerical workers. However, office automa- Invention of word processing
tion ran into technological, economic, and The phrase word processing was nowhere to
social problems. Workstations were expensive, be found in 1960s office management or com-
while managers and professionals proved a puting literatures, though many of the ideas,
more elusive target than typists for office effi- products, and technologies to which it would
ciency experts. These systems were not widely later be applied were already well known. By
adopted, but the broader vision of the elec- 1972, however, discussion of word processing
tronic office they represented was eventually was common in publications devoted to office
realized when personal computer hardware and management and technology, and by the mid-
software matured in the mid-1990s. 1970s the term would have been familiar to
Instead of adopting specialist office work- any manager who regularly consulted general-
stations, most companies gradually shifted interest business periodicals. Word processing
from word processing systems to stand-alone paralleled the more general data processing,
personal computers. These spread word pro- which since the 1950s had been the standard
cessing power more broadly, shifting editing term used to describe the application of com-
work from word processing centers into the puters to business administration.2
hands of department secretaries and, increas- Coinage of word processing is usually attributed
ingly, of managerial and professional workers. to Ulrich Steinhilper, a German IBM typewriter
Far from breaking new technical ground, the sales executive. In his memoir, Steinhilper wrote
leading personal-computer word processing that he devised the concept in the mid-1950s
programs of the late 1970s and 1980s—such as and promoted it for many years within IBM’s
EasyWriter, WordStar, and MultiMate—merely Office Products Division. He submitted the dia-
gave an increasingly good imitation of the gram shown in Figure 1 to IBM’s internal sug-
more expensive and capable special-purpose gestion program, receiving just 25 Deutsch
systems. From this perspective, the prolifera- Marks and a reply that the idea was “too com-
October–December 2006 7Remembering the Office of the Future
plicated to explain.” According to Steinhilper, lished a bimonthly magazine-within-a-maga-
the term finally caught on after he used it in a zine devoted to word processing, its publishers
1966 speech to senior Office Products Division launched a separate twice-monthly newslet-
managers gathered at the Miami meeting of the ter—Word Processing Reports—to spread news of
Hundred Percent Club of successful IBM sales- developments in the field, and its editor, Walter
people where he lobbied, unsuccessfully, for A. Kleinschrod, published a small book on the
Word Processing as a new name for the entire subject in conjunction with the American
Office Products Division. In 1971, once the con- Management Association.5 Other publications
cept finally gained traction, Steinhilper was rushed to offer their own reports on the new
awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award field, and within a few months, a cluster of
and a trip around the world for having conferences, organizations, and consulting
authored and promoted it. It had particular operations had grown up devoted to word
appeal to typewriter salespeople within IBM as a processing.6 The public’s exposure to the con-
linguistic means of putting the Office Products cept of word processing took place almost
Division (formerly the Electric Typewriter simultaneously with the spread of the then-
Division) on a more equal basis with the mighty novel term food processor, a term introduced to
Data Processing Division. The word processing the US in 1973 by Cuisinart to describe a mul-
concept cast the two groups as responsible for tifunctional kitchen device able to chop, blend,
different, but equally important-sounding, and mix.7
kinds of business processing. Steinhilper recalls But what was word processing? Administrative
that its genesis came when he realized that Management set the pattern for the next few
years by defining word processing as a general
We could confidently state that IBM, with its DP approach to the reorganization of clerical work
division, assisted in many ways in the processing around new and emerging technologies. In its
of pages containing data, but could we say the earliest days, the concept of word processing
same for the written word? Shouldn’t we now, I did not refer exclusively, or even primarily, to
asked, not also follow in the same direction with the use of full-screen video text editing.
the Electric Typewriter Division?3 Advocates focused on a human rather than a
technological goal. They sought to eliminate
The first sustained public attempt to pro- the practice of supplying individual managers
mote the idea of word processing to a broad or small work groups with their own “general-
American audience came in the minor office purpose secretaries” responsible for tasks rang-
management and office equipment trade pub- ing from filing and answering the telephone to
lication Administrative Management. In June making coffee and sorting the mail. In his
1970 it published a short article on a new word book, Kleinschrod quoted findings that such
processing center at Auburn University, which women might spend just 2 percent of their
had been “working closely with the local IBM time taking dictation and 19 percent of it typ-
representative” to centralize typing and dictat- ing and proofing documents. This meant that
ing operations. This may have been the earliest “her typing may not necessarily be all that
mention of word processing in the American good,” that “it’s very hard to establish proce-
press. In December 1970, it ran a feature article dures and controls over what she does,” and
on automatic typing systems that included the that she would spend much of her time sitting
following definition: around waiting for something to do.5
The traditional secretary was seen as the
“Word processing,” a concept that combines the enemy of efficiency. The solution was to move all
dictating and typing functions into a centralized typing and dictation work to a centralized word
system, is replacing the one-man, one-secretary, processing center, where it could be handled by
one-typewriter idea in a growing number of highly skilled, specialized typists and stenogra-
firms. By organizing the flow of office corre- phers doing nothing but typing and transcrip-
spondence on a more efficient basis, word pro- tion all day, using the most advanced equipment
cessing is becoming to typing what Henry Ford’s available. Kleinschrod suggested that a word pro-
assembly line was to the original methods used cessing center might achieve “a speedup from
for automobile making.4 500 to 1000 percent” provided that “the place is
properly supervised [with] good methods, con-
Then in June 1971, Administrative Management trols and standards.”8 He recommended
devoted a special 32-page section to the new
concept. Administrative Management continued a formalized work-measurement, work standards
to heavily promote word processing. It pub- program. This involves the familiar techniques
8 IEEE Annals of the History of Computingof task analysis, methods-time measurement, This sense of word processing as a broad
standard allowed hours—techniques long used approach, including a variety of specific tech-
in the factory and in certain clerical areas and nologies, typified the early 1970s. IBM liked to
now being expanded to encompass WP.8 apply the term to as many of its office products
as possible. In the same 1971 Administrative
The technologies of early word Management issue, an advertisement (see Figure
processing 2 next page) from IBM’s Office Products Division
Although word processing was primarily a suggested that its “range of word processing
managerial rather than a technological con- machines” included dictating machines, type-
cept, its sudden popularity owed much to a writers, and copiers.11 According to one IBM
growing sense in the early 1970s that technol- document, the next year the Office Products
ogy was about to transform the office. Because Division “announced that all of its dictating
the new technology was bound to be compli- equipment would be known as ‘input process-
cated and expensive, this appeared to support ing equipment’ since the term better describes
the idea that clerical work would have to be the equipment’s function within the total word
specialized and centralized to take full advan- processing concept.”12 A 1974 report noted that
tage of its potential. Early news stories on word the division was “calling virtually everything it
processing liked to point out that each factory makes a piece of word processing equipment—
worker was responsible for an average of from a dictating machine on up to an office
$25,000 worth of equipment, whereas the poor copier.”13 Although dictating machines gradu-
clerical worker had only $2,000 worth of capi- ally slipped from definitions of word processing,
talization behind her.9 Thus, the stories discussion of word processing equipment con-
claimed, rising office labor costs reflected a fail- tinued to include electronic typewriters and
ure to invest. other devices without large video displays well
An Administrative Management editorial in into the 1980s.14
January 1970 set the tone: “By the end of the Automatic typewriters were already a famil-
1970s,” it suggested, “we should have climbed iar office technology by the 1970s. They cou-
out of the Gutenberg rut. Paper—memos, letters pled a typewriter mechanism with an automatic
and other business forms—will have been control unit. The technology received its first
replaced to a large extent by electronic commu- widespread use in printing telegraphs, where a
nications devices.” This bold claim was based on message entered on a keyboard was printed on
the potential of dictating machines, calculators, a typewriter mechanism hundreds of miles
and microfilm, rather than any clearly articulat- away. One of the first automatic typewriters
ed expectations for the use of computers in the intended for clerical use, the 1917 Hoven
office. However, the author did anticipate com- Automatic Typewriter, used a wide tape roll and
puterized word processing with the rather vague a mechanism modeled on a player piano to
prediction that “[t]ypewriters will continue to type up to 130 words a minute.15 These
become more automated. They will be hooked machines were useful when preparing letters
into a growing number of [electronic data pro- that included a mix of standard paragraphs
cessing] systems.” 10 with individualized elements. Other models
Two technologies were particularly associat- gradually appeared, including the pneumatic
ed with word processing: dictating machines 1935 Robotyper.
and automatic typewriters. In its seminal 1971 The 1950s saw widespread use of a more
special issue, Administrative Management includ- compact breed of automatic typewriter driven
ed feature articles on both. “System Stage 1: by six-track paper tapes, such as the Friden
Dictating Machines Sound Off Four Ways” Flexowriter. Although Flexowriters are best
reviewed developments in dictating technolo- remembered today in their role as I/O devices
gy. Technological advancements in dictating for many early computers or as terminals for
technology meant that desktop (and even corporate communication networks, they could
handheld) cassette machines were common by also be used in a freestanding mode to record
the early 1970s, but word processing advocates and play back text typed on the keyboard.
were particularly excited by the ability of cen- In 1964, IBM’s Electric Typewriter Division
tralized systems, hooked into telephone switch- introduced the IBM MT/ST or “Magnetic Tape
boards, to provide a “continuous flow” of ‘Selectric’ Typewriter”. This machine coupled a
material from executive desks to busy tran- Selectric or “golf-ball” typewriter with a bulky
scribers. “System Stage II: Automatic Typing cabinet holding an electronic control mecha-
and Text Editing Devices” concerned itself with nism that recorded keystrokes onto magnetic
automatic typewriters. tape cassettes. Each tape could store 28,000
October–December 2006 9Remembering the Office of the Future
Figure 2. This 1971 IBM advertisement was one of the first to reflect the adoption of the phrase “word processing machines”
by its Office Products Division as a new term for its dictation equipment, automatic typewriters, and copiers. (Courtesy of
IBM Archives.)
characters. One novel feature was the ability to although this could be overcome by linking
insert special codes on the tape to mark the two machines together to copy the document
start and end points of standard blocks of text. from one tape to another, up to the point
The biggest advance, however, came in its abil- where editing was required. Things improved
ity to correct simple typing mistakes. When a with the MT/ST Mark IV, which merged two
mistake was made, the operator would simply tape drives into a single unit to make editing
backspace the typewriter and retype the correct easier and to automate mail-merge operations
text over the error. This left a mess on the (one tape would hold the outline of a standard
paper, but after finishing the page the operator letter and the other a list of names and other
would insert a blank sheet and wait, as the data to be inserted into personalized copies of
machine rewound the tape and retyped the the letter).
corrected version at the rate of about 175 words Another Selectric, the MC/ST (Magnetic
a minute. The operator needed several months’ Card/Selectric Typewriter), introduced in 1969,
experience and had to learn many special con- used small magnetic cards with a capacity of
trol sequences to become fully productive. The 5,000 characters. Neither model was particu-
term power typing was often used to describe larly cheap—in 1972, the tape version sold for
this new, more flexible kind of automatic typ- $7,875 and the card version for $7,150 (though
ing.16 The machines were also sometimes called many customers preferred to rent rather than
editing typewriters. buy). A more expensive machine, the MT/SC or
When the first word processing centers were “composer,” could take the MT/ST tape and
established in the early 1970s, most relied on output it using proportionally spaced letters
IBM MT/ST machines. As a text editor, the and other then-novel formatting options.
MT/ST had some flaws. In particular, it was Because the Selectric typewriter mechanism
hard to edit text once it was recorded on tape, was widely available, many IBM competitors
10 IEEE Annals of the History of Computingused it as the core of their own competitive 1920s.21 That movement, in turn, was inspired
automatic typing systems.17 by Frederick W. Taylor’s Principles of Scientific
Management.22 The basic idea had changed lit-
Early word processing in practice tle over 60 years: the office would work most
Enthusiasts depicted word processing centers efficiently when it resembled a factory in which
as good news for operators, who could now workers were paid on a piece work or incentive
upgrade their typing skills and earn more bonus basis to perform highly specialized and
money, and for the surviving secretaries, or—as repetitive tasks, slavishly following the optimal
some thought they should now be called, once work procedures designed by experts. Expensive
freed from typing and transcription duties— technology, scientific management adherents
“administrative support” specialists. Business believed, could be justified only when com-
Automation, a leading trade magazine for busi- bined with a fundamental redesign of work pro-
ness computer users, claimed in 1972 that cedures to optimize their effectiveness.
Indeed, the prescriptions made by word pro-
[t]he personal relationship of bosses and secre- cessing experts of the early 1970s were identical
taries will be changed through the elimination to those made by office management experts of
of dictation and typing as we know it today. the 1910s with respect to an early generation of
Secretarial duties will change greatly as tran- dictating machines. Both insisted true business
scription of dictation and the production of let- benefits of the new technology would come pri-
ters and documents is shunted more and more marily from work centralization and specializa-
into a central word-processing center, freeing the tion that the new machines would demand.
secretary of much present-day typing drudgery.18 Back in the 1920s, William Henry Leffingwell
(often called the “father of scientific office man-
These ideas were common in early discussions agement”) had hailed the dictating machine as
of word processing. The New York Times first an invention with the power to revolutionize
reported on the idea in October 1971, suggesting the office. He seized on it to justify the elimina-
that word processing had been the new buzz- tion of shorthand stenography and in-person
word at the Business Equipment Manufacturer’s dictation, and its replacement with a central-
Association trade show. Under a picture of IBM’s ized pool of typists who would handle a con-
latest automatic typewriter, the Times defined stant stream of wax recording cylinders
word processing as “the use of electronic equip- delivered by messenger boys.23 This would cen-
ment, such as typewriters; procedures, and tralize work in the hands of specialists, who
trained personnel to maximize office efficiency.” could be monitored and paid on a production
The paper also suggested that this could be the bonus system—exactly the objectives espoused
“answer to Women’s Lib advocates’ prayers” 50 years later by word processing experts.
because it would eliminate traditional secre- In reality, the word processing center suf-
taries.19 The same month, a Chicago Tribune report fered from many of the same disadvantages as
gave a similar definition, opening with the claim the centralized dictating pool of a half-centu-
that “Women’s Liberation has hit the technolo- ry before. In response to its first coverage of
gy field in the guise of a new theory called ‘word the topic, Business Automation published a let-
processing.’” The report, which relied heavily on ter written by a word processor operator from
quotations from IBM managers, suggested that Evanston, Illinois, identified only as “D.W.”
“The basic unit of word processing is the IBM She complained about her physical condi-
Selectric typewriter, adapted to magnetic tape,” tions: MC/ST machines were noisy and the
that “the other mandatory tool” was a centralized word-processor staff spent their entire work-
dictating system connected to telephones, and ing day in cramped conditions looking direct-
that putting secretaries into a typing pool not ly at a wall. But her bigger complaints were
only boosted productivity but also meant the cultural. She was paid the lowest salary in the
women were given higher salaries with “more office and cut off from its social life, writing
responsibility, less pressure.”20 that “the people in the office regard those of
Nothing about the idea of centralizing typ- us who run the machines as part of the
ing and dictation was novel, except for the machines rather than as human beings like
name—word processing—itself. Advocates of themselves!” Early reports claimed that the
word processing, such as Administrative shift to word processing reduced employee
Management magazine and the American turnover, but D.W. disagreed. The work
Management Association, were part of a com- required people who were good typists, could
munity we can trace back to the scientific office spell, and would not become bored—a combi-
management movement of the 1910s and nation she found rare. “Word processing
October–December 2006 11Remembering the Office of the Future
advances in the packaging and application of
existing technologies.
What we would now think To understand how this occurred, and
where the technologies of computerized word
of as word processing processing came from, we must step back in
time to explore a parallel history dating to the
technology has a separate computer industry’s early days in the 1950s.
The sudden emergence of computerized word
history from the concept of processing in the office was made possible by a
far more gradual evolution in computerized
word processing. text manipulation. From a business viewpoint,
computerized word processing was invented in
the 1970s. From a technology viewpoint, how-
removes nearly all of the remaining rewards of ever, word processing’s various capabilities had
secretarial work. ... In the last year two-thirds all been demonstrated by the end of the 1950s
of the word processing personnel in my office (though not all in the same system): displaying
have left.” She was particularly prescient in text on a video screen, storing text for easy
her suggestion that the new technology would retrieval on a tape or disk, printing formatted
trigger endless rewrites, dashing hopes for text on a printer within established margins,
paper savings.24 IBM’s early attempts to pres- numbering pages, editing text by inserting or
ent centralized word processing centers as a deleting characters, and applying operations
breakthrough for feminism do not appear to such as search and replace.
have resonated with the women involved, Even in the 1950s, processing letters as well
however successful they initially were in grab- as numbers was not in the least novel.
bing newspaper headlines.25 Admittedly, the first programmable computers,
such as the Harvard Mark I and the ENIAC,
Computerized word processing: were designed with numbers rather than letters
Technical roots in mind. But the nature of the stored-program
The original sense of word processing to digital computer as a general-purpose proces-
mean a centralized pool of typewriter and dic- sor of encoded symbols meant that storing and
tating machine operators to boost clerical pro- manipulating a string of letters was scarcely dif-
ductivity is now long forgotten. But, as we have ferent from manipulating and storing a string
seen, when word processing first gained popu- of numbers. Getting letters in and out of a com-
larity in 1971, no companies were promoting puter was not a problem: punched card
computers as general-purpose text editing sys- machines had added letters to their repertoire
tems suitable for routine office work. The devel- in the 1930s, and teletype machines could also
opment of what we would now think of as handle textual input and store messages on
word processing technology, the use of com- paper tape.
puters to manipulate text, has a separate histo- Early systems followed the lead of teletype
ry from the concept of word processing. Only machines in using just 6 bits of memory to
in the mid-1970s did people start to associate store each character, restricting systems to
computers with word processing, and by late uppercase letters and a handful of punctuation
1970s this was perhaps the fastest growing and characters.26 By the 1960s, however, the
most fiercely contested segment of the entire EBCDIC coding scheme created by IBM for its
computer industry. This was not the result of System 360 machines and the ASCII standard
any single conceptual breakthrough or techni- favored by much of the rest of the industry
cal innovation. Rather, computerized word pro- gave computer equipment an easy way to han-
cessing was the recombination of existing dle the full range of English characters in both
technological capabilities, prompted by long- upper- and lowercase and a full range of punc-
term declines in the cost of computer memory, tuation marks.27
disk storage, and processor power and a general Computers thus had no absolute technical
shift toward distributed and interactive systems barriers preventing them from reading, analyz-
based on minicomputer and microprocessor ing, and printing text. However, this capabili-
technologies. Unlike some other breakthroughs ty was never applied to general-purpose office
in computer applications, such as the spread- work. It then seemed no more sensible to use a
sheet or relational database, the word proces- computer to edit than to travel to the shopping
sor was the historically inevitable result of mall in a supersonic fighter jet. Only the plum-
dozens of minor and largely anonymous meting cost of interactive computing could
12 IEEE Annals of the History of Computingturn an absurd luxury into an expensive tool processing capabilities such as search and
with economic justifications in specialized replace, and even indexing, were just special-
fields, and eventually into an inexpensive office ized applications of these techniques.
commonplace. The business data-processing Computerized word processing systems
applications of the 1950s and 1960s squeezed made it possible to store entire documents on
textual information into rigidly defined and disk and retrieve them as needed. Again, this
rather short fields such as “title” or “last name,” capability was not novel, but had previously
each corresponding to particular groups of been too expensive to apply to office corre-
columns on the punched input card. These spondence. Information retrieval grew as a
would show up in the appropriate places on research area alongside the computer’s spread
paychecks, invoices, and printed reports. This during the 1950s and 1960s. While the term
parsimony in text handling and storage is hard- was also applied to systems based on punched
ly surprising. Computer time was expensive, cards, microfilm, and other technologies, by
and space on disk drives and magnetic drums the late 1960s a number of online computer
was limited. systems were being created to manage large
volumes of text for corporations or govern-
Early text processing ment agencies with significant money to
Some specialized text processing applica- spend. These systems, used interactively
tions did develop during the 1950s and 1960s, through teletype terminals, were usually
generally where one or both of the following restricted to the retrieval of abstracts or cita-
conditions were met. First, the application tions based on user-provided keywords. Among
involved much analysis and manipulation of the best known were the Dialog system (created
the encoded text, rather than simply storing or for NASA by Lockheed) and the Orbit system
editing it. Second, those involved had access produced by the System Development
either to a vast amount of money or to com- Corporation (SDC).
puter facilities they were not required to pay for. Time-sharing services made it possible to sell
A key feature of word processing systems, remote access to text retrieval systems. The
the automatic manipulation of text (literally, Lexis database, launched commercially in
the processing of words), was pioneered in 1973, offered full-text retrieval from a collec-
other systems early in the history of digital tion of more than two billion characters of
computing. During the early 1950s, the legal and tax rulings. This service targeted two
machine translation of natural languages was of the few groups able to support the huge costs
viewed as a promising area of research. This, of involved: lawyers and tax professionals. A min-
course, involved storing, processing, and print- imum subscription of $2,500 a month in 1974
ing documents, although as a necessary pre- helped make Lexis the first major commercial
liminary step rather than an end in itself. In success in online text storage and retrieval.31
1954, IBM demonstrated a working, if highly
limited, system able to translate a small num- Enter the text editor
ber of technical phrases.28 Although further The direct technological ancestor of the
progress was disappointing, this was the first word processing program was the text editor.
widely publicized application of the computer In contrast to high-margin applications like
to natural-language text processing. Also dur- Lexis, simply storing and editing ordinary doc-
ing the 1950s, the widespread adoption of uments such as letters and manuals showed lit-
assemblers and, from 1957, of high-level lan- tle commercial value as an application for
guages such as Fortran made the automatic expensive computer time. Nevertheless, text
parsing of computer languages a more success- editing applications seemed to surface with
ful kind of text processing.29 some rapidity whenever creative programmers
One of the best-known early applications of were given unrestricted interactive access to a
text processing was the analysis of literary texts. computer. The reason for this is straightfor-
From the 1950s on, computers were used to ward: programmers write programs, program
cross-reference the occurrences of phrases with- source files are text, and—given the chance—
in texts and to develop numerical descriptions most programmers would rather use a terminal
of the prose styles associated with particular to enter the code directly into the system rather
authors, shedding new light on long-running than wait for it to be punched onto a paper
disputes over biblical and Shakespearean texts. card for batch input. Eventually, interactive-
Specialized “string processing” programming computing costs dropped sufficiently to make
languages, most notably Snobol variants, interactive editing of the kind pioneered by
emerged to aid textual applications.30 Word programmers feasible for office work.
October–December 2006 13Remembering the Office of the Future
The core functions of a text editor are iden- research centers during the mid-1960s. Most
tical to those of a word processor: text must be systems let programmers enter and edit source
entered, manipulated, saved, and processed. code using a teletype unit. This code was saved,
Text editors are not simply precursors to word at least temporarily, on a disk or drum for input
processors but an earlier and continuing appli- directly into a compiler or assembler. This
cation of the same technologies for a different meant that any useful time-sharing system
purpose. By the early 1970s, the most advanced required a text editor, and each major time-
text editors offered interactive full-screen video sharing research group appears to have pro-
editing of text, search and replace, edit files too duced more than one.
large to fit in the computer’s available core A memo MIT’s John McCarthy had written in
memory, and most of the other key features of 1959, proposing the construction of the first
later word processing software. time-sharing system, identified compelling
The main difference between the two in advantages of the new approach: interactive
terms of core functionality is that word proces- debugging and the abilities to “write the pro-
sors usually add greater control over the for- gram in source language directly into the com-
matting of printed output because their output puter” and to “check out a program directly after
is intended for humans rather than computers. writing it.”35 In 1962, the first published paper to
But the key distinction is more cultural than describe a working time-sharing system includ-
technical: text editors are used by programmers ed discussion of its text editing abilities.36 The
to write programs and edit system files; word finished version of this system, the Compatible
processors are used by everyone else to do Timesharing System for the IBM 7094, included
everything else. both Typset, an editor, and Runoff, a program to
Among the first programmers free to experi- output and justify text files. At SDC in Santa
ment with online text editing were the young Monica, California, another center of time-shar-
computer enthusiasts of Massachusetts Institute ing innovation during the early 1960s, pro-
of Technology, memorably chronicled by Steven grammers created an editor called Edtext.
Levy in Hackers.32 In the early 1960s, they found Online text editing spread beyond the labo-
themselves in the almost unique position of ratory, along with time-sharing. QED, among
having direct use of a reasonably powerful com- the most influential of the early text editors,
puter, the first production model of the DEC was developed during the mid-1960s by Butler
(Digital Equipment Corporation) PDP-1, with- Lampson and Peter Deutsch for the SDS 940
out having to worry about paying for or justify- computer at the University of California,
ing their time on it. Among the many novel or Berkeley.37 Like other editors of the period, it
quirky programs they created was Expensive was designed for use with teletype systems rather
Typewriter, written by Steve Piner. It made seem- than video displays, meaning that each line in
ingly profligate use of the computer to achieve the document was numbered, and users typed
basic text-editing capabilities and ease prepara- commands to print, delete, move, or edit parts
tion of programs stored on paper tape.33 MIT of the document. To edit a file, the user would
computer scientist John McCarthy wrote anoth- select a particular line and then specify the
er editor, Colossal Typewriter, for the same required changes. QED boasted some impressive
machine. Another program, TJ-2, could format features including search and replace, multiple
a text file to fit a page with margins and justifi- buffers between which text could be copied (giv-
cation, sending output either to a tape or direct- ing capabilities similar to those we think of today
ly to a teletype. Although it did not allow as cut and paste), and the ability to label blocks
onscreen text editing, it did use the PDP-1’s vec- of text for easy reference. QED spread widely, in
tor screen to display candidate words for auto- part because Berkeley’s system provided the fun-
matic hyphenation, which the user could damental technology for two of the earliest com-
manipulate with a light pen.34 mercial timesharing services, Comshare and
Few computer users of the 1960s could hope Tymshare. Tymshare, for example, used an
to tie up a whole computer while they edited a improved version of QED called Editor.
program. However, time-sharing operating sys- When we think of a word processor now, we
tems lowered the cost of interactive computing tend to assume that it includes a video screen
and thus spread online text editing somewhat showing many lines of text, around which the
more widely. These allowed several users to user can move a cursor to insert or edit materi-
simultaneously access a single computer, each al. Like interactive text editing in general, inter-
using a teletype unit to control the computer active text editing on video screens was applied
and run programs. Time-sharing systems to the editing of computer source code some
became increasingly popular in computing years before it was widely used for office work.
14 IEEE Annals of the History of ComputingWith the spread of more powerful video screen application of Unix was the formatting of
terminals during the 1970s, editors acquired patent documents. Unix tools were used in Bell
full screen or screen oriented capabilities. This Labs to produce large technical manuals direct-
meant that users could move the cursor to any ly on phototypesetting hardware, and soon
line on the screen and edit, insert, or replace found a broader audience. A 1981 survey called
the text already there. the troff/nroff combination “probably the most
The editors discussed earlier were all line edi- widely used text formatters in the world.”41
tors, designed to work with teletype systems. Text formatting systems based on embedded
These could be used with any kind of terminal, control codes were widely used in the publish-
and so remained a standard part of every oper- ing industry, continuing practices established
ating system.38 with earlier typesetting hardware. Tools like
The most celebrated video screen text editor this provided similar output to later word pro-
of all, Emacs, originated at MIT as an extension cessing software, but followed the earlier pat-
of the institute’s earlier TECO (Tape Editor and tern in which separate application programs
COrrector) editor, first developed circa 1963 for handled the text editing and the formatted
the PDP-1 by Daniel L. Murphy as a replace- document output. The ultimate expression of
ment for Piner’s Expensive Typewriter. Using this stream of development is Donald Knuth’s
TECO to edit involved writing short programs TeX document description language, created
in an exceptionally terse programming lan- during the 1970s and 1980s.42 TeX proliferated
guage to perform operations such as search and among computer scientists and mathemati-
replace. This appealed to programmers, the pri- cians, who continue to love its programmabil-
mary users of text editors. Many versions were ity, its elegant and precise control over the
produced, and TECO evolved more as a pro- formatting of output, and its masterful han-
gramming platform and language for the cre- dling of equations. Most administrative users,
ation of editors rather than as an editor. however, showed little interest in a system that
Emacs, which stood for editing macros, essentially required them to write their docu-
began as a standardized collection of TECO ment as a kind of computer program and then
macros for full-screen editing created in the compile it to view the output.
mid-1970s by Richard Stallman of MIT’s artifi- The users and creators of systems such as
cial intelligence lab.39 Though Emacs evolved Unix, Emacs, and TeX systems differed notably
into a freestanding editor, this heritage meant from those of word processing systems, and
that it included its own programming language viewed their tasks differently. Their creators
(a version of Lisp) and users could extend or often viewed textual manipulation (including
customize it. Over time, Emacs acquired a wide editing and formatting) as a problem to be
range of extensions to do, for example, syntax solved through the creation of flexible and pro-
checking and automatic code indenting, and grammable system building tools. Some aspects
more unusual things such as playing games of their work, particularly advanced search-
and browsing Internet newsgroups. and-replace capabilities, eventually made their
way into word processing, but despite techni-
Text formatting system cal similarities to word processing systems,
Meanwhile, computer systems were also these text editing tools were never designed for
making strides in the output of formatted text. the general-office population.
Around 1967, Ken Thompson and Dennis
Ritchie at Bell Labs produced new implementa- Computerized word processing
tions of QED, including the specification of Having surveyed the origins of computer-
elaborate rules for search-and-replace opera- ized word processing technologies, let’s return
tions.40 A few years later, the same team created to the office of the 1970s to see how and why
the Unix operating system on a small, almost they were first applied to office work to create
obsolete PDP-7 system. Unix developed a sys- what we would now think of as the word
tem tool philosophy in which powerful but spe- processor. Text editing software reached the
cialized software tools could be interconnected office through several distinct waves of com-
by linking their input and output text streams puter technology: commercial time-sharing
together via an innovation known as a pipe. systems from the late 1960s onward, minicom-
The operating system kernel did little, but it was puters from the early 1970s onward, and spe-
accompanied by powerful and portable tools. cialized word processing computer systems
Unix tools, most notably roff and its successors from the mid-1970s onward. Of these, the spe-
nroff and troff, took textual input and format- cialized computer systems were by far the most
ted it for printed output. In fact, the first useful important in establishing a market for com-
October–December 2006 15Remembering the Office of the Future
puterized text editing. Over the 1970s, word tapes as input for decades. Some major publish-
processing centers increasingly adopted com- ers and newspapers had been using computers
puterized word processing systems produced by to prepare tapes for typesetting systems since
firms such as IBM, Wang Laboratories, and the 1960s, and interest was growing in photo-
Vydec to replace automatic typewriters like typesetting systems in which lines of text were
IBM’s MT/ST. In this way, the original concept generated optically under computer control.46
of word processing as the centralization of typ- Advances in printing technology, combined
ing and dictation work around new technolo- with the relative affordability of minicomput-
gies gradually merged with what we now ers, made text editing and computer-controlled
consider word processing technologies. phototypesetting viable for a much broader
At end of the 1960s, commercial time-sharing range of publications.47
services gave businesspeople outside corporate But with different programming, a minicom-
data processing departments their first real puter could work much like an automatic type-
chance to work interactively with computers. writer, such as IBM’s popular MT/ST. This opened
In principle, this opened up online text editing a potentially huge market since, unlike larger
tools to a broad audience, though the combi- computers, minicomputers could be sold direct-
nation of the high hourly rates charged by ly to small companies or to small departments
time-sharing services and the slow teletype within larger companies. Business Automation
machines used by most people to access them profiled a Boston law firm that replaced its three
meant that this was not a particularly compelling MT/ST-typewriter-based systems with a DEC PDP
application. This did not stop Administrative 8/E minicomputer in 1970. Although Selectric
Management from promoting the idea in a 1970 typewriters were used for editing and input, out-
article (shortly before it discovered the concept put of large documents was much faster thanks
of word processing), when it suggested that to a high-speed printer. The new system had sev-
eral advantages. Because it was interactive, it
automated text processing [was] a recently devel- could warn when errors were made and prompt
oped office application for time sharing. … the user for input, making it much easier to learn
Revisions and editing are quickly and easily than the MT/ST. And because it used disk rather
accomplished without having to retype the than tape cartridges to store documents and
entire document.43 standard paragraphs, a much larger library of
standard paragraphs could be maintained and
At least some people in the business tech- accessed with greater ease. The firm later added
nology community believed that document a second disk drive and a video terminal, allow-
editing was likely to become an important ing onscreen editing of documents. Of course,
application of computer systems once inexpen- the minicomputer had the additional advan-
sive and convenient computer access was com- tage that it could run software to perform other
monplace. One firm, Browne Time Sharing Inc., tasks such as accounting.48
specialized in online text editing and process- Law firms were the most enthusiastic
ing services.44 Browne launched its service in adopters of such systems. Their work centered
1969, using an IBM 370 mainframe connected on the regular production of long, intricate
to dial-in telephone lines, and marketed to users technical documents incorporating standard
needing to make frequent revisions to long doc- elements. This had to be done quickly and
uments. Its main business was as a financial accurately. The expensive and novel technolo-
printer, and it provided its clients with high- gy of word processing could pay its way more
quality printed copies of their remotely edited easily here than in almost any other environ-
documents by overnight delivery.45 ment. Lawyers charged high hourly rates, and
The spread of affordable and increasingly legal secretaries and paralegals were much bet-
powerful minicomputer systems during the late ter paid than typical office staff. For such firms,
1960s and early 1970s broadened access to word processing was what would later be called
interactive systems. Beyond disseminating a killer application—a piece of software so com-
interactive text editing for programming pur- pelling that it justified the purchase of a com-
poses, this situation also made it practical to plete minicomputer system merely to run it. By
consider minicomputers’ application to docu- 1982, more than two-thirds of law firms had
ment preparation, and appears to have hap- installed word processing systems.49
pened first in technologically oriented firms
and among those using computers to drive Special-purpose word processing systems
high-quality output systems. Minicomputer-based systems soon faced
Typesetting machines had been using paper stiff competition from the new market for
16 IEEE Annals of the History of Computingvideo-based specialized word processing hard-
ware.50 Lexitron, a start-up firm, offered the first
stand-alone word processor with a video screen By the mid-1970s, many
in 1972. The document being edited was held
in memory and displayed on the screen, then firms had the expertise to
saved to magnetic tape or printed at the end of
the session.51 Linolex, a creator of video termi- design a word processor
nals and keyboards, added word processing
capabilities to its terminal technology to create system.
specialized systems. However, it was Vydec, a
small start-up firm founded by a former
Hewlett-Packard engineering team, that creat- few years, eight-inch floppy drives and disks
ed the template for stand-alone, video-screen- were readily available from several manufac-
based word processors. Its product, launched in turers. Their main application was as a versa-
1973, was the first to display a full page (up to tile, inexpensive replacement for punched
66 lines) of text on the screen and included cards and paper tape, becoming the standard
floppy disk drives and a daisywheel printer. medium for information storage and exchange
Though expensive, at $18,000, the machines on less-powerful computer systems. The flop-
established the existence of a niche market in pies had significant advantages for word pro-
which Vydec initially faced little competition.52 cessing over the IBM MT/ST and MT/SC
All of these machines sold slowly at first, as the magnetic tapes and cards. Likewise, the falling
start-ups focused their limited resources on costs and rising capabilities of video displays
organizations with heavy editing needs, such meant that a screen able to display a full page
as federal government agencies. According to a of text was no longer prohibitively expensive.
March 1975 report, Vydec had installed almost The word processing software was stored on
300 video word processing systems, Lexitron disks, and would run automatically when the
1,000, and Linolex almost 700.53 machine was turned on.
While the original Vydec system was some- Just as important, though less celebrated,
thing of an engineering feat, the technologies was the daisywheel printer. Previously, com-
needed to duplicate its capabilities became puters had been coupled with adapted type-
widely available over the next few years. By the writer mechanisms such as the Flexowriter or
mid-1970s, many firms had the expertise to IBM Selectric for slow, high-quality output and
design a word processor system by assembling with large, expensive “line printers” to produce
a number of off-the-shelf components. Word high-speed output on continuous paper.
processors were sold by many companies, Daisywheel printers gave typewriter-quality
including Redactron, Dictaphone, Lanier, CPT, output at several times the speed of a Selectric
NBI (Nothing But Initials), and Addressograph- and with greater reliability under heavy loads.
Multigraph. The hardware, essentially the same In 1972, Diablo (later acquired by Xerox)
used to produce a personal computer, was sim- launched the first daisywheel printer. It faced
ilar to that needed to create a video terminal, stiff competition from Qume, a rival firm
but it was bundled into a different product. The begun by the technology’s original inventor.54
most obvious of the new components, the Word processing systems usually incorporated
microprocessor, shrank the central processor a printing mechanism built by one of those
unit of a simple computer to fit on a single chip. two firms.
The original Vydec model did not use a
microprocessor, but in 1975 another start-up, Word processing market matures
NBI, produced a microprocessor-based word The small, specialized firms that pioneered
processor and other manufacturers were quick the market faced growing competition over the
to follow. Expensive hand-woven magnetic core next few years, most notably from Wang
memory, the standard memory technology of Laboratories. Wang had been selling specialized
the 1950s and 1960s, was quickly replaced in electronic devices, such as desk calculators and
smaller computers with DRAM (dynamic RAM) control equipment, since the 1950s. Its 1971
chips, first sold commercially by Intel in 1970. model 1200, like IBM’s MC/ST, was a typewriter
This dramatically lowered the cost of a memory controlled by magnetic tape. Although not par-
unit able to store a few pages of text for editing. ticularly ambitious technically—its control unit
Another key technology was the floppy disk. is said to have been adapted from that of a desk
Floppy disk drives were first sold in 1971 to calculator—this earned Wang a foothold in the
store microcode for IBM mainframes. Within a market.55 Wang had been selling computers
October–December 2006 17Remembering the Office of the Future
since the 1960s, and in the late 1970s its com- design philosophy as the unavoidable result of
puter and word processing product lines began his having been deprived of resources after
to converge. In 1975, Wang launched the falling from favor with the firm’s autocratic
Wang Computer System (WCS) range, consist- founder.60 The Wang system of menus and
ing of three models: the 10, 20, and 30.55,56 The prompts was indeed easy to learn, though some
systems were integrated into custom-built complained that expert users remained hob-
desks, and were aimed at technical applications bled by the designers’ assumption that secre-
and small business administration. taries required a highly structured interface.
Wang took a similar approach to selling its Lanier Business Systems, which overtook
Word Processor System, launched in 1976. The IBM and Dictaphone in the market for dictat-
Wang Word Processor range likewise included ing systems during the mid-1970s, also estab-
three models coded 10, 20, and 30. The screens lished itself as the leading supplier of
and cases of the workstations used on this stand-alone video-based word processing sys-
range closely resembled those of the WCS tems. Its “No Problem” word processor, intro-
machines, though internally they used Intel duced in 1977, was promoted as easy to use
8080 microprocessors rather than the custom and, as the name suggests, with a certain folksi-
logic of Wang’s earlier computers.57 The model ness.61 This must have worked, because by 1978
10 was a stand-alone model with a daisywheel it was outselling all its competitors with about
printer and single floppy disk drive, used to one-fifth share of this fragmented market seg-
load the bundled word processing software and ment.62 (Lanier later stumbled when it applied
to hold documents. The model 20 supported a similar approach to the computer market with
up to three workstations and their three print- its Computereze product line and by 1982 had
ers, networked via a proprietary coaxial system lost its lead in stand-alone word processors).63
to a single “storage station” with twin floppy In contrast, IBM was slow to compete effec-
drives. Editing of one document could contin- tively in the market for video-screen-based
ue while another printed in the background. word processors, something contemporary
The model 30 built a hard disk drive into a cus- observers tended to attribute to internal poli-
tomized desk and supported up to 14 worksta- tics, and in particular to a reluctance to under-
tions and printers.58 mine its lucrative MT/ST automatic typewriter
Although Wang’s stand-alone model 10 was business. In 1976, IBM held an estimated 80
competitive with existing products such as the percent of the word processing market, based
Vydec systems, it was models 20 and 30 that almost entirely on the monthly leased pay-
made Wang synonymous with high-end word ments it received for around 150,000 magnet-
processing systems. These machines created a ic-card- and –tape-based Selectric systems.64
new class of “clustered” word processing sys- IBM gradually enhanced these machines,
tems. It was many years before standard per- offering several new models based on mag-
sonal computers could share files with netic cards and revamping its product line to
comparable ease and effectiveness. From the add small electronic memories able to store
user’s viewpoint, these systems provided capa- 8,000 characters for instant retrieval.65 IBM
bilities similar to those based on multiple ter- also added communications functions to its
minals connected to a minicomputer, referred machines, allowing them to transmit text to
to, in that era, as shared logic systems. its computers. Its MT/ST machines were repo-
Wang was renowned for the quality of its sitioned as companions for newer models
support and documentation, and like its earlier such as ill-fated System 6, launched in 1976,
calculator systems, its word processing systems which offered an expensive high-speed inkjet
were designed to be used by small-business peo- printer, floppy disk storage, and communica-
ple rather than technical specialists. They were tion capabilities, but only an inadequate six-
easy to set up, and relied on menus rather than line video display.64
the command languages common among other IBM’s dominance eroded fast over the next
text editing and formatting systems of the era. few years, though by the end of 1979 it was still
Harold Koplow, leader of the design team, estimated to hold around 60 percent of the
began by writing the user manual for the sys- overall word processing market.66 Only in 1980
tem with his colleague Dave Moros, refining it did it finally offer a credible modern word
until it described a system he believed a secre- processor with the Displaywriter word process-
tary could use with minimal training.59 Only ing system, which used floppy disks to store
then did programming and design begin— documents and load programs and, as its name
although Koplow later claimed this strategy suggested, included a video screen for editing.67
was not so much the result of a user-centered In response, Wang launched the relatively
18 IEEE Annals of the History of ComputingYou can also read
