“Back in 286/386 days”
You think YOU are old? Well, I used to work for a Company called Wang Laboratories, generally credited for inventing Word Processing, years before the advent of the personal computer. I remember the when the 286/286 revolution spelled doom for Wang..... I’m not boasting, my arthritis flares up when I boast......
A Wang 2200 got me into the IT biz, 36 years ago. I wouldn’t worry about this “microprocessor” fad, I don’t think it has much of a future. Dang whippersnappers.
Most legal secretaries had a Wang on their desk until the late 1980s or early 90s. I first switched from Wang to MS-DOS and WordPerfect 5.1 around 1990.
I have used WordPerfect ever since, though I finally switched to the Windows version in the late 90s and have upgraded to newer versions nearly every year since, mainly for the ever improving MS Word and Adobe pdf conversion functions.
Sometimes I really miss MS-DOS. My computer never crashed and the only programs I ever needed were WordPerfect and Lotus 123. It was kind of a pain though to have to load the programs from 5.25" floppy disks every time I wanted to use one.
For a time, in the late 70s, I used a Lanier word processor based on an 8080 chip. The whole shebang cost about 25 grand.
I worked for a company that had the Wang computers networked in the office. They ran on the CP/M operating system. They were replaced with a Xerox GUI system and the computers took 11 minutes to boot.
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IBM word processors were all over the country in ‘68 but they had no display screen of any kind. The printed page was all there was to look at, but a good typist could produce an editable form letter in no more time than it took to type it.
Yes sir, I remember the UPS guy delivering my first computer (386), and as he brought it into my office, I joked at him and said bring it back, It's already obsolete. (The 486's) were just being advertised. Yep two thousand dollars for that sucker. DOS 5 software and all.
Not wanting to throw gasoline into the fire, but am I the only moron that when interfacing with someone who uses word, I just save the document in a RTF. (Rich Text Format.) Works for me. Just saying.
I'm using my WordPerfect version7 from the early 90's{?,} if I recall. I'm now 2017, running windows 7, 64 bit, some minor problems (no address book) other wise good still to go. For what it's worth during a 10 year period of civil court arguments, my associate during this time used word, I got to use it also, not impressed.