But complicating factors is ClarisWorks, a MacOS app first developed in the early 1990s, that itself was eventually renamed AppleWorks. This application suite, which originally began as an Apple II program in 1984 (and, fun fact, was my first exposure to a word processor in 1991, when I was in the fourth grade), eventually was brought over to the Apple IIgs starting in 1988 under a different code base. (I guess the quadrant system wasn’t in effect for Apple’s word processor ambitions.) AppleWorks/ClarisWorks file formatsįile type: Text-based (later WYSIWYG) word processor, part of larger office suite, not cross-compatibleĭespite the name, this is a complicated mess of a file format, because if you break it down, you’re really talking about three separate pieces of software that were barely compatible and sold under two wildly different names. Per Archive Team, Volkswriter did receive some compatibility with other word processor contemporaries such as WordPerfect, though the format fell into obscurity over time.Ī video of someone booting up the Apple II version of AppleWorks. The application, despite its early popularity, faltered when the company did, and despite efforts to help revive the application by handing it off to the company’s employees, it didn’t make it to the modern day as newer word processors usurped it. (The developer, Camilo Wilson, was even featured in an early issue of PC Magazine next to Mitch Kapor, for helping to develop one of the platform’s killer apps. For a time, the application was one of the most popular word processors available on the IBM PC, with a key reason for that being the fact that it had a relatively low price compared to other word processors of the era, as well as the fact that it was born early enough in the PC’s history that it didn’t have very much competition. No, Volkswagen didn’t make Volkswriter, but the name was inspired directly by the car manufacturer’s utilitarian nature. On the DigiBarn Computer Museum, author Bruce Damer makes the direct connection between Bravo and Word. On the plus side, the large size made the files load faster.īy the way, we live in a hell of a fascinating lineage, by the way, where software tools from the 1960s and 1970s directly or indirectly influenced how we used modern computing devices today. One of the most notable, as explained to Wired in 2004, is that Word documents-at least of its earliest era-essentially were dumps of the memory, which explains why Word files are so much bigger than standard text documents. The decision to do this, beyond eventually making Simonyi a multi-billionaire who later became one of the first space tourists, created some interesting quirks in terms of what we got from our word processors. (Yes, that’s right, Microsoft got just as much out of Xerox PARC as Apple did.) What if I told you that you’re still using a descendant of this groundbreaking word processor, first developed in the 1970s for the Xerox Alto, today? Well, you see, Charles Simonyi, the guy who developed the Bravo word processor, the first-ever WYSIWYG document editor, was later hired by Microsoft to create a version of its early word processor for them. Today’s GIF comes from a video by the YouTube creator RetroCAD, showing off the forgotten word processor Professional Write, also known as PFS:Write.įile type: Historically foundational WYSIWYG word processor Let’s dig into some documents that might be hard to open with a standard word processor. But I of course need to hedge this slightly, by pointing out that when I decide on what shows up in this list, I work within basic parameters: it tends to be specialized, obfuscated, uncommon, or unloved-in a combination that, together makes it optional for the average person. (Some would argue they’re trolling opportunities, to which I plead the fifth.) So perhaps it’s time to combine those two things into a list that highlights some word processors that time forgot, or that most of us moved on from. I also have a fascination with failed (or at least, declining) file formats-and having written a couple of these lists, I’ve found them to be deeply enjoyable as well as a great way to highlight forgotten software that people probably haven’t used in a long time. Today in Tedium: As you may or may not know about me, I have strong opinions on how word processors and text editors should work.
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