Re: IT angle
PCs in the sense of a personal computer predated the IBM PC by about 5 years.
Minicomputers that sat on a desk with a CRT and keyboard rather than Teletype, maybe 10 years before an IBM PC. The 8088 in PC wasn't a true 16 CPU (only 64K per segment and no linear address mode). It was more like an 8bit CPU with built in paging. It had an 8 bit bus too. The 8086 had a 16 bit bus. The MSDOS/PCDOS was derived from a reverse engineered version of CP/M86, practically automatically built from 8080 / 8085/ Z80 bit CP/M using Intel's cross assembler, because the 8088/8086 was very like an 8080 /8085 with built in paging.
The 80286 IBM AT was first 16bit in that family sold as a "PC" able to to linear addressing. DOS used it as an 8086. You needed Xenix to use it as 16bit CPU. Real 16 bit CPUs existed not just before IBM AT and 80286, but before original IBM-PC.
Byte had the wonderful Chaos Manor column, best thing in Byte.
Byte started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics magazines. The IBM PC US release was August 12, 1981, so OF COURSE, Jerry was using a wordprocessor on a CP/M based "PC" before then.
Deighton isn't credited with first to use a Wordprocessor on a general PC or Minicomputer. It was a dedicated Wordprocessor. Such things survived long past IBM PC arrival. Wang was of last makers if you don't count Brother typewriters with line editors. I'd not count the PCW8256, PCW8512 and PCW9512 as those could run CP/M instead of locoscript.
Probably someone wrote a book on a minicomputer that wasn't much bigger (but x10 price) than some 1976 CP/M based "PC" with "wordprocessing" software.
... WordMaster (1978) with similar features and support for the CP/M operating system. MicroPro began selling the product, now renamed WordStar, in June 1979
Wordstar must be the oldest "WELL KNOWN" real wordprocessor known. But maybe 10 years after minicomputers and dedicated IBM or Wang "Wordprocessors" (that had a golfball printer). It was ported to IBM PC at release (3 years after CP/M release) and was only supplanted by Wordperfect later.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
