🚀 go-pugleaf

On Friday, March 16, 2018 at 4:27:45 PM UTC-4, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:

> I was writing a blog article about early word processors and spreadsheets
> <https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/2018/03/history-of-wordprocessors-and-spread.html>
> but only covered early 8-Bit micros. Assuming Electric Pencil was the
> first while WordStar or SuperCalc (spreadsheet) only really became famous
> in the early days of the late 70s to early 80s.

Word processing dates back to at least the 1940s, when catalogs 
and directories were stored on punched cards and sorted and 
printed out on tabulator machines.  

In the 1950s, Friden came out with the Flexowriter, a nice typewriter
that stored documents on paper tape.  In the 1960s, Friden added
electronics to this so that it could do more functions, including
calculations.  It could also serve as a terminal.



> I know that in offices before that era type writers were used, even if an
> IBM Selectric could ease the work. But they were hardware. They hadn't a
> display (monitor) to edit text and only when done print it out.

To clarify, a basic IBM Selectric was just a typewriter.  It was
nicer than many other brands, but still just a typewriter.

 
> Still I wonder if big machines like some IBM 360/370 did not have word
> processors... By word processor I do not mean any text editor. A word
> processor should at least be able to wrap a word into the next line if it
> didn't fit into the current line. And had some markup for defining a bold
> or italic character and sub- and superscript.

As mentioned by others, some IBM manuals were maintained on the
mainframe and printed by the 1403 printer.

I think almost every programmer prepared some documentation on
punched cards and printed it out.

The ROSCOE text editor had some formatting functions.  Before PC's
were widely distributed, I used it for documentation and it was
very useful.  Our Xerox mainframe printer handled upper and
lower case and a bit of formatting (e.g. boldface and several
portrait fonts).  I wrote a simple COBOL program to do some
additional formatting.  This worked out very well, especially
for documents of systems under development which changed very
often.



 
> Apparently the IBM MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter) from 1964
> would match that description which was used only with an IBM
> Selectric. But there should had been applications which would not depend
> on an external type writer rather than using a dedicated printer, no?

Not sure of your question.  The IBM MT/ST and MC/ST was integrated
with a Selectric typewriter which provided the keyboard and 'printer'.
As others mentioned, they were word processors.

IBM also had the Displaywriter word processing system.  1983 ad:
https://books.google.com/books?id=qgJ-2YapQ_oC&lpg=PA1065&dq=aba%20displaywriter&pg=PA1065#v=onepage&q&f=false

In addition, numerous companies had their alone standalone 
word processors:  Vydec 1976
https://books.google.com/books?id=ofVUb1zr41YC&lpg=PA289&dq=aba%20vydec&pg=PA289#v=onepage&q&f=false

On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 12:56:32 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
> I think almost every programmer prepared some documentation on
> punched cards and printed it out.

This you can do with any text editor. I do not use LibreOffice here when
when coding (using vi or Emacs).

>> Apparently the IBM MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter) from 1964
>> would match that description which was used only with an IBM
>> Selectric. But there should had been applications which would not depend
>> on an external type writer rather than using a dedicated printer, no?
>
> Not sure of your question.  The IBM MT/ST and MC/ST was integrated
> with a Selectric typewriter which provided the keyboard and 'printer'.
> As others mentioned, they were word processors.

I think I understand a word processor is something you edit a text. It
assists you by wrapping text and allow modification of characters, like
bold. Only *after* you are done editing you would print it out or save it
to a file. You could move paragraphs around and often do mail
merge. Things a Selectric could not do.

The Selectric did not (for my knowledge) had a display. Even if it might
had "write ahead" you could not see what you wrote until it was printed
on paper. If you made a mistake it was too late. Because of that
typewriters soon vanished after word processors were available in the
late 70s to early 80s.

Which again raises the question: if word processors were around before
the 70s, why didn't they supersede typewriters in offices already?
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

On 3/17/2018 11:41 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
>
 >        [snip...]        [snip...]        [snip...]
> 
> I think the system being sought in this discussion was the IBM 2680,
> available in 1967 or 1968, which was a phototypesetting system driven
> by a System/360 with associated software.  There were similar systems
> from RCA, Harris, and Mergenthaler.
> 

An interesting video about Mergenthaler's typesetter is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVxeuwlvf8w

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On 2018-03-17 22:13, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 12:56:32 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>
>> I think almost every programmer prepared some documentation on
>> punched cards and printed it out.
> 
> This you can do with any text editor. I do not use LibreOffice here when
> when coding (using vi or Emacs).
> 
>>> Apparently the IBM MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter) from 1964
>>> would match that description which was used only with an IBM
>>> Selectric. But there should had been applications which would not depend
>>> on an external type writer rather than using a dedicated printer, no?
>>
>> Not sure of your question.  The IBM MT/ST and MC/ST was integrated
>> with a Selectric typewriter which provided the keyboard and 'printer'.
>> As others mentioned, they were word processors.
> 
> I think I understand a word processor is something you edit a text. It
> assists you by wrapping text and allow modification of characters, like
> bold. Only *after* you are done editing you would print it out or save it
> to a file. You could move paragraphs around and often do mail
> merge. Things a Selectric could not do.
> 
> The Selectric did not (for my knowledge) had a display. Even if it might
> had "write ahead" you could not see what you wrote until it was printed
> on paper. If you made a mistake it was too late. Because of that
> typewriters soon vanished after word processors were available in the
> late 70s to early 80s.
> 
> Which again raises the question: if word processors were around before
> the 70s, why didn't they supersede typewriters in offices already?

Cost.

You needed a good printer plus a computer, so not cheap at that time.
And also you needed to train the typist on using a computer and the
software.

Also the "personal computer" boom started in the 80s.

Me, I started using a wordprocesor somewhere around 1982 or later, and a
9 pin printer years later.

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

In <87d1024...@usenet.ankman.de> Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> writes:

>I seem to recall some newer fully formed character printers could do bold
>by movie the paper just a little but and print the same character
>"almost" over itself again. Didn't some matrix printers employed this
>method too to print bold if their character set wasn't made up for this?

Available in the Decwriter II.

We used one with a TRS-80, and I still remember
some of the codes:

"Escape", aka chr$(27), then "B" chr$(66) for Bold...

other options included underscore, shrunken text, 
and I think italics, too.

-- 
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
		     dan...@panix.com 
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

On Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:56:34 +0000, danny burstein wrote:

> In <87d1024...@usenet.ankman.de> Andreas Kohlbach
> <a...@spamfence.net> writes:
> 
>>I seem to recall some newer fully formed character printers could do
>>bold by movie the paper just a little but and print the same character
>>"almost" over itself again. Didn't some matrix printers employed this
>>method too to print bold if their character set wasn't made up for this?
> 
> Available in the Decwriter II.
> 
> We used one with a TRS-80, and I still remember some of the codes:
> 
> "Escape", aka chr$(27), then "B" chr$(66) for Bold...
> 
> other options included underscore, shrunken text,
> and I think italics, too.

Not to mention the 'Near Letter Quality' dot matrix printers. I bought a 
Canon PW1080A printer in 1984 that had that. 9 pins (I think). The 
printer did a line using the 9 pins, then reversed the carriage and moved 
the paper up by a fractional amount. It then printed back the other way, 
filling in the gaps between the dots. There was a separate bold function.



-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 23:16:45 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>
> On 2018-03-17 22:13, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 12:56:32 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>>
>>> Not sure of your question.  The IBM MT/ST and MC/ST was integrated
>>> with a Selectric typewriter which provided the keyboard and 'printer'.
>>> As others mentioned, they were word processors.
>> 
>> I think I understand a word processor is something you edit a text. It
>> assists you by wrapping text and allow modification of characters, like
>> bold. Only *after* you are done editing you would print it out or save it
>> to a file. You could move paragraphs around and often do mail
>> merge. Things a Selectric could not do.
>> 
>> The Selectric did not (for my knowledge) had a display. Even if it might
>> had "write ahead" you could not see what you wrote until it was printed
>> on paper. If you made a mistake it was too late. Because of that
>> typewriters soon vanished after word processors were available in the
>> late 70s to early 80s.
>> 
>> Which again raises the question: if word processors were around before
>> the 70s, why didn't they supersede typewriters in offices already?
>
> Cost.
>
> You needed a good printer plus a computer, so not cheap at that time.
> And also you needed to train the typist on using a computer and the
> software.

Of course before the 80s word processors would only exist in large
enterprises. They had one mainframe and a few printers, while the typists
would sit on dumb and relatively cheap terminals. Should not take long to
train a typist for the new technology.

The advantages of editing on a CRT over a "direct printout" like with
typewriters should have been clear since the 60s already.
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

On 18 Mar 2018 01:02:49 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:
>
> On Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:56:34 +0000, danny burstein wrote:
>
>> In <87d1024...@usenet.ankman.de> Andreas Kohlbach
>> <a...@spamfence.net> writes:
>> 
>>>I seem to recall some newer fully formed character printers could do
>>>bold by movie the paper just a little but and print the same character
>>>"almost" over itself again. Didn't some matrix printers employed this
>>>method too to print bold if their character set wasn't made up for this?
>> 
>> Available in the Decwriter II.
>> 
>> We used one with a TRS-80, and I still remember some of the codes:
>> 
>> "Escape", aka chr$(27), then "B" chr$(66) for Bold...
>> 
>> other options included underscore, shrunken text,
>> and I think italics, too.

But that is system depended. Early word processors like Wordstar had
shortcuts. For example Ctrl-B to get the next characters in bold. And a
library for common printers of the day that for example Ctrl-B would we
translated with chr$(27) for your TRS-80 printer. If your printer was not
in the library would could "write" one yourself if you were skilled and
know the codes of your printer.

> Not to mention the 'Near Letter Quality' dot matrix printers. I bought a 
> Canon PW1080A printer in 1984 that had that. 9 pins (I think). The 
> printer did a line using the 9 pins, then reversed the carriage and moved 
> the paper up by a fractional amount. It then printed back the other way, 
> filling in the gaps between the dots. There was a separate bold function.

At school around 1982 we got these strange smelling (almost like alcohol)
copies handed out by the teacher. One day a rich kid asked to have his
essay get copied. He printed the original on NLQ. While most students
didn't care or noticed I was wowed. Am sure he did this by intention only to
brag with it for the nerds in class noticing it. :-)
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 16:17:44 -0500, Charles Richmond wrote:
>
> On 3/17/2018 11:41 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
>>
>>        [snip...]        [snip...]        [snip...]
>>
>> I think the system being sought in this discussion was the IBM 2680,
>> available in 1967 or 1968, which was a phototypesetting system driven
>> by a System/360 with associated software.  There were similar systems
>> from RCA, Harris, and Mergenthaler.
>>
>
> An interesting video about Mergenthaler's typesetter is:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVxeuwlvf8w

Lovely. Reverse engineering. I watched it already. Got to love Professor
Brailsford. There should also be a video suggested where he talks about
the Apple Laser Writer with barely enough RAM to do the calculations in
the first place.
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 16:20:40 -0500, Charles Richmond wrote:
>
> On 3/17/2018 3:09 PM, Dave Garland wrote:
>
>> Yes, the phototypesetting gear was pretty sophisticated. I wouldn't
>> call it "word processing" myself, though. To me, WP is an improved
>> version of what was done by secretaries or typists with typewriters
>> in a typical office, rather than something that replaced a
>> Linotype. YMMV. I did typeset a few things using PS typewheels and
>> WordStar, but that was not fun (WordStar did have character-width
>> tables, but you had to hex-edit the binary to change them). WP (and
>> page-layout programs) really had to wait for decent (and affordable)
>> laser printers before they were very useful for fancier output.
>
> More advanced and more involved software was called "desktop
> publishing" software instead of being called a word processor.  There
> was much overlap in the two types of software.

DTP also has images. (Early) word processors did not handle them.

I think DTP came along around 1985 although first developed by Xerox PARC
in the 1970s.

I remember a pal with a Commodore 64 had one of the first DTP programs
(unfortunately I forgot its name) around 1986. It took eons to finally
render the page, but it was exciting what you could do.
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

Print Shop, by any chance?

On 2018-03-17, Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 09:41:24 -0500, Dave Garland wrote:
>
>> That really depended on hardware. A formed-character printer (ball or
>> daisywheel) couldn't change font without the ball/wheel being manually
>> changed by the operator. You could, of course, program a halt to
>> permit for that, but it was a PITA and really balked workflow. Some
>> type balls had a superscript 2 and 3 , but anything else had to be
>> done by manually rolling the platen, Dot matrix printers weren't used
>> for WP in business, because the print quality was too poor (the
>> standard was pretty much, it ought to look like it was done on a
>> Selectric with a film ribbon).
>
> I seem to recall some newer fully formed character printers could do bold
> by movie the paper just a little but and print the same character
> "almost" over itself again. Didn't some matrix printers employed this
> method too to print bold if their character set wasn't made up for this?

The standard in one mainframe shop in which I worked was to overprint
heading and total lines on our line printer.  This was less effective
when the ribbon was fresh, but since we were trying to wring every bit
of ink out of a ribbon it usually looked pretty good.  Whether it was
good enough to slow our printer down to 1/3 speed while doing it was
a matter for discussion.  (Yes, one-third speed: our printer used an
oscillating typebar, and you had to send it a blank line image between
the two copies to be overprinted.  If the bar wasn't going the same
direction when printing the two copies, the result would look smudged.)

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

On 3/18/2018 3:59 PM, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 16:17:44 -0500, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>
>> On 3/17/2018 11:41 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>
>>>         [snip...]        [snip...]        [snip...]
>>>
>>> I think the system being sought in this discussion was the IBM 2680,
>>> available in 1967 or 1968, which was a phototypesetting system driven
>>> by a System/360 with associated software.  There were similar systems
>>> from RCA, Harris, and Mergenthaler.
>>>
>>
>> An interesting video about Mergenthaler's typesetter is:
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVxeuwlvf8w
> 
> Lovely. Reverse engineering. I watched it already. Got to love Professor
> Brailsford. There should also be a video suggested where he talks about
> the Apple Laser Writer with barely enough RAM to do the calculations in
> the first place.
> 

Brailsford is interesting alright, but sometimes plays "fast and loose" 
with the facts.  Watch his video on punch card programming and count the 
errors!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG2M4ttzBnY

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 23:16:45 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

[snip]

>Also the "personal computer" boom started in the 80s.

     Mid '70s.

     IBM joined in after the market had been established.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On 2018-03-18, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> Print Shop, by any chance?

I had a pirated copy AFAIRemember, It gave one lots of time to think
of other things.

-- 
greymaus.ireland.ie
Just_Another_Grumpy_Old_Man

On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 16:20:40 -0500
Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

> More advanced and more involved software was called "desktop publishing" 
> software instead of being called a word processor.  There was much 
> overlap in the two types of software.

	Desktop publishing software was generally about making single pages
with as much sophistication as possible.

	Word processing software was generally about making short documents.

	Typesetting software was generally about making books.

	Each job had its own specialisations, DTP software didn't do
pagination but could fit text to curves, WP software didn't grok chapters
or facing pages but did do mailmerge, ...

	These days word processors are supposed to do it all AFAICT.

	Personally if it looks like DTP I use dia or xfig[1], otherwise
troff or LaTeX but my needs are simple.

[1] If it needs more sophistication than that it needs someone better at it
than me.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On Sun, 18 Mar 2018 22:43:52 -0700, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net>
wrote:

>On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 23:16:45 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
><robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>Also the "personal computer" boom started in the 80s.
>
>     Mid '70s.
>
>     IBM joined in after the market had been established.

In 1980 personal computer sales were around a million units a year. In
1990 they were around 20 million units a year and most of it IBM and
clones.

The _boom_ happened in the '80s.

On Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 3:03:35 PM UTC-6, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:

> I remember a pal with a Commodore 64 had one of the first DTP programs
> (unfortunately I forgot its name) around 1986. It took eons to finally
> render the page, but it was exciting what you could do.

Now that I'm on my computer instead of my phone,

http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/museum/view.php%3Fid%3D306%26genre%3Dprogbox

a link to a picture of the box Print Shop for the Commodore 64 came in.

John Savard

On Sun, 18 Mar 2018 16:54:16 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach
<a...@spamfence.net> wrote:

>On 18 Mar 2018 01:02:49 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:56:34 +0000, danny burstein wrote:
>>
>>> In <87d1024...@usenet.ankman.de> Andreas Kohlbach
>>> <a...@spamfence.net> writes:
>>> 
>>>>I seem to recall some newer fully formed character printers could do
>>>>bold by movie the paper just a little but and print the same character
>>>>"almost" over itself again. Didn't some matrix printers employed this
>>>>method too to print bold if their character set wasn't made up for this?
>>> 
>>> Available in the Decwriter II.
>>> 
>>> We used one with a TRS-80, and I still remember some of the codes:
>>> 
>>> "Escape", aka chr$(27), then "B" chr$(66) for Bold...
>>> 
>>> other options included underscore, shrunken text,
>>> and I think italics, too.
>
>But that is system depended. Early word processors like Wordstar had
>shortcuts. For example Ctrl-B to get the next characters in bold. And a
>library for common printers of the day that for example Ctrl-B would we
>translated with chr$(27) for your TRS-80 printer. If your printer was not
>in the library would could "write" one yourself if you were skilled and
>know the codes of your printer.
>
>> Not to mention the 'Near Letter Quality' dot matrix printers. I bought a 
>> Canon PW1080A printer in 1984 that had that. 9 pins (I think). The 
>> printer did a line using the 9 pins, then reversed the carriage and moved 
>> the paper up by a fractional amount. It then printed back the other way, 
>> filling in the gaps between the dots. There was a separate bold function.
>
>At school around 1982 we got these strange smelling (almost like alcohol)
>copies handed out by the teacher. One day a rich kid asked to have his
>essay get copied. He printed the original on NLQ. While most students
>didn't care or noticed I was wowed. Am sure he did this by intention only to
>brag with it for the nerds in class noticing it. :-)

The earliest WP I used was on an Apple ][+ at junior college. I was
glad to find one, as before I had used a mechanical typewriter. I did
write out my essay, or homework, long hand before typing. But I
sometimes looked and then typed in the wrong paragraph.

Doing that on a computer, I could just move the paragraph to the
correct location on the page, instead of having to retype the entire
page.

On 2018-03-18 21:43, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 23:16:45 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>>
>> On 2018-03-17 22:13, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>>> On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 12:56:32 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Not sure of your question.  The IBM MT/ST and MC/ST was integrated
>>>> with a Selectric typewriter which provided the keyboard and 'printer'.
>>>> As others mentioned, they were word processors.
>>>
>>> I think I understand a word processor is something you edit a text. It
>>> assists you by wrapping text and allow modification of characters, like
>>> bold. Only *after* you are done editing you would print it out or save it
>>> to a file. You could move paragraphs around and often do mail
>>> merge. Things a Selectric could not do.
>>>
>>> The Selectric did not (for my knowledge) had a display. Even if it might
>>> had "write ahead" you could not see what you wrote until it was printed
>>> on paper. If you made a mistake it was too late. Because of that
>>> typewriters soon vanished after word processors were available in the
>>> late 70s to early 80s.
>>>
>>> Which again raises the question: if word processors were around before
>>> the 70s, why didn't they supersede typewriters in offices already?
>>
>> Cost.
>>
>> You needed a good printer plus a computer, so not cheap at that time.
>> And also you needed to train the typist on using a computer and the
>> software.
> 
> Of course before the 80s word processors would only exist in large
> enterprises. They had one mainframe and a few printers, while the typists
> would sit on dumb and relatively cheap terminals. Should not take long to
> train a typist for the new technology.
> 
> The advantages of editing on a CRT over a "direct printout" like with
> typewriters should have been clear since the 60s already.

Yes, obvious to many; but I knew typists than even on the mid nineties
balked at using a computer.

What happened instead, I think, is that companies stopped hiring typists
and had normal people typing their own letters.

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

On 2018-03-19 13:04, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Mar 2018 22:43:52 -0700, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net>
> wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 23:16:45 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
>> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>> Also the "personal computer" boom started in the 80s.
>>
>>     Mid '70s.
>>
>>     IBM joined in after the market had been established.
> 
> In 1980 personal computer sales were around a million units a year. In
> 1990 they were around 20 million units a year and most of it IBM and
> clones.
> 
> The _boom_ happened in the '80s.

Maybe on some countries started mid 70s? On mine it was rather mid 80s.
Not with IBMs, but clones, at half price or less.

Me, I count the PC as starting with the IBM. Nothing earlier was used
significantly.

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit 
home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack 
TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in 
wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.

There were even earlier microprocessor-based computers, like 
the 8008-based Mark-8, but they received only very limited attention.

On Mon, 19 Mar 2018 08:31:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit 
>home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack 
>TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in 
>wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.
>
>There were even earlier microprocessor-based computers, like 
>the 8008-based Mark-8, but they received only very limited attention.

I bought wp software for my Amiga A3000, but while it made nice
documents. Its printing speed was awful. I had a 24-pin dot matrix
printer and a letter size page could take over 5 minutes to print. It
was only text.

--  
Jim

On 19/03/2018 15:31, Quadibloc wrote:
> The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit
> home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack
> TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in
> wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.
> 
> There were even earlier microprocessor-based computers, like
> the 8008-based Mark-8, but they received only very limited attention.
> 

The RAIR Black box< for which amazing multi-user calims were made for
an ISTR, single 8085?

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
> The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit 
> home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack 
> TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in 
> wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.
>
> There were even earlier microprocessor-based computers, like 
> the 8008-based Mark-8, but they received only very limited attention.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#94 Old word processors
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#100 Old word processors

old posts with article with on market share graphs,
75-80, 80-84, 84-87
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#63 The Development of the Vital IBM PC in Spite of the Corporate Culture of IBM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#76 Why Didn't Digital Catch the Wave?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#5 What if the computers went back to the '70s too?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#68 The Rise and Fall of Commodore

Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-share.ars

and has graph of personal computer sales 1975-1980
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-share.ars/3

and graph from 1980 to 1984 ... with the only serious competitor to PC
in number of sales was commodore 64
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-share.ars/4

and then from 1984 to 1987 the ibm pc (and clones) starting to
completely swamp
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-share.ars/5

....

then 87-90
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/6/
90-94
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/7/
94-2001
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/8/
2001-2004
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/9/

the 75-80 graph
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/3/

shows trs80 starting 75 and dominates through 1980. 

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

On Mon, 19 Mar 2018 08:04:14 -0400, J. Clarke
<jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 18 Mar 2018 22:43:52 -0700, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 23:16:45 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
>><robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>>Also the "personal computer" boom started in the 80s.
>>
>>     Mid '70s.
>>
>>     IBM joined in after the market had been established.
>
>In 1980 personal computer sales were around a million units a year. In
>1990 they were around 20 million units a year and most of it IBM and
>clones.
>
>The _boom_ happened in the '80s.

     _A_ boom happened in the '80s.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On 3/19/2018 10:31 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
> The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit
> home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack
> TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in
> wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.
> 

The Altair 8800 dates from late 1974 or early 1975...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800


-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> writes:

> On 3/19/2018 10:31 AM, Quadibloc wrote:

>> The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit
>> home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack
>> TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in wealthy North
>> America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.

> The Altair 8800 dates from late 1974 or early 1975...

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800

Cover of the January 1975 _Popular Electronics_, which landed in my mailbox
mid-December 1974.  My current place of employment is a direct result of the
article.

-- 
Rich Alderson					  ne...@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen

On Mon, 19 Mar 2018 08:04:14 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
>
> On Sun, 18 Mar 2018 22:43:52 -0700, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net>
> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 23:16:45 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
>>
>>>Also the "personal computer" boom started in the 80s.
>>
>>     Mid '70s.

Yes, 1977. That was when the Commodore PET, the Apple ][ and the Tandy
TRS-80 were offered. The first computers which also had a keyboard and
monitor (well for the Apple ][ the customer needed to buy a
monitor). Thus people not being nerds could actually use them. That
kicked off the home computer revolution in my opinion.

>>     IBM joined in after the market had been established.
>
> In 1980 personal computer sales were around a million units a year. In
> 1990 they were around 20 million units a year and most of it IBM and
> clones.

Not forget the Commodore 64 outsold the IBM PC.

> The _boom_ happened in the '80s.

I say it was triggered in the late 70s but really kicked off in the
80s. The boom is still going on. More and more computers were sold each
following decade. Have a look at the numbers today for tablets and
smartphones, if you want to consider them as "personal computer".
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

On Mon, 19 Mar 2018 09:43:11 +0000, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>
> On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 16:20:40 -0500
> Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
>
>> More advanced and more involved software was called "desktop publishing" 
>> software instead of being called a word processor.  There was much 
>> overlap in the two types of software.
>
> 	Desktop publishing software was generally about making single pages
> with as much sophistication as possible.

With newspaper-like layout in mind. Or if you wanted to send printed
newsletters for your customers.

[...]
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

On 2018-03-19 16:31, Quadibloc wrote:
> The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit 
> home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack 
> TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in 
> wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.
> 
> There were even earlier microprocessor-based computers, like 
> the 8008-based Mark-8, but they received only very limited attention.

Yes, here (Spain) people did have computers before the IBM PC, but not
for business unless you were a geek. On my father job they had a big IBM
mainframe, and certainly was not used for word processing.

The most popular here were the Sinclair ZX 81, later the Spectrum, and
some fortunate people had a Commodore Vic 20 or better. It had a real
keyboard.

I saw an Apple something at an university lab. Not a student lab.

I wanted a Sinclair QL, but got an Amstrad PC instead. Just in time.


-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

On 2018-03-19 23:56, Carlos E.R. wrote:
> On 2018-03-19 16:31, Quadibloc wrote:
>> The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit 
>> home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack 
>> TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in 
>> wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.
>>
>> There were even earlier microprocessor-based computers, like 
>> the 8008-based Mark-8, but they received only very limited attention.
> 
> Yes, here (Spain) people did have computers before the IBM PC, but not
> for business unless you were a geek. On my father job they had a big IBM
> mainframe, and certainly was not used for word processing.
> 
> The most popular here were the Sinclair ZX 81, later the Spectrum, and
> some fortunate people had a Commodore Vic 20 or better. It had a real
> keyboard.
> 
> I saw an Apple something at an university lab. Not a student lab.
> 
> I wanted a Sinclair QL, but got an Amstrad PC instead. Just in time.

I forgot about the "Amstrad PCW", a dedicated PC/M based word processor
machine. Came complete: Display with complete cpu and floppy drive (two)
in the same box, detached keyboard and a printer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_PCW

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

On 19/03/2018 23:05, Carlos E.R. wrote:
> On 2018-03-19 23:56, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>> On 2018-03-19 16:31, Quadibloc wrote:
>>> The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit
>>> home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack
>>> TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in
>>> wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.
>>>
>>> There were even earlier microprocessor-based computers, like
>>> the 8008-based Mark-8, but they received only very limited attention.
>>
>> Yes, here (Spain) people did have computers before the IBM PC, but not
>> for business unless you were a geek. On my father job they had a big IBM
>> mainframe, and certainly was not used for word processing.
>>
>> The most popular here were the Sinclair ZX 81, later the Spectrum, and
>> some fortunate people had a Commodore Vic 20 or better. It had a real
>> keyboard.
>>
>> I saw an Apple something at an university lab. Not a student lab.
>>
>> I wanted a Sinclair QL, but got an Amstrad PC instead. Just in time.
> 
> I forgot about the "Amstrad PCW", a dedicated PC/M based word processor
> machine. Came complete: Display with complete cpu and floppy drive (two)
> in the same box, detached keyboard and a printer.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_PCW
> 

The Amstrad PCW also has a BASIC interpreter and a spreadsheet. They 
were useful for compound interest calculations and planning home 
business expenditure.

On 2018-03-19, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> On 2018-03-19 23:56, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>> On 2018-03-19 16:31, Quadibloc wrote:
>>> The IBM PC was from 1981; before it, the Apple ][, CP/M systems, and 8-bit 
>>> home computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 400, and the Radio Shack 
>>> TRS-80 were popular. The microcomputer era, at least in 
>>> wealthy North America, started even earlier, around 1977 with the Altair 8800.
>>>
>>> There were even earlier microprocessor-based computers, like 
>>> the 8008-based Mark-8, but they received only very limited attention.
>> 
>> Yes, here (Spain) people did have computers before the IBM PC, but not
>> for business unless you were a geek. On my father job they had a big IBM
>> mainframe, and certainly was not used for word processing.
>> 
>> The most popular here were the Sinclair ZX 81, later the Spectrum, and
>> some fortunate people had a Commodore Vic 20 or better. It had a real
>> keyboard.
>> 
>> I saw an Apple something at an university lab. Not a student lab.
>> 
>> I wanted a Sinclair QL, but got an Amstrad PC instead. Just in time.
>
> I forgot about the "Amstrad PCW", a dedicated PC/M based word processor
> machine. Came complete: Display with complete cpu and floppy drive (two)
> in the same box, detached keyboard and a printer.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_PCW
>
That amstrad was a great machine, never owned one, but lots of
people, non-geeks, had them.



-- 
greymaus.ireland.ie
Just_Another_Grumpy_Old_Man

On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 00:05:48 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>
> I forgot about the "Amstrad PCW", a dedicated PC/M based word processor
> machine. Came complete: Display with complete cpu and floppy drive (two)
> in the same box, detached keyboard and a printer.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_PCW

Their advertisement said you don't need to know anything about
computers. Thus many computerphobes were able to to word processing.

The last to be introduced seems to be the "PcW16" in 1995. That was
probably the last mainstream computer powered by a Zilog Z80.
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/2018/03/history-of-wordprocessors-and-spread.html

JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:diivad9rf56ore...@4ax.com: 

[snip]

> The earliest WP I used was on an Apple ][+ at junior college. I was
> glad to find one, as before I had used a mechanical typewriter. I did
> write out my essay, or homework, long hand before typing. But I
> sometimes looked and then typed in the wrong paragraph.
> 
> Doing that on a computer, I could just move the paragraph to the
> correct location on the page, instead of having to retype the entire
> page.

My first word processing was using the FMT program on the MTS system at 
UBC. Written by a UBC zoology professor.
http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/people#TOC-Bill-Webb

Did my first resume using that.

-- 
Clark G
* take away the em's to reply  

On Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 9:02:50 PM UTC-4, Bob Eager wrote:

> Not to mention the 'Near Letter Quality' dot matrix printers. I bought a 
> Canon PW1080A printer in 1984 that had that. 9 pins (I think). The 
> printer did a line using the 9 pins, then reversed the carriage and moved 
> the paper up by a fractional amount. It then printed back the other way, 
> filling in the gaps between the dots. There was a separate bold function.

At that time, the expected standard for business correspondence
was a letter typed on an electric typewriter, preferably with a
film ribbon, and preferably by a Selectric.  A great many businesses
had that, but others (or some lower offices within a business) had
a plain electric.  Some still used manual typewriters for low-end
functions.

Anyway, letters printed on a dot-matrix printer, especially the
early models, looked crappy and didn't make a good impression on
the recipient.  But later, better printers came out and so many
people by then were using computers that it became acceptable.
Also, bubble-jet and laser printers were coming out, too.




We had some 9 pin Okidata printers that looked horrid, but I think
they were cheap to buy.

In the 286/386 era, I got a Panasonic 1124i dot matrix printer
that had very nice output in NLQ mode.  Even looked good in draft
mode.  It had several built in fonts that looked like various
common Selectric fonts.  Easily controlled by DOS or QBASIC commands.
Unfortunately, it no longer works; I wish I still had it for
correspondence.

On Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 4:44:01 PM UTC-4, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:

> Of course before the 80s word processors would only exist in large
> enterprises. They had one mainframe and a few printers, while the typists
> would sit on dumb and relatively cheap terminals. Should not take long to
> train a typist for the new technology.

Plenty of small enterprises had a word processing, such as an
IBM MT/ST.  My employer had 150 employees, but produced enough
reports to justify using a word processor back in the 1970s.
The presence of word processing was totally independent of
whether or not the organization had a computer.



> The advantages of editing on a CRT over a "direct printout" like with
> typewriters should have been clear since the 60s already.

The big advantage of word processing was that it allowed the user
to store text and not retype it every time.  That applied regardless
of whether it only had a typewriter output or a CRT.  Obviously,
one could do more with a CRT, but the typewriter with storage
was powerful in itself.

On Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 5:17:48 PM UTC-4, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> The standard in one mainframe shop in which I worked was to overprint
> heading and total lines on our line printer.  This was less effective
> when the ribbon was fresh, but since we were trying to wring every bit
> of ink out of a ribbon it usually looked pretty good.  Whether it was
> good enough to slow our printer down to 1/3 speed while doing it was
> a matter for discussion.  (Yes, one-third speed: our printer used an
> oscillating typebar, and you had to send it a blank line image between
> the two copies to be overprinted.  If the bar wasn't going the same
> direction when printing the two copies, the result would look smudged.)

While multi-printing did look good and set off headings and totals,
I never saw in use.  Many computer centers I was at discouraged 
multi-line strikes on the impact printer.

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> On Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 9:02:50 PM UTC-4, Bob Eager wrote:

>> Not to mention the 'Near Letter Quality' dot matrix printers. I bought a 
>> Canon PW1080A printer in 1984 that had that. 9 pins (I think). The 
>> printer did a line using the 9 pins, then reversed the carriage and moved 
>> the paper up by a fractional amount. It then printed back the other way, 
>> filling in the gaps between the dots. There was a separate bold function.

> At that time, the expected standard for business correspondence
> was a letter typed on an electric typewriter, preferably with a
> film ribbon, and preferably by a Selectric.

Beg to differ.  The gold standard for business correspondence at that time was
not a Selectric, but an IBM Executive with proportional spacing.  My mother was
an expert with one, preparing camera-ready copy for her company's annual report
and similar work.

-- 
Rich Alderson					  ne...@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen

On 2018-03-23, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> We had some 9 pin Okidata printers that looked horrid, but I think
> they were cheap to buy.

And they're still around, grinding out invoices in auto parts
suppliers and such.

> In the 286/386 era, I got a Panasonic 1124i dot matrix printer
> that had very nice output in NLQ mode.  Even looked good in draft
> mode.  It had several built in fonts that looked like various
> common Selectric fonts.  Easily controlled by DOS or QBASIC commands.
> Unfortunately, it no longer works; I wish I still had it for
> correspondence.

I still have my KXP-1124 among my junk.  I remember paying $600 for it.
Someday I should try to dig up a ribbon and see if it still works.
Until then, I guess I'll just continue printing on that $89 ink-jet...

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

On 3/23/2018 3:44 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2018-03-23, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> 
>> We had some 9 pin Okidata printers that looked horrid, but I think
>> they were cheap to buy.
> 
> And they're still around, grinding out invoices in auto parts
> suppliers and such.
> 

At a PPoE in the 1990's, the company used Okidata printers for their VAR 
(value added re-seller) product.  (The main value added was their 
application-specific software.)  Their PC-based computer systems were 
used in dirty environments and evidently the Okidatas were rugged.

Okidata offered a serial option, so the printer could be run from a 
serial port.  Like most dot matrix printers, this printer can produce 
supescripts and subscripts as well as bold, italic, and expanded large 
letter print.

One model could be run in Epson-compatibility mode as well as Okidata 
mode.  The Okidata mode and the Epson mode used different ESC sequences 
to produce the special options like bold and italic.  This model also 
had a complex set of bar code producing modes that could produce several 
different kinds of bar codes.  At this PPoE, we made *no* use of the bar 
code capability.


-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On Friday, March 23, 2018 at 4:34:05 PM UTC-4, Rich Alderson wrote:

> > At that time, the expected standard for business correspondence
> > was a letter typed on an electric typewriter, preferably with a
> > film ribbon, and preferably by a Selectric.
> 
> Beg to differ.  The gold standard for business correspondence at that time was
> not a Selectric, but an IBM Executive with proportional spacing.  My mother was
> an expert with one, preparing camera-ready copy for her company's annual report
> and similar work.

Yes, good point.  The IBM Executive was a wonderful typewriter.  
Heavy solid, but well balanced carriage.  Excellent print quality.

One office I worked in used them.  They had a handsome typeface
that looked sort of like Century School Book, more of a printed
look than typewritten (though still fixed width).

On bitsavers, a lot of the manuals appear to have been prepared by
an IBM proportional typewriter in the 1950s.

That would be Documentary, but you could also get Mid-Century that looked like Futura and others.

On 24 Mar 2018 10:25:59 GMT, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:

>On 2018-03-23, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

[snip]

>> While multi-printing did look good and set off headings and totals,
>> I never saw in use.  Many computer centers I was at discouraged 
>> multi-line strikes on the impact printer.
>
>I wrote a program which cut off its printer output by repeatedly
>overstriking a row of "*"s. It made such a racket I only ever ran
>it once, fearing for the mechanical integrity of the printer.
>
>(It was "my" computer room, so I could do what I liked in there.)

     Why asterisks?  Wouldn't "-" or "_" have worked better?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On 25 Mar 2018 10:16:22 GMT, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:

>On 2018-03-24, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote:

[snip]

>>      Why asterisks?  Wouldn't "-" or "_" have worked better?
>
>Fuck knows. It was over 40 years ago.

     I thought I might be missing something.

     I do recall a story about overprinting on a mainframe printer --
it might have been here even -- where the paper disintegrated.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On Sun, 25 Mar 2018 10:27:09 -0700, Gene Wirchenko wrote:

> On 25 Mar 2018 10:16:22 GMT, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> 
>>On 2018-03-24, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
>>>      Why asterisks?  Wouldn't "-" or "_" have worked better?
>>
>>Fuck knows. It was over 40 years ago.
> 
>      I thought I might be missing something.
> 
>      I do recall a story about overprinting on a mainframe printer --
> it might have been here even -- where the paper disintegrated.

It wasn't too good punching every hole on a card punch either.

-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

On 2018-03-25, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote:

> On 25 Mar 2018 10:16:22 GMT, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 2018-03-24, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>>      Why asterisks?  Wouldn't "-" or "_" have worked better?
>>
>> Fuck knows. It was over 40 years ago.
>
>      I thought I might be missing something.
>
>      I do recall a story about overprinting on a mainframe printer --
> it might have been here even -- where the paper disintegrated.

I once heard that the IBM 1403 tied its ribbon advance mechanism
to the form advance mechanism.  Hence the following FORTRAN program:

   10 PRINT(6,1)
    1 FORMAT("+THIS PROGRAM CHEWS UP THE PRINTER RIBBON.")
      GOTO 10

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

On Sunday, March 25, 2018 at 1:27:06 PM UTC-4, Gene Wirchenko wrote:

>      I do recall a story about overprinting on a mainframe printer --
> it might have been here even -- where the paper disintegrated.

Didn't take too many strikes to disintegrate the paper and cause
trouble for the compute operator.  Mgmt didn't like that at all,
which is why many sites did not like overprinting.

In my simple mainframe print program, I used overstrikes to 
put an underscore in the text.  That worked well on the 
laser printer.  For boldface, a special code (IIRC `b) put
the printer in boldface.  

On the PC, there were codes on the dot matrix printer that 
caused it to add underscore, go to italic mode, or go to
boldface mode.  These could be automatically added by the
word processing software, or sent by BASIC commands.

On Monday, March 26, 2018 at 12:11:06 PM UTC-4, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> >      I do recall a story about overprinting on a mainframe printer --
> > it might have been here even -- where the paper disintegrated.
> 
> I once heard that the IBM 1403 tied its ribbon advance mechanism
> to the form advance mechanism.  Hence the following FORTRAN program:
> 
>    10 PRINT(6,1)
>     1 FORMAT("+THIS PROGRAM CHEWS UP THE PRINTER RIBBON.")
>       GOTO 10

That won't make you any friends. <g>