The Origins of Word Processing Software for Personal Computers: 1976-1985
Thomas J. Bergin · IEEE Annals of the History of Computing · 2006
Since Electric Pencil first debuted in 1976, more than 400 other word processing packages have emerged, most fading into oblivion. This article recounts the history of microcomputer word processing software - focuses on three of the earliest word processing software packages, Electric Pencil, EasyWriter, and WordStar, which was the mid-1980s leader in the CP/M, PC-DOS, and MS-DOS operating system environments