Hey Guys...
Once upon a time, long long ago, before Windows, in the dawn of the computing age, the first personal computers became available. I was an 18 year old, long haired, skateboard riding, college newbie at California State University, Sacramento, when I saw my first computers. The earliest computers I worked with ran IBM basic (with a lot of help from the Computer Science 1 lab assistant Roger Thorn). Later, I worked at the Learning Skills Center teaching algebra to Entry Level Math students, I maintained the student records database that ran on an Apple IIe (Yes there were grades on there, and no I never changed any).
Soon, however, the IBM PC arrived, along with the clones. The clones rapidly multiplied (braiins - must eat braaiins), taking over everything. And the one app that EVERBODY who had an IBM PC had to have was WordPerfect. Word perfect was one of the very earliest WYSIWYG programs, even though it was a DOS text-mode app. It was awesome. All my later school papers were written on WP, and the first two or three versions of the Innovative Imaging Operators manuals were also done on Word Perfect. If you are a computer old timer like me, you probably remember this program well, and fondly.
Word Perfect was also similar to Innovative Imaging in that it was started by two main people, with a third person that was there from the beginning. The technical principals were Alan Ashton, a computer science professor from the University of Utah, and Bruce Bastian, a music student whom Mr. Ashton converted to a Computer Science student. Interestingly both of the principals worked on music related software, which at the time was very difficult to get to work due to the slow nature of the CPUs available. Working on these difficult problems also revealed both as people able to visualize and implement what they wanted. The third person, W.E. Pete Peterson, assumed most of the marketing duties during the 11 year rise of Word Perfect to dominate the word processing industry. Pete has written a very engaging book about the history of Word Perfect that is now out of print and available online at http://www.wordplace.com/ap/index.shtml. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have.
Thanks,
Steve
Once upon a time, long long ago, before Windows, in the dawn of the computing age, the first personal computers became available. I was an 18 year old, long haired, skateboard riding, college newbie at California State University, Sacramento, when I saw my first computers. The earliest computers I worked with ran IBM basic (with a lot of help from the Computer Science 1 lab assistant Roger Thorn). Later, I worked at the Learning Skills Center teaching algebra to Entry Level Math students, I maintained the student records database that ran on an Apple IIe (Yes there were grades on there, and no I never changed any).
Soon, however, the IBM PC arrived, along with the clones. The clones rapidly multiplied (braiins - must eat braaiins), taking over everything. And the one app that EVERBODY who had an IBM PC had to have was WordPerfect. Word perfect was one of the very earliest WYSIWYG programs, even though it was a DOS text-mode app. It was awesome. All my later school papers were written on WP, and the first two or three versions of the Innovative Imaging Operators manuals were also done on Word Perfect. If you are a computer old timer like me, you probably remember this program well, and fondly.
Word Perfect was also similar to Innovative Imaging in that it was started by two main people, with a third person that was there from the beginning. The technical principals were Alan Ashton, a computer science professor from the University of Utah, and Bruce Bastian, a music student whom Mr. Ashton converted to a Computer Science student. Interestingly both of the principals worked on music related software, which at the time was very difficult to get to work due to the slow nature of the CPUs available. Working on these difficult problems also revealed both as people able to visualize and implement what they wanted. The third person, W.E. Pete Peterson, assumed most of the marketing duties during the 11 year rise of Word Perfect to dominate the word processing industry. Pete has written a very engaging book about the history of Word Perfect that is now out of print and available online at http://www.wordplace.com/ap/index.shtml. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have.
Thanks,
Steve
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