Word turns 40: From 'new kid on the block' to 'I can't believe it's not bloatware'
- Reference: 1698257709
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/10/25/microsoft_word_40/
- Source link:
The very first version of Word – or Multi-Tool Word as it was initially known – came out on October 25, 1983 for Xenix and MS-DOS. It featured 16-bit graphics and text mode support, as well as support for that newfangled clicky thing, the mouse.
Coded by a team that included such luminaries-to-be as Charles Simonyi – who had previously worked at Xerox PARC and would later go on to success in Microsoft's application division – it is fair to say that Word was not quite an overnight success.
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It faced stiff competition from incumbents, such as WordStar, which, at the time of Word's release, accounted for nearly a quarter of the word processor market. WordPerfect also presented a threat, having debuted on DOS the previous year.
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The first version of Word was not exactly a WYSIWYG application, but Microsoft soldiered on and added features incrementally over the years until the final iteration – Word 6.0 for DOS in 1993. By then, there was a new Word in town that would lay waste to all before it – Word for Windows.
Word for Windows would go from obscurity to accounting for 90 percent of the word processor market by revenue in under 10 years.
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The first Windows version of Word appeared in 1989, but it took the release of Windows 3.0 in 1990 to give the software the enormous commercial success with which it is associated today. Word for Windows 2.0 emerged in 1991 and was, to the mind of this writer, peak Word for Windows before the bloat began to set in with Word 6.0 for Windows, and the kilos piled on.
The current edition is dubbed Word for Office 365, and we have no doubt that Microsoft's brightest minds are currently focused on how to shoehorn the letters "AI" in there.
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However, back in 1983, Word was just one option in a word processor market dominated by the competition. Just as Word once challenged the dominance of its rivals, it has seen its market share eroded in recent years by competitors like Google Docs.
The source code for Word 1.1a, first released in 1984, can be found at the [9]Computer History Museum .
The ZIP file comes in at just under seven megabytes. Imagine that. ®
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/25/nadella_windows_phone_regrets/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/23/microsoft_security_copilots_early_access/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/23/microsoft_azure_power_issue/
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[9] https://computerhistory.org/blog/microsoft-word-for-windows-1-1a-source-code/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: first time I saw MS Windows
Word's competition was mainly word processing systems running on dedicated hardware. Wang was big (no sniggering at the back).
Re: first time I saw MS Windows
We quickly worked out that a typist could transcribe a document faster
That's still very much the case today.
Re: first time I saw MS Windows
That's still very much the case today.
And we keep telling them this and we keep getting advice about it from the Department of Bright Ideas!
Seven megabytes is a LOT for a 1984 DOS program. Back then a lot of people were still running a computer just with floppies and no HD.
My favorite Word was Word 5.5 for DOS cause no Macros.
Or at least I didn't have to deal with them until Word 6.0 for Windows,
Correct. The closing remark is about Word for Windows, not Word (for DOS). The articled left "for Windows" out. I found it confusing too.
"Word for Windows version 1.1a as it was on January 10, 1991"
"My favorite Word was Word 5.5 for DOS cause no Macros."
Agreed...in my office, the company I worked for did not think that I needed a computer, as it was expected of me to hand write all my customer correspondence and give it to a secretary who would type it out (no PC for her either) and she would give me the completed letter for proofing and signing.
But, there were two PCs used by the sales director and it came to pass that they had a multi-user licence for Word v5.5 (for DOS). So, I took in my own home built PC and installed Word on it. That meant I could create my outgoing letters more quickly and the secretary did not have to waste her time typing up my letters.
I still remember when the sales directors face lit up, when he saw me using a mouse with Word 5.5 - as the menu items changed colour when selected by a mouse !! He got the in-house tech guy to purchase and install a mouse (and ISA adaptor card, as the serial port on his PC was already in use) for his work PC !!
from the linked computerhistory article:
"Over the next years Word was continually improved. The first version for Microsoft Windows was released in late 1989 at a single-user price of $495."
$495?!! In 1989? About the price of secondhand car?
That sounds about right...
Software was very expensive back then.
By the early 90s the price would probably have been more like $299. Competition did lower prices somewhat over time.
People often say that Word "won" the battle of the word processors because WordPerfect et al was late. But I'd contest that the prices had a lot to do with it as well.
WordPerfect was $299 for a word processor. Lotus 1-2-3 was $299 for a spreadsheet. But Office 4.3 Standard was $499, and that's a saving of $100 AND you get PowerPoint for free!
(To be fair, nobody knew how bad PowerPoint was back then, so it seemed like a good deal.)
Word didn't win. Office won. It was the first bundle, the rest were all late or had confused branding (SmartSuite, Borland Office, WordPerfect Office, etc).
Microsoft's real advantage was that all its competitors had fewer fingers in fewer pies, so couldn't bundle software as effectively.
Re: That sounds about right...
Office '97 was the real breakthrough for Microsoft, and the reason was that everyone who wanted to could install it from the CD for free and it would never ask for money at all.
That is how the competition was killed off.
Re: That sounds about right...
"Office '97 was the real breakthrough for Microsoft, and the reason was that everyone who wanted to could install it from the CD for free and it would never ask for money at all. That is how the competition was killed off."
This may be a shock to you but back then all software was easily copied and installed into any computer.
Office 97 wasn't any harder to pirate than say, Lotus SmartSuite, Coreldraw, Photoshop etc. The manufacturers only relied that people wouldn't share the installation keys. Software activation over internet was not used back then.
Perhaps Microsoft just had better office package than Lotus or Novell could produce?
Windows at that time cost $195. It required 1MB of memory and 2MB of hard disk space.
The first version oi Word I ever used was for the Atari ST (badged "Write", but actually a version of Word for the 68k Mac). It was unusably terrible. It became quite good for Windows 3.1 and has gone downhill ever since.
I had Write on the Atari ST too. It was as you say unusably terrible. It's not like I'm a particularly fast typist but it could NOT keep up with my typing.
I'd type a line then wait for it to catch up with me to see if I'd made any mistakes. Aargh!
Ah yes, Word for Windows 2.0
That software which waited until you got about 2/3rds through the last page of the essay you were writing on the day of the deadline and then GPF'd.
first time I saw MS Windows
We were checking out OCR at the time. Our scanner came bundled with Word and a runtime (single application) version of Windows 2.
The OCR never panned out. We quickly worked out that a typist could transcribe a document faster, once you factored in proof-reading and error correction. Back then, every office had at least one typist.
-A.