Remembering the Office of the Future: The Origins of Word Processing and Office Automation

Historians have not yet explored word processing´s development, and so to provide a rounded treatment, we examine the story from multiple perspectives. We review the conceptual development of word processing and office automation; the development of word processing´s constituent hardware and software technologies; the relationship of word processing to changes in the organization of office work; and the business history of the word processing industry. Word processing entered the American office in 1970 as an idea about reorganizing typists, but its meaning soon shifted to describe computerized text editing. The designers of word processing systems combined existing technologies to exploit the falling costs of interactive computing, creating a new business quite separate from the emerging world of the personal computer