On Saturday, 4 March 2017 12:23:32 UTC, Max Demian wrote:
On 04/03/2017 11:07, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
tabbypurr wrote:
Reminds me of the BBC Micro/Computer Literacy Project: we were going
to use our home computers to do the accounts, control central heating
and goodness knows what else: a Model B needed a lot of extras even
to do a bit of word processing.)

It didn't need any extras for that.

Except a printer, I suppose.

The printer (and lead) was the easy part. (You could get "near letter
quality" impact dot matrix printers quite cheaply.)

Then you needed the word processor ROM - I think they called it "Word" -
and someone to plug it into the motherboard - if you didn't want to do
it yourself.

Then you had to get a proper monitor, as the TV picture is too fuzzy for
80 columns.

Then a floppy disk drive to save the documents as cassette recorders are
too much of a faff.

But before that you had to get a shop to fit the disk interface - and
The World ran short of the controller chips for a time.

(I had a non-standard interface fitted to mine - which wouldn't load
many of the games you could buy due to anti-piracy routines.)

Actually never did any word processing on mine - its main use was
learning BASIC.

I used to word proces on a BBC long ago. No extras were needed, unless you count the printer & its lead.

Obviously floppies are a big improvement on cassette, but aren't a requirement for WP. I had floppies but never had or used the word rom. No need. These days PC users are often incapable of what was once routine.


NT