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79-597: The word scripsit is a Latin verb equivalent to the English "wrote". It was often used as an inscription indicating the identity of the person who wrote something. Scripsit is a rudimentary word processor . It has basic text entry and margin controls, as well as word wrap. Many versions tied to specific platforms were available, and each version had its own set of features. Most versions supported variable width fonts , specifically for daisy-wheel printers . None had support for graphics other than some character macros depending on

158-558: A Unix shell . These uses usually have little to do with their use when they are in text being output. In Unicode, "Control-characters" are U+0000—U+001F (C0 controls), U+007F (delete), and U+0080—U+009F (C1 controls). Their General Category is "Cc". Formatting codes are distinct, in General Category "Cf". The Cc control characters have no Name in Unicode, but are given labels such as "<control-001A>" instead. There are

237-524: A bit , which can only be switched one way, usually from one to zero. In such PROMs, the DEL and NUL characters can be used in the same way that they were used on punched tape: one to reserve meaningless fill bytes that can be written later, and the other to convert written bytes to meaningless fill bytes. For PROMs that switch one to zero, the roles of NUL and DEL are reversed; also, DEL will only work with 7-bit characters, which are rarely used today; for 8-bit content,

316-421: A control character or non-printing character ( NPC ) is a code point in a character set that does not represent a written character or symbol. They are used as in-band signaling to cause effects other than the addition of a symbol to the text. All other characters are mainly graphic characters , also known as printing characters (or printable characters ), except perhaps for " space " characters. In

395-415: A virtual memory technique, but implemented by an applications program). Sometimes (often, according to some frustrated users) this feature malfunctioned and created a garbled data file. Rescue utilities were made available to rectify this situation. This was an all-new version written for Tandy/Radio Shack by CompuSoft. The author was Samuel A. Solomon. Scripsit Pro required a TRS-80 Model 4 equipped with

474-414: A "literary piano". The only "word processing" these mechanical systems could perform was to change where letters appeared on the page, to fill in spaces that were previously left on the page, or to skip over lines. It was not until decades later that the introduction of electricity and electronics into typewriters began to help the writer with the mechanical part. The term “word processing” (translated from

553-513: A bell to alert operators, was also an early teletype control character. Some control characters have also been called "format effectors". There were quite a few control characters defined (33 in ASCII, and the ECMA-48 standard adds 32 more). This was because early terminals had very primitive mechanical or electrical controls that made any kind of state-remembering API quite expensive to implement, thus

632-640: A computer-based word processing dedicated device with Japanese writing system in Business Show in Tokyo. Toshiba released the first Japanese word processor JW-10  [ jp ] in February 1979. The price was 6,300,000 JPY, equivalent to US$ 45,000. This is selected as one of the milestones of IEEE . The Japanese writing system uses a large number of kanji (logographic Chinese characters) which require 2 bytes to store, so having one key per each symbol

711-537: A destructive backspace (e.g., a BS, SP, BS sequence), which erases, or a non-destructive one, which does not. The shift in and shift out characters (SI and SO) selected alternate character sets, fonts, underlining, or other printing modes. Escape sequences were often used to do the same thing. With the advent of computer terminals that did not physically print on paper and so offered more flexibility regarding screen placement, erasure, and so forth, printing control codes were adapted. Form feeds, for example, usually cleared

790-404: A device, causes it to put the character at the edge of the paper at which writing begins (it may, or may not, also move the printing position to the next line). The line feed character (LF/NL) causes the device to put the printing position on the next line. It may (or may not), depending on the device and its configuration, also move the printing position to the start of the next line (which would be

869-422: A different code for each and every function looked like a requirement. It quickly became possible and inexpensive to interpret sequences of codes to perform a function, and device makers found a way to send hundreds of device instructions. Specifically, they used ASCII code 27 10 (escape), followed by a series of characters called a "control sequence" or "escape sequence". The mechanism was invented by Bob Bemer ,

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948-622: A fully functioned desktop publishing program. While the distinction between a text editor and a word processor is clear—namely the capability of editing rich text —the distinctions between a word processor and a desktop publishing program has become unclear as word processing software has gained features such as ligature support added to the 2010 version of Microsoft Word . Common word processor programs include LibreOffice Writer , Google Docs and Microsoft Word . Word processors developed from mechanical machines, later merging with computer technology. The history of word processing

1027-413: A later time or in another place. In computing, it is often used for padding in fixed length records ; to mark the end of a string ; and formerly to give printing devices enough time to execute a control function . Code 127 ( DEL , a.k.a. "rubout") is likewise a special case. Its 7-bit code is all-bits-on in binary, which essentially erased a character cell on a paper tape when overpunched. Paper tape

1106-498: A mainframe to another mainframe or perhaps a minicomputer.) Code 0 (ASCII code name NUL ) is a special case. In paper tape, it is the case when there are no holes. It is convenient to treat this as a fill character with no meaning otherwise. Since the position of a NUL character has no holes punched, it can be replaced with any other character at a later time, so it was typically used to reserve space, either for correcting errors or for inserting information that would be available at

1185-456: A new sheet of paper, and may or may not move to the start of the first line. The backspace character (BS) moves the printing position one character space backwards. On printers, including hard-copy terminals , this is most often used so the printer can overprint characters to make other, not normally available, characters. On video terminals and other electronic output devices, there are often software (or hardware) configuration choices that allow

1264-451: A number of techniques to display non-printing characters, which may be illustrated with the bell character in ASCII encoding: ASCII-based keyboards have a key labelled " Control ", "Ctrl", or (rarely) "Cntl" which is used much like a shift key, being pressed in combination with another letter or symbol key. In one implementation, the control key generates the code 64 places below the code for

1343-461: A sequence of JSON elements. Each sequence item starts with a RS character and ends with a line feed. This allows to serialize open-ended JSON sequences. It is one of the JSON streaming protocols. The transmission control characters were intended to structure a data stream, and to manage re-transmission or graceful failure, as needed, in the face of transmission errors. The start of heading (SOH) character

1422-547: A set of stick-on "keycaps" describing the function were provided with the software. Lexitype was popular with large organizations that had previously used the Lexitron. Eventually, the price differences between dedicated word processors and general-purpose PCs, and the value added to the latter by software such as “ killer app ” spreadsheet applications, e.g. VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 , were so compelling that personal computers and word processing software became serious competition for

1501-426: A transmission medium is half duplex (that is, it can transmit in only one direction at a time), there is usually a master station that can transmit at any time, and one or more slave stations that transmit when they have permission. The enquire character ( ENQ ) is generally used by a master station to ask a slave station to send its next message. A slave station indicates that it has completed its transmission by sending

1580-452: A typewriter) was patented in 1714 by Henry Mill for a machine that was capable of "writing so clearly and accurately you could not distinguish it from a printing press". More than a century later, another patent appeared in the name of William Austin Burt for the typographer . In the late 19th century, Christopher Latham Sholes created the first recognizable typewriter, which was described as

1659-500: A user to rewrite text that had been written on another tape, and it also allowed limited collaboration in the sense that a user could send the tape to another person to let them edit the document or make a copy. It was a revolution for the word processing industry. In 1969, the tapes were replaced by magnetic cards. These memory cards were inserted into an extra device that accompanied the MT/ST, able to read and record users' work. Throughout

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1738-1095: A value of the control character plus 64. Control characters generated using letter keys are thus displayed with the upper-case form of the letter. For example, ^G represents code 7, which is generated by pressing the G key when the control key is held down. Keyboards also typically have a few single keys which produce control character codes. For example, the key labelled "Backspace" typically produces code 8, "Tab" code 9, "Enter" or "Return" code 13 (though some keyboards might produce code 10 for "Enter"). Many keyboards include keys that do not correspond to any ASCII printable or control character, for example cursor control arrows and word processing functions. The associated keypresses are communicated to computer programs by one of four methods: appropriating otherwise unused control characters; using some encoding other than ASCII; using multi-character control sequences; or using an additional mechanism outside of generating characters. "Dumb" computer terminals typically use control sequences. Keyboards attached to stand-alone personal computers made in

1817-411: Is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current word processors are word processor programs running on general purpose computers. The functions of a word processor program fall somewhere between those of a simple text editor and

1896-445: Is called the C1 set. These 65 control codes were carried over to Unicode . Unicode added more characters that could be considered controls, but it makes a distinction between these "Formatting characters" (such as the zero-width non-joiner ) and the 65 control characters. The Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) character set contains 65 control codes, including all of

1975-591: Is infeasible. Japanese word processing became possible with the development of the Japanese input method (a sequence of keypresses, with visual feedback, which selects a character) -- now widely used in personal computers. Oki launched OKI WORD EDITOR-200 in March 1979 with this kana-based keyboard input system. In 1980 several electronics and office equipment brands including entered this rapidly growing market with more compact and affordable devices. For instance, NEC introduced

2054-412: Is not part of official ASCII. This technique, however implemented, avoids additional wires in the data cable devoted only to transmission management, which saves money. A sensible protocol for the use of such transmission flow control signals must be used, to avoid potential deadlock conditions, however. The data link escape character ( DLE ) was intended to be a signal to the other end of a data link that

2133-501: Is possible to encounter the separator control characters in data that needs to be structured. The separator control characters are not overloaded; there is no general use of them except to separate data into structured groupings. Their numeric values are contiguous with the space character, which can be considered a member of the group, as a word separator. For example, the RS separator is used by RFC   7464 (JSON Text Sequences) to encode

2212-434: Is represented by Ctrl-@, "@" being the code immediately before "A" in the ASCII character set. For convenience, some terminals accept Ctrl-Space as an alias for Ctrl-@. In either case, this produces one of the 32 ASCII control codes between 0 and 31. Neither approach works to produce the DEL character because of its special location in the table and its value (code 127 10 ), Ctrl-? is sometimes used for this character. When

2291-462: Is the story of the gradual automation of the physical aspects of writing and editing, and then to the refinement of the technology to make it available to corporations and Individuals. The term word processing appeared in American offices in the early 1970s centered on the idea of streamlining the work to typists, but the meaning soon shifted toward the automation of the whole editing cycle. At first,

2370-551: The ASCII standard there are 33 control characters, such as code 7, BEL , which rings a terminal bell. Procedural signs in Morse code are a form of control character. A form of control characters were introduced in the 1870 Baudot code : NUL and DEL. The 1901 Murray code added the carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF), and other versions of the Baudot code included other control characters. The bell character (BEL), which rang

2449-452: The C0 control code set) are of this kind, including CR and LF used to separate lines of text. The code 127 10 ( DEL ) is also a control character. Extended ASCII sets defined by ISO 8859 added the codes 128 10 through 159 10 as control characters. This was primarily done so that if the high bit was stripped, it would not change a printing character to a C0 control code. This second set

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2528-500: The Ctrl-C or Ctrl-D , which are common on other operating systems. The cancel character ( CAN ) signaled that the previous element should be discarded. The negative acknowledge character ( NAK ) is a definite flag for, usually, noting that reception was a problem, and, often, that the current element should be sent again. The acknowledge character ( ACK ) is normally used as a flag to indicate no problem detected with current element. When

2607-862: The Gypsy word processor). These were popularized by MacWrite on the Apple Macintosh in 1983, and Microsoft Word on the IBM PC in 1984. These were probably the first true WYSIWYG word processors to become known to many people. Of particular interest also is the standardization of TrueType fonts used in both Macintosh and Windows PCs. While the publishers of the operating systems provide TrueType typefaces, they are largely gathered from traditional typefaces converted by smaller font publishing houses to replicate standard fonts. Demand for new and interesting fonts, which can be found free of copyright restrictions, or commissioned from font designers, developed. The growing popularity of

2686-545: The IBM PC . Word processors typically require the use of special function keys to access editing commands as opposed to text entry. This proved to be a challenge on the TRS-80 Models I and Model III, as their keyboards had no non-typewriter modifier keys—not even a [Control] key. Instead, Tandy used the '@' key to access features such as margin control and load/save. Other common features were implemented as key combinations using

2765-601: The NWP-20  [ jp ] , and Fujitsu launched the Fujitsu OASYS  [ jp ] . While the average unit price in 1980 was 2,000,000 JPY (US$ 14,300), it was dropped to 164,000 JPY (US$ 1,200) in 1985. Even after personal computers became widely available, Japanese word processors remained popular as they tended to be more portable (an "office computer" was initially too large to carry around), and become commonplace for business and academics, even for private individuals in

2844-406: The $ 10,000 range. Cheap general-purpose personal computers were still the domain of hobbyists. In Japan, even though typewriters with Japanese writing system had widely been used for businesses and governments, they were limited to specialists and required special skills due to the wide variety of letters, until computer-based devices came onto the market. In 1977, Sharp showcased a prototype of

2923-459: The (generally) uppercase letter it is pressed in combination with (i.e., subtract 0x40 from ASCII code value of the (generally) uppercase letter). The other implementation is to take the ASCII code produced by the key and bitwise AND it with 0x1F, forcing bits 5 to 7 to zero. For example, pressing "control" and the letter "g" (which is 0110 0111 in binary ), produces the code 7 (BELL, 7 in base ten, or 0000 0111 in binary). The NULL character (code 0)

3002-612: The 1960s and 70s, word processing began to slowly shift from glorified typewriters augmented with electronic features to become fully computer-based (although only with single-purpose hardware) with the development of several innovations. Just before the arrival of the personal computer (PC), IBM developed the floppy disk . In the 1970s, the first proper word-processing systems appeared, which allowed display and editing of documents on CRT screens . During this era, these early stand-alone word processing systems were designed, built, and marketed by several pioneering companies. Linolex Systems

3081-508: The 1980s typically use one (or both) of the first two methods. Modern computer keyboards generate scancodes that identify the specific physical keys that are pressed; computer software then determines how to handle the keys that are pressed, including any of the four methods described above. The control characters were designed to fall into a few groups: printing and display control, data structuring, transmission control, and miscellaneous. Printing control characters were first used to control

3160-430: The ASCII control codes plus additional codes which are mostly used to control IBM peripherals. The control characters in ASCII still in common use include: Control characters may be described as doing something when the user inputs them, such as code 3 ( End-of-Text character , ETX, ^C ) to interrupt the running process, or code 4 ( End-of-Transmission character , EOT, ^D ), used to end text input on Unix or to exit

3239-525: The German word Textverarbeitung ) itself was possibly created in the 1950s by Ulrich Steinhilper , a German IBM typewriter sales executive, or by an American electro-mechanical typewriter executive, George M. Ryan, who obtained a trademark registration in the USPTO for the phrase. However, it did not make its appearance in 1960s office management or computing literature (an example of grey literature ), though many of

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3318-493: The Windows operating system in the 1990s later took Microsoft Word along with it. Originally called "Microsoft Multi-Tool Word", this program quickly became a synonym for “word processor”. Early in the 21st century, Google Docs popularized the transition to online or offline web browser based word processing. This was enabled by the widespread adoption of suitable internet connectivity in businesses and domestic households and later

3397-637: The [Clear] key, and, lacking a [CAPS] key, the combination [SHIFT][zero]. An upgraded disk-only version named SuperScripsit was available with spellchecking for some platforms, specifically the Model I, Model III, and Model 4. This version basically matches the functionality of the normal Scripsit for disk-based platforms such as the Model II, Model 12, and Model 16 . Some additional features such as boilerplating and integration with Profile , Tandy's database program for all of their TRS-80 platforms, are available for

3476-591: The consumer-oriented Models I and III. Its main competitor was Michael Shrayer's Electric Pencil . Scripsit dominated its market because, at first, no other TRS-80 word processor was available through the ubiquitous Radio Shack retail stores, with alternatives only being known and made available to the public in the TRS-80 computer press, such as 80 Micro magazine. The software market evolved quickly, however, and Scripsit's popularity soon gave way to packages running on other more modern computers, such as WordPerfect running on

3555-401: The control key is held down, letter keys produce the same control characters regardless of the state of the shift or caps lock keys. In other words, it does not matter whether the key would have produced an upper-case or a lower-case letter. The interpretation of the control key with the space, graphics character, and digit keys (ASCII codes 32 to 63) vary between systems. Some will produce

3634-412: The counter-intuitive step of "closing the file" which required a special operation before saving and exiting the file. If this step was omitted, the file could not be opened again. No warnings were issued beforehand. This was eliminated in newer versions of Scripsit. One handy and somewhat innovative feature for the time was the ability to add custom control characters in the printer setup. This allowed

3713-427: The creation of custom printer drivers . Scripsit had a number of significant bugs that could result in the loss of work. The Model 4 version, for example, would inject random text throughout the document if the user held the control key ('@') down for more than a few seconds. If the machine turned off or was reset while a document was still open, the software could not open the document ever again. Early versions had

3792-480: The dedicated machines and soon dominated the market. In the late 1980s, innovations such as the advent of laser printers , a "typographic" approach to word processing ( WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get), using bitmap displays with multiple fonts (pioneered by the Xerox Alto computer and Bravo word processing program), and graphical user interfaces such as “copy and paste” (another Xerox PARC innovation, with

3871-587: The designers of word processing systems combined existing technologies with emerging ones to develop stand-alone equipment, creating a new business distinct from the emerging world of the personal computer. The concept of word processing arose from the more general data processing, which since the 1950s had been the application of computers to business administration. Through history, there have been three types of word processors: mechanical, electronic and software. The first word processing device (a "Machine for Transcribing Letters" that appears to have been similar to

3950-538: The disk versions. Starting SuperScripsit led to a main menu of tasks such as "Open", "Proofread", or "Setup". Presumably because of the limited screen area on most TRS-80 models, there were no visible menus on the editing screen. RAM was probably also an issue, since selecting each of the options resulted in heavy floppy disk activity. SuperScripsit for the Models III and 4 could handle text files larger than memory by paging text data in and out of RAM to disk (effectively

4029-634: The end of transmission character ( EOT ). The device control codes (DC1 to DC4) were originally generic, to be implemented as necessary by each device. However, a universal need in data transmission is to request the sender to stop transmitting when a receiver is temporarily unable to accept any more data. Digital Equipment Corporation invented a convention which used 19 (the device control 3 character ( DC3 ), also known as control-S, or XOFF ) to "S"top transmission, and 17 (the device control 1 character ( DC1 ), a.k.a. control-Q, or XON ) to start transmission. It has become so widely used that most don't realize it

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4108-430: The father of ASCII. For example, the sequence of code 27 10 , followed by the printable characters "[2;10H", would cause a Digital Equipment Corporation VT100 terminal to move its cursor to the 10th cell of the 2nd line of the screen. Several standards exist for these sequences, notably ANSI X3.64 , but the number of non-standard variations is large. All entries in the ASCII table below code 32 10 (technically

4187-426: The following character is a control character such as STX or ETX. For example a packet may be structured in the following way ( DLE ) <STX> <PAYLOAD> ( DLE ) <ETX>. Code 7 ( BEL ) is intended to cause an audible signal in the receiving terminal. Many of the ASCII control characters were designed for devices of the time that are not often seen today. For example, code 22, "synchronous idle" ( SYN ),

4266-468: The full 128 KB RAM. The text buffer was limited to 32 KB and it lacked SuperScripsit's ability to page text from disk. However, it could hold a second 32K text document in banked RAM and split the screen to permit editing of both documents at once, and to transfer text between the two buffers. It could also chain text files, handle footnotes and columnar text, and included a spell checker with a customizable dictionary. The documentation included instructions for

4345-511: The ideas, products, and technologies to which it would later be applied were already well known. Nonetheless, by 1971, the term was recognized by the New York Times as a business " buzz word ". Word processing paralleled the more general "data processing", or the application of computers to business administration. Thus, by 1972, the discussion of word processing was common in publications devoted to business office management and technology; by

4424-448: The leftmost position for left-to-right scripts, such as the alphabets used for Western languages, and the rightmost position for right-to-left scripts such as the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets). The vertical and horizontal tab characters (VT and HT/TAB) cause the output device to move the printing position to the next tab stop in the direction of reading. The form feed character (FF/NP) starts

4503-605: The mid-1970s, the term would have been familiar to any office manager who consulted business periodicals. By the late 1960s, IBM had developed the IBM MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter). It was a model of the IBM Selectric typewriter from earlier in 1961, but it came built into its own desk, integrated with magnetic tape recording and playback facilities along with controls and a bank of electrical relays. The MT/ST automated word wrap, but it had no screen. This device allowed

4582-879: The most popular systems of the 1970s and early 1980s. The Wang system displayed text on a CRT screen, and incorporated virtually every fundamental characteristic of word processors as they are known today. While early computerized word processor system were often expensive and hard to use (that is, like the computer mainframes of the 1960s), the Wang system was a true office machine, affordable to organizations such as medium-sized law firms, and easily mastered and operated by secretarial staff. The phrase "word processor" rapidly came to refer to CRT-based machines similar to Wang's. Numerous machines of this kind emerged, typically marketed by traditional office-equipment companies such as IBM, Lanier (AES Data machines - re-badged), CPT, and NBI. All were specialized, dedicated, proprietary systems, with prices in

4661-442: The new flexibility and power and became the standard method. However, there were, and remain, a large variety of standard sequences to choose from. The separators (File, Group, Record, and Unit: FS, GS, RS and US) were made to structure data, usually on a tape, in order to simulate punched cards . End of medium (EM) warns that the tape (or other recording medium) is ending. While many systems use CR/LF and TAB for structuring data, it

4740-472: The physical mechanism of printers, the earliest output device. An early example of this idea was the use of Figures (FIGS) and Letters (LTRS) in Baudot code to shift between two code pages. A later, but still early, example was the out-of-band ASA carriage control characters . Later, control characters were integrated into the stream of data to be printed. The carriage return character (CR), when sent to such

4819-612: The popularity of smartphones . Google Docs enabled word processing from within any vendor's web browser, which could run on any vendor's operating system on any physical device type including tablets and smartphones, although offline editing is limited to a few Chromium based web browsers. Google Docs also enabled the significant growth of use of information technology such as remote access to files and collaborative real-time editing , both becoming simple to do with little or no need for costly software and specialist IT support. Control character In computing and telecommunications ,

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4898-537: The program. British thriller author James Follett also used Scripsit, running on a TRS-80 Model I , to write The Tiptoe Boys , which was filmed as Who Dares Wins . James Fallows praised Scripsit as "the word-processing program I prefer above all others ... the best program on the market". On the TV program Mr. Wizard's World , Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert) used Scripsit on a TRS-80 Model 4 to demonstrate spell checking . Word processor A word processor ( WP )

4977-412: The public. By the late 1970s, computerized word processors were still primarily used by employees composing documents for large and midsized businesses (e.g., law firms and newspapers). Within a few years, the falling prices of PCs made word processing available for the first time to all writers in the convenience of their homes. The first word processing program for personal computers ( microcomputers )

5056-410: The same character code as if the control key were not held down. Other systems translate these keys into control characters when the control key is held down. The interpretation of the control key with non-ASCII ("foreign") keys also varies between systems. Control characters are often rendered into a printable form known as caret notation by printing a caret (^) and then the ASCII character that has

5135-402: The screen, there being no new paper page to move to. More complex escape sequences were developed to take advantage of the flexibility of the new terminals, and indeed of newer printers. The concept of a control character had always been somewhat limiting, and was extremely so when used with new, much more flexible, hardware. Control sequences (sometimes implemented as escape sequences) could match

5214-491: The second half of the 1980s. The phrase "word processor" has been abbreviated as "Wa-pro" or "wapuro" in Japanese. The final step in word processing came with the advent of the personal computer in the late 1970s and 1980s and with the subsequent creation of word processing software. Word processing software that would create much more complex and capable output was developed and prices began to fall, making them more accessible to

5293-457: The time, (about $ 60,000 adjusted for inflation). The Redactron Corporation (organized by Evelyn Berezin in 1969) designed and manufactured editing systems, including correcting/editing typewriters, cassette and card units, and eventually a word processor called the Data Secretary. The Burroughs Corporation acquired Redactron in 1976. A CRT-based system by Wang Laboratories became one of

5372-481: The user to take advantage of new features in a printer that were not intrinsically supported by Scripsit, such as different fonts or colours, or printing extended ASCII characters to produce simple lines and boxes. This was possible as printer manuals of the day included a full list of supported control character sequences for such functionality. Isaac Asimov used Scripsit running on a TRS-80 Model II Computer for over nine years, and wrote over 11 million words with

5451-459: The version. The version for the TRS-80 Model I had special handling to make it possible to use lowercase letters, even though the hardware itself did not support mixed-case type. Despite its limitations, Scripsit was seen at the time as a killer application for the TRS-80 line of machines, along with other breakthrough applications such as VisiCalc . It was Radio Shack's top-selling program for

5530-508: Was Electric Pencil , from Michael Shrayer Software , which went on sale in December 1976. In 1978, WordStar appeared and because of its many new features soon dominated the market. WordStar was written for the early CP/M (Control Program–Micro) operating system, ported to CP/M-86 , then to MS-DOS , and was the most popular word processing program until 1985 when WordPerfect sales first exceeded WordStar sales. Early word processing software

5609-716: Was a common storage medium when ASCII was developed, with a computing history dating back to WWII code breaking equipment at Biuro Szyfrów . Paper tape became obsolete in the 1970s, so this clever aspect of ASCII rarely saw any use after that. Some systems (such as the original Apples) converted it to a backspace. But because its code is in the range occupied by other printable characters, and because it had no official assigned glyph, many computer equipment vendors used it as an additional printable character (often an all-black "box" character useful for erasing text by overprinting with ink). Non-erasable programmable ROMs are typically implemented as arrays of fusible elements, each representing

5688-445: Was founded in 1970 by James Lincoln and Robert Oleksiak. Linolex based its technology on microprocessors, floppy drives and software. It was a computer-based system for application in the word processing businesses and it sold systems through its own sales force. With a base of installed systems in over 500 sites, Linolex Systems sold 3 million units in 1975 — a year before the Apple computer

5767-400: Was intended to request a translation of the next character from a printable character to another value, usually by setting bit 5 to zero. This is handy because some media (such as sheets of paper produced by typewriters) can transmit only printable characters. However, on MS-DOS systems with files opened in text mode, "end of text" or "end of file" is marked by this Ctrl-Z character, instead of

5846-588: Was not as intuitive as word processor devices. Most early word processing software required users to memorize semi-mnemonic key combinations rather than pressing keys such as "copy" or "bold". Moreover, CP/M lacked cursor keys; for example WordStar used the E-S-D-X-centered "diamond" for cursor navigation. A notable exception was the software Lexitype for MS-DOS that took inspiration from the Lexitron dedicated word processor's user interface and which mapped individual functions to particular keyboard function keys , and

5925-407: Was originally sent by synchronous modems (which have to send data constantly) when there was no actual data to send. (Modern systems typically use a start bit to announce the beginning of a transmitted word— this is a feature of asynchronous communication. Synchronous communication links were more often seen with mainframes, where they were typically run over corporate leased lines to connect

6004-486: Was released. At that time, the Lexitron Corporation also produced a series of dedicated word-processing microcomputers. Lexitron was the first to use a full-sized video display screen (CRT) in its models by 1978. Lexitron also used 5 1 ⁄ 4 inch floppy diskettes, which became the standard in the personal computer field. The program disk was inserted in one drive, and the system booted up . The data diskette

6083-414: Was then put in the second drive. The operating system and the word processing program were combined in one file. Another of the early word processing adopters was Vydec, which created in 1973 the first modern text processor, the "Vydec Word Processing System". It had built-in multiple functions like the ability to share content by diskette and print it. The Vydec Word Processing System sold for $ 12,000 at

6162-467: Was to mark a non-data section of a data stream—the part of a stream containing addresses and other housekeeping data. The start of text character (STX) marked the end of the header, and the start of the textual part of a stream. The end of text character (ETX) marked the end of the data of a message. A widely used convention is to make the two characters preceding ETX a checksum or CRC for error-detection purposes. The end of transmission block character (ETB)

6241-465: Was used to indicate the end of a block of data, where data was divided into such blocks for transmission purposes. The escape character ( ESC ) was intended to "quote" the next character, if it was another control character it would print it instead of performing the control function. It is almost never used for this purpose today. Various printable characters are used as visible " escape characters ", depending on context. The substitute character ( SUB )

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