IBM PC hacking

[Chuck Guzis]

>On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Jim Leonard wrote:
>> Then again, could you do useful word-processing work on a cassette-based
>> machine?  Anyone who use Atari 8-bit, C64, etc. -- was this common?  I
>assume
>> that you'd load the wordprocessor via tape, then run the machine without
>> powering down and save your work(s) to a blank tape...  but I don't
>remember
>> that as being common; I remember disks being much more common and
>practical.

Way back when I still was using an Imsai 8080 with Diablo daisywheel (directly driven by a dual-parallel port interface--not a serial one) and a Beehive Superbee editing terminal, I stored my data on a digital cassette tape drive (it allowed for speeds of up to 2400 bps and was block-addressable).  It wasn't a disk, but it did allow me to edit documents on a page-by-page basis.  You loaded a page into the Superbee, did your editing and then hit "transmit" to send the edited data back to the CPU.  I suspect I could have done away with the CPU entirely!  WYSWYG and no WordStar.

Seems to me that, although they had floppy drives, the old CPT word processors worked exactly like this.   The disks were organized by document number and page; you edited things page by page.

It worked and was a lot faster to use than the punched-card setup I used on the mainframe.

Cheers,
Chuck