So Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet, eh? (fwd)

[mark at buttery.org (Mark J. Dulcey)]

Jerry Feldman wrote:
> I'm not sure if the PDP8 was used as a word processor. It was certainly 
> capable. It had a time sharing OS.

I don't know if the PDP-8 ever got used as a word processor in 
the modern sense. It was certainly used a a text editing system 
by people who had access to them, however. Back in those days, 
text editors weren't visual like the ones we have now; you had to 
have a mental picture of what you were doing.

The PDP-8 would not have been a good choice for a word processor 
for a couple of reasons. First, most of them didn't have any 
high-quality output devices attached to them, just Teletype 
terminals or perhaps a line printer. Second, the native character 
set of the system was a 6-bit one (the better to fit in the 
12-bit words), which could only handle upper-case letters and a 
limited set of punctuation.

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