[comp.sys.xerox] The Wonderful Xerox 850 Page Display

gurr (Greg Gurr) (06/08/90)

Does anyone in this newsgroup have the history of the Xerox 850 Page Display
dedicated word processor?  Despite its early '70s hardware (acres of TTL and
a power supply the size of a dog) its capabilities as a word processor for
people that only wanted a word processor are still ahead of their time.

Xerox came out with an 860 (CP/M based and software in RAM) but it ran even
slower than the 850 -- and the 850 could never be accused of being fast.

What has Xerox done with the creative word processing concepts that they
soldered into the 850?  Did they migrate to the Star?  Did they come from
the Diablo?  They weren't passed on to WordPerfect or Microsoft Word...

If any of the Xerox 850 designers are out there, step forward and take a bow.

Thanks.

Greg Gurr.
Mobile Data International (we don't make word processors).