Brooklyn 11211

In this 1982 Atlantic article James Fallow talks about writing on his computer, a ca. 1978 custom word processor built around an Intel 8080 chip. The computer had 48k of memory ("each K represents 1,024 bytes of information ... the machine can handle documents 6,500 to 7,500 words long"). Some fond memories here, including:

you don't need to stop at the end of the line for a carriage return (the computer automatically "wraps" the words onto the next line when you reach the right-hand margin), and you never come to the end of the page, because the material on the screen keeps sliding up to make room for each new line

and

the floppy disk, which is essentially magnetic recording tape pressed into the shape of a small record and then enclosed in a square cardboard envelope, 5 1/4 inches on each side

It's all here, including tape drives, VisiCalc, Compuserve ("computer mail"!), CP/M (the state of the art operating system in 1982) and DECMates (the first word processor I used was a DECmate I, 8" floppy and all) and the Personal Computer (capitalized).

[via @pourmecoffee]

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