In pictures: 25 years of Microsoft Word

As Word celebrates its 25th birthday, we look back at the changes and challenges Microsoft's flagship word-processing program has been through during its first quarter-century.

Microsoft Word is one of the most well-known and popular word processing programs available today. In fact, Microsoft's domination is so complete that, from the public's point of view, there is almost no 'word-processor market'.

However, Microsoft's word processing program got off to a shaky and awkward start in October 1983, and it didn't become all-consuming until at least five years later. Even as Word adopted the market-leading position, it suffered its share of stinging criticisms and setbacks. This is the story, briefly, of how Microsoft Word evolved on its 25-year journey from obscure upstart to absolute King of the (software) world.

The first WYSIWYG word processor: Xerox Bravo

Before there was Word, there was Bravo - the world's first 'what you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG) word processor. Charles Simonyi and Butler Lampson developed the revolutionary program at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1974 for an amazing machine called the Xerox Alto. The Alto holds the distinction of being the first computer to use a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI). Although Xerox never sold the Alto commercially, its long-lasting influence can be felt today in all modern computers and operating systems, including a little application called Microsoft Word.

Photo courtesy of Xerox and Digibarn

Enter Microsoft and Xenix

Charles Simonyi, developer of Xerox Bravo, joined up with Microsoft after he received an offer from Bill Gates in 1981. On day one of his long tenure, Gates, Paul Allen and Simonyi decided to produce database, spreadsheet, and word processor applications. Simonyi soon hired a former Xerox intern named Richard Brodie and began work on ‘Multi-Tool Word'. With Brodie doing most of the programming, they developed version 1.0 in Microsoft's Xenix (a UNIX-like operating system, now defunct). Not long after, marketing scrapped the ‘Multi-Tool' part of the name as being too cumbersome, and Microsoft Word was born.

Photo courtesy of Antoni Sawicki and Richard Brodie

The early DOS days

Word 1.0 was first released for Xenix and MS-DOS in October 1983. The early DOS versions 1.0 through 5.0 featured a sometimes confusing 'moded' interface (the same keys could perform different tasks in different modes, or submenus) that harkened back to its Bravo roots.

It was a step up from competitor Corel WordPerfect's arcane function-key combinations, but a better interface was on the horizon - although it would take a different computer entirely to bring it to Word.

NEXT PAGE: Word on the Mac

1. MS Word: 25 glorious years?
   
2. Word on the Mac
3. The version diversion
4. Farewell Clippy

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