DO YOU REMEMBER XEROX WORD PROCESSING? 1975 Computer History Secretary Typing Women Office Machines

Exploring a rare 1975 Xerox microcomputer based word processor, the Model 800 Electronic Typing System, a very early word processing machine, using magnetic card and/or magnetic tape storage. Various secretarial rolls are examined with a variety of office equipment, and focus on the Rank Xerox (UK) machine and its operation in an office. Runs 5 mins, followed by photo gallery of early Xerox computers from 1973 to 1985, such as the 850, 860, and others. (Xerox 800 was a dedicated word processing microcomputer, a successful office automation tool and part of the Xerox microcomputer line.)
Note: 2k and 4K stock film footage of this film is available from PeriscopeFilm
www.periscopefi...
A few Words About "Xerox" and "Rank Xerox" -------------------
Xerox, aka “Xerox Holdings,” is an American company specializing in print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. It is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.
“Rank Xerox” was formed in 1956 as a joint venture between Xerox Corporation (US) and the Rank Organization (UK). In 1997, Xerox (US) acquired all Rank Organization holdings and the related UK company became known as XRO, Ltd.. The term "Rank Xerox" is no longer used.
Due to market competition and management decisions, by the end of the 1980’s, Xerox was no longer a major producer of personal computers or business computer systems.
For current information on Xerox, visit:
Xerox Company
www.xerox.com
Other related informational links:
Xerox Company Timeline
www.xerox.com/...
PARC: A Xerox Company
www.parc.com/
Xerox personal computers, Centre for Computing History
www.computinghi...
Special thanks to:
DigiBarn Computer Museum
www.digibarn.com/
and
classic.technology online museum
Xerox 800 PDF file of original brochure (classic.technology)
classic.techno...
Alto Computer Restoration:
• Xerox Alto Restoration...
Xerox 610 Memorywriter Typewriter (classic tv ad)
• 1982 Xerox 610 Memoryw...
Xerox Star computer at the National Museum of American History
americanhistor...

[@paulchsney5994]

I worked with the Xerox 860, for several years while in the Navy. Loved those 8 inch disks.

[@paleghost]

The first iteration looks like a line editor - ed on UNIX, edlin on DOS. I think the large company I worked for used every variety of dedicated word processors, IBM Displaywriter, Wang, DECWriter, XEROX, Dictaphone, etc. I figure they're all taking up a lot of space in landfills. Thanks for producing videos even though they remind me of how old I am.

[@CarlosGomez-vt9pk]

When I started at Xerox in 1989 I was issued a 6085. I was floored because it was a like using a MONSTER Macintosh. You could add DOS emulation. It wasn't software, it was an expansion card of a fully running DOS PC.

[@afnDavid]

Xerox could of been a leader in home and small business computing (word processing included) but management was stuck with a 1950's attitude/mindset.

[@richbiles230872]

have

[@CastleKnight7]

@@richbiles230872 ‘ve

[@richbiles230872]

@@CastleKnight7 well done!

[@someonesomebody5287]

Or even bean of could. 😉

[@loveisall5520]

Biggest difference between the Xerox machines for wp and the IBM (the dominant brand by far) in the seventies was that IBM was still using the basic Selectric 'golf ball' typing mechanism, though souped-up and made much sturdier. Xerox was using the print wheel (I think the Diablo) and NEC was using the thimble. The print wheel was much, much faster than the golf ball, though unfortunately print quality didn't equal the IBM. However, by 1980 IBM had a huge car-sized laser printer that we called the 'Magic Printer' at my university, and we could send mag cards over there to be printed in dozens of fonts and very, very quickly. Of course, the HP LaserJet on my home computer is a small fraction of the size, and the price. Problem with the Xerox system, particularly on the one they're touting here, is that it couldn't correct on the original typed page, and the IBM Mag Card II had the same self-correcting mechanism as the Correcting Selectric II, and of course would correct the magnetic card at the same time. This saved the typist/word processor from having to rerun the page to get a completely clean copy of the work. BTW the Xerox Memorywriter in all its versions was an amazing machine, a real workhorse and, as someone who typed thousands of pages on them can attest, a complete joy to use.

[@new2000car]

The memorywriter 630 was a joy to use, nice and fast. But upgrading to the 645, with crt screen wasn’t so joyful because it was so pathetically slow if you had more than one page, always saying please wait for 30 seconds at a time while the disk was spinning and it was rewriting the screen.

[@5argetech56]

Fast forward to 2022, that whole room is in the palm of my hand! 🙂

[@dalecomer5951]

Do you have a line printer in the palm of your hand?

[@sonshinegamers]

Beautiful upload. So interesting to see this past presentation being advertised as breakthrough; as well as thankful to see where we started from early word processors to our current office and scholastic computers/tablets. Also, nice choice of song at the end - it definitely captures that wonder techie feel!

[@davidpanton3192]

Ahh, the voice of Patrick Allen. Nostalgia! The secretary obviously thought smiling was above her paygrade...

[@incargeek]

Smoking hot, though, and into Combine Harvesters. Whats not to like? :)

[@DandyDon1]

I owned a Xerox 860ips for many years which I bought from TRW surplus. I still have my Xerox 6085 Model 1. A Xerox 645S Memorywriter, and too many IBM Selectric typewriters. ;)

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi DandyDon, very nice. I understand.... I sometimes think I have too many of too many things tech centric. : )

[@DandyDon1]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject At least it does keep them from ending up in a computer graveyard/scrapyard. I miss our local Computer Graveyard. It's where I bought among other items the 6085-1.

[@DandyDon1]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Meanwhile I just found a video of someone showing a Xerox 645S Memorywriter. The person doesn't have the software, manuals, or the video monitor and he's bashing the product without knowing the first thing about. I was very lucky to have at Xerox in the software testing lab in El Segundo Calfornia (for a brief period of time) on the ChemIllustrator project. Xerox desktop publishing products, and the Memorywriter ran circles around the competition.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Yes, good point!

[@matneu27]

Always nice to see how all has begun. They didn't had a clue that later an animated paper clip will bother the users 😉

[@nickv1008]

Love those rotary dial phones, now if someone could just send those pages over the phone...well..

[@captainkeyboard1007]

Now I see what I have been missing through the years. Word processing would have been perfect for me, instead of typing keypunch style.

[@scottlarson1548]

I always like promotional films that preset the future to us, yet still show dial phones.

[@thesteelrodent1796]

it's interesting how they first made the Alto, and then this, but guess the price of the Alto was a bit steep for many and require more training than putting a line editor into a typewriter

[@milfordcivic6755]

Imagine the amount of paper they went through in an office back then. Not to mention the waste of time of dictation and proof-reading documents.

[@JohnAranita]

I really loved Microsoft Word on the Mac Plus.

[@Langkowski]

Memorywriter. I like that name. Too bad it never had a huge breakthrough.

[@airix10]

Love this. And love you CHA.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Ericb, thank you, glad you are enjoying the vintage tech material here! ~ Victor

[@gnarfgnarf4004]

There was a time when Xerox had the world by the tail. Competitors Lanier, Jackard, AES, Micom etc. ate their lunch.

[@CreachterZ]

And they all failed.

[@richdelgado3405]

1:20 Jesus. This film goes from an episode of The Mod Squad to the opening scenes from Murder She Wrote.

[@rudolphguarnacci197]

Thought i was watching the intro to Mannix.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @rudolphguarnacci197, yes, and without the cigarette commercials. : )

[@billschlafly4107]

@2:26 - A bit of bra showing automatically erased the boss' ability to notice any typos. @3:07 - A strategically placed knee might get you a raise and will come in handy if the boss get's too frisky.

[@constantinosschinas4503]

Gotta love that 70s styling and professional behaviour.

[@dalecomer5951]

Is there an _Inside the Xerox 800 Series_ film? Did the 800 series use microprocessors? The system box is the size of a large PC tower enclosure but too small to house a purpose-built minicomputer as used by some of the contemporary dedicated word processors such as Lexitron.

[@norcal715]

2nd, Love your content!

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Thanks again. Glad you enjoy it. (Working on some more vintage goodies... coming in July.) ~ Kimball, CHAP

[@DavidHembrow]

What kind of printer is used on the machine in the video? If it's quiet enough to make a telephone call next to it I would presume it's not a daisywheel or golfball type as those were deafening. Dot matrix impact printers were not considered to be "letter quality", and were also quite loud. So some kind of higher resolution matrix thermal transfer printer?

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi David, thanks for your question. It appears that the Xerox 800 is the machine that is doing the printing itself. The decibel level must be low enough to not be a distraction. The 800 brochure that is linked to in the comments, does not give the decibel level. It is a daisywheel type print head, but probably designed to be quieter than most other types of letter quality printers at that time. Perhaps someone else viewing the film may have more info to add on this. Thanks again! ~ VK

[@SeanBZA]

Daisywheel I would guess, and you can make them very quiet as well, just have to spend Xerox levels of money on adding in enough rubber damping on the actual machine platen mounts, and then further amounts of rubber and spring isolation to the heavy steel base, along with a thick case that has a lot of sound absorbing foam all on the inside surfaces. Then you also design the printer mechanism to have rubber dampers on the impact hammer, so the wheel makes the impression with little wasted energy, and also the same damping for the carriage and platen motions as well. You can get a lot of the noise down, certainly enough to be able to use a old fashioned insensitive microphone telephone handset next to it. You still get OKI dot matrix printers that are very silent, about the only manufacturer who makes them still, so they are only really one model, very expensive, and also multi interface, and they do have a silent mode that is not going to be above average busy office levels, and a fast mode that is only slightly noisier, but around triple the speed. They have lots of foam inside all the panels, and also lots of compliant elastomer mounts on things as well.

[@pauldzim]

That typewriter is based on the Diablo HyType I printer, which was produced by a subsidiary of Xerox starting in 1973 I believe. I think it was the first diasy-wheel printer ever made. I worked for them from 1976 on through the 80s. It was pretty loud when running at full blast, although I imagine the typewriter would have had a lot of sound-dampening material to make it reasonably quiet.

[@DavidHembrow]

Thanks for the great replies. I guess it must have had a lot of soundproofing and perhaps it was not run at maximum speed to also reduce noise. I remember that in at least one of the officers that I used to visit they had their daisywhee printersl in acoustic covers to deaden the considerable noise that those particular printers made. The single noisiest thing I remember with them was when someone I knew plotted a graph using microstepping and a *lot* of full stop characters. This took a long time, effectively using it as a very slow single pin door matrix printer. I always wondered what the effect was of such uneven use of a daisywheel.

[@SeanBZA]

@@DavidHembrow Would wear the single leaf out fast, but the daisy wheels were always considered as a wear part, and spare ones were often supplied with a typewriter, or you bought a font pack that had amongst the collection the standard one as well. The Olivetti packs had some very interesting business and personal fonts in them.

[@kins749]

Xerox had the future in their hands with the Alto but gave away the keys, they could have been Microsoft and Apple combined, instead they're still making copiers, that are becoming obselete in the age of working from home

[@jewgenijmoldawski3306]

The secretary seems to be unhappy despite the new xerox machine.

[@nickv1008]

Her affair with the boss isnt going so good..in 2032 he will have an affair with the machine.

[@orri93]

Did anyone else notice that the lady was typing with only two fingers?

[@SteveMacSticky]

pretty lady 👍

[@KaneAndShelly]

"This girl" looks like a full-grown woman to me.

[@SeanBZA]

All office secretaries in the 1970's were referred to as "girl", even if they were actually old enough to be grandmothers and great grandmothers. you also had the position of "Girl Friday" where the person assumed many roles in the business, not actually having a single task or role to function in.

[@tomnudho4202]

Ten trees died for the making of this single advertise.

[@barney6888]

and no notty pics

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

PLEASE JOIN US in Preserving Computer History with a small contribution to our channel. www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LCNS584PPN28E Your contribution greatly helps us continue to bring you educational, historical, vintage computing topics. Thank you! ~ Computer History Archives Project