History of Microsoft Word

Installation floppy of Microsoft Word for UNIX Systems, version 5.0 (distributed by SCO, 1990)[1]

The first version of Microsoft Word was developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie, former Xerox programmers hired by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1981. Both programmers worked on Xerox Bravo, the first WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processor. The first Word version, Word 1.0, was released in October 1983 for Xenix and MS-DOS; it was followed by four very similar versions that were not very successful. The first Windows version was released in 1989, with a slightly improved interface. When Windows 3.0 was released in 1990, Word became a huge commercial success. Word for Windows 1.0 was followed by Word 2.0 in 1991 and Word 6.0 in 1993. Then it was renamed to Word 95 and Word 97, Word 2000 and Word for Office XP (to follow Windows commercial names). With the release of Word 2003, the numbering was again year-based. Since then, Windows versions include Word 2007, Word 2010, Word 2013, Word 2016, and most recently, Word for Office 365.

In 1986, an agreement between Atari and Microsoft brought Word to the Atari ST.[2] The Atari ST version was a translation of Word 1.05 for the Apple Macintosh; however, it was released under the name Microsoft Write (the name of the word processor included with Windows during the 1980s and early 1990s).[3][4] Unlike other versions of Word, the Atari version was a one-time release with no future updates or revisions. The release of Microsoft Write in 1988 was one of two major PC applications to be released for the Atari ST (the other application being WordPerfect).

In 2014, the source code for Word for Windows version 1.1a was made available to the Computer History Museum and the public for educational purposes.[5][6]

  1. ^ Marshall, Martin (January 8, 1990). "SCO Begins Shipping Microsoft Word 5.0 for Unix and Xenix". InfoWorld. p. 6. Retrieved May 20, 2021.
  2. ^ Atari announces agreement with Microsoft
  3. ^ Feature Review: Microsoft Write
  4. ^ Today's Atari Corp.: A close up look inside
  5. ^ Shustek, Len (March 24, 2014). "Microsoft Word for Windows Version 1.1a Source Code". Retrieved March 29, 2014.
  6. ^ Levin, Roy (March 25, 2014). "Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public". Official Microsoft Blog. Archived from the original on March 28, 2014. Retrieved March 29, 2014.