WPS-8

WPS-8 was the name of a Word Processing System sold by Digital Equipment Corporation for use with their PDP-8 processors (including the VT78, VT278 DECmate, and PC238 DECmate II and PC24P DECmate III microcomputer systems).

There is a webpage purporting to provide a downloadable word processing system manual located at http://manx.classiccmp.org/details/1,4005 (visited July 23, 2014).

WPS-8 supported a variety of 24 row by 80 or 132 column terminals including the VT52 family as well as the VT100 family and all subsequent ANSI-compatible terminals. A series of hierarchical menus allowed the user to command the system; the particular style of these menus became very-widely used by Digital, particularly within their "ALL-IN-1" office system. Once a document was opened for editing, near WYSIWYG editing was provided using a ruler to indicate the text alignment and tab stops for any given portion of the text. A typical editing session might have looked like this:

Using these various rulers, complex formatting could be achieved, even using a simple input device like a 24x80 character terminal. On ANSI terminals, character attributes such as bold and underline were shown on the screen. On the VT52 terminals (which could not display attributes), the operator could perform the same functions but only the printout would reveal the formatting.