Atari Word Processor

<p>Atari Word Processor is a <a href="/facts/Word_processor/qAR7lagF">word processor</a> program for the <a href="/facts/Atari_8-bit_computers/aT04N5zR">Atari 8-bit computers</a>, announced by <a href="/facts/Atari%2c_Inc./CQh1gphs">Atari, Inc.</a> in January 1981 and shipped that summer. The program was powerful for its era, including numerous features like superscripts and two-column layouts. It was also quite complex, with a long list of <a href="/facts/Control_key/31XW606Y">control keys</a> for basic operations and text-based menus for more complex ones. It left little memory free after loading, so longer documents had to be stored as separate files of about a page each and printing demanded a long re-formatting process as they were stitched together.
</p><p>Technical requirements were demanding; it required  48 kB of <a href="/facts/Random-access_memory/DuD4bxh6">RAM</a>, required at least one <a href="/facts/Floppy_disk/rShxfuxa">floppy disk</a> drive, and required an external <a href="/facts/Parallel_port/qpkjH8ts">parallel port</a> adaptor to connect to a <a href="/facts/Dot-matrix_printer/901EFhmk">dot-matrix printer</a>. The limited machine support and demanding requirements led Atari to release <a href="/facts/AtariWriter/ujCFUlF5">AtariWriter</a> the next year with the launch of the XL series machines. AtariWriter offered most of the features of Word Processor but was much easier to use and shipped on a single 16 kB <a href="/facts/ROM_cartridge/mWLcNez7">ROM cartridge</a> that ran across the entire lineup.
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Atari Word Processor open-in-new

Atari Word Processor