Mike B. wrote: > At 10/18/2007 05:14 PM, you wrote: >> On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:44:38 +0100 >> "Joao Santos" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> > Does OpenOffice infringe the intellectual property of Microsoft >> Office? >> >> I very much doubt it. The concept of a word processor go back many >> years >> before Microsoft was incorporated as a company. WordPerfect, for >> example, was >> the biggest word processing program around for many years -- it was >> originally >> written in 1982 and distributed by a company called Satellite Software >> International, later renamed WordPerfect, Inc. Word processing >> programs were >> originally written in the early 1970's for mainframe (green screen) >> computers. > > Microsoft was around prior to 1982, so that's not a great example, and > "word processors" originally appeared as stand-alone special purpose > machines (mainframes had "text editors" in the early days, which is > not quite the same thing) but your point is valid. >
Prior to the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, Microsoft was little more than BASIC and a CP/M card for the Apple computer. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
