'No Problem' Word Processor Poses a Problem for Former President Carter (1981)

I think everyone who spent time computing in the 80s &amp; 90s has at least one tale of woe relating to forgetting to save or crashing before a save or tripping over a power plug, etc.<p>In retrospect it seems pretty wild that users were expected to actuate an explicit “save” command and that word processors didn’t just handle this automatically.<p>I’m sure there were real reasons - I was never involved in DOS or Windows programming but I presume it had to do with the slowness of saving to disk (and that a background auto-save wasn’t technically possible?). Or did we just not yet collectively have enough experience to know that auto saving was something critical to writers…?

&gt; The Lanier machine, which sells for about $12,000, takes up about the same amount of desk space as an electric typewriter but is taller by a foot or more because of the cathode-ray display screen.<p>It is amazing how much the price of word processors has declined over the years. It has dropped from $12,000 to free, provided you have a PC on which to run it:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.openoffice.org&#x2F;product&#x2F;writer.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.openoffice.org&#x2F;product&#x2F;writer.html</a><p>I wonder if President Carter had to pay for his or if it was free for him given that having him use it was likely was a great advertising opportunity at the time.

There&#x27;s this 1979 model: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;toweringskills.com&#x2F;writing&#x2F;ascendency-of-word-processing-and-microsoft-word&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;toweringskills.com&#x2F;writing&#x2F;ascendency-of-word-proces...</a><p>And this model 103: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.vcfed.org&#x2F;index.php?threads&#x2F;lanier-model-103-no-problem-word-processor.46863&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.vcfed.org&#x2F;index.php?threads&#x2F;lanier-model-103-n...</a>

“The operator works at an electronic keyboard that returns the carriage automatically…”<p>Interesting how the mechanical concept of a carriage carried on.

I&#x27;ve recently read on Bluesky that someone&#x27;s mother used to use No Problem on a Lanier and loved it more than WordStar. I think that&#x27;s quite a praise.<p>EDIT: Found it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;audiooblivion.bsky.social&#x2F;post&#x2F;3leg3ngsp7k22" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bsky.app&#x2F;profile&#x2F;audiooblivion.bsky.social&#x2F;post&#x2F;3leg...</a>

I guess he’s doing all his writing in the cloud now.