Can you imagine just how long it would take to write up a whole business plan on sheets of foolscap paper? All that scribbling out and starting over. Forgetting to take photocopies but then when the plan got changed, having to write that part all over again. It seems completely unimaginable now that we ever had to do without computers. In fact, it would have been nearly as bad with just typewriters – until the word processor came along. I was lucky enough to work for a very forward-thinking boss – when I took over the role of his private secretary when his wife decided she wanted to move to another depart, I had use of her beloved IBM C5 memory typewriter which did incorporate the earliest form of word processing. In letter mode, it could store quite a few paragraphs, which mounted up over the day. I was able to correct, overtype and move words around, one at a time. I am talking many many years ago mind you – computers were only ever thought of in terms of science fiction and places like Bletchley Park!
