Stand-alone electronic word processor recommendations needed

[punchy71]

Hi, I'm thinking of possibly getting a vintage stand-alone electronic word processor, what are some of the better makes and models from the 1980's, 1990's and into the 2000's?

 

[krebizfan]

What are you planning on doing with the word processor? Do you want one built around a printer or do you prefer an external port model? Full size or tiny?

The Brother line was fairly reliable with the PowerNote being a dedicated laptop style design with parallel and serial ports.

 

[Plasma]

Something you may want to consider is data transfer between your word processor and a "normal" computer. Early word processors saved with proprietary floppy and/or file formats. If this is important to you, make sure that conversion will be possible.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Re: file transfer--yes, some of the later Brother systems were MS-DOS filesystem compatible. Earlier ones used a very proprietary GCR-encoded disk format (120KB and 240KB). Curiously, some of the Smith-Corona PWPs hosted Xmodem for file transfer.

 

[NeXT]

The IBM WheelWriter and QuietWriters were good performers. You can still find replacement ribbons and correction tape.

 

[jafir]

Some of the ones with separate crt monitors are MDA compatible, so if you get one of those you might be able to use the monitor on a PC or clone if you get tired of just the word processor.