MultiMate
| Developer(s) | Multimate International |
|---|---|
| Initial release | December 1982 |
| Platform | MS-DOS |
| Type | word processor |
MultiMate was a word processor developed by Multimate International for IBM PC MS-DOS computers in the early 1980s.
With 1,000 computers, Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance was one of the first large-volume customers for the IBM PC. It hired W. H. Jones & Associates to write word-processing software for the computer that would not require retraining its employees, already familiar with Wang Laboratories word processing systems. W. H. Jones' head Will Jones and five other developers created the software. W. H. Jones retained the right to sell the program elsewhere, and WordMate appeared in December 1982. The company renamed itself to SoftWord Systems, then Multimate International, while renaming WordMate to MultiMate. Advertisements stated that MultiMate "mimic[ked] the features and functions of a dedicated system", and that it was "modeled after the Wang word processor". Like Connecticut Mutual, many customers purchased it because of the similarity with the Wang.
MultiMate was not marketed heavily to end-users, but was quickly popular with insurance companies, law firms, other business computer users and US government agencies and the military. While the Wang WP keyboard was different from the original PC keyboard, MultiMate compensated by providing a large plastic template that clipped on the PC keyboard, and stick-on labels for the fronts of the PC keys. The template and labels color-coded the combination keystrokes using the SHIFT, ALT and CTRL keys with all 10 of the PC's function keys and many of the character keys. Like Wang systems, MultiMate controlled most editing operations with function keys, assigning four functions to each of the 10 function keys, which IBM initially located at the left side of the keyboard in two vertical rows. It also included a "document summary" screen for each document, another Wang feature, which allowed more sophisticated document-management than the brief file names allowed by MS-DOS and PC DOS. As Drop-down lists were popularized by other programs, they became a later addition to MultiMate.
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