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Comment by makerofspoons | Hacker News Reader

If this looked familiar to you but isn't quite the program you remember, you might have used Storybook Weaver (1994) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storybook_Weaver

I wonder if there's a market for a new word processor for children? When I volunteer in schools students seem to be made to use Google Docs or Office, which I imagine is initially overwhelming.

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Back when I was in elementary school in the 1990s we learned word processing using the ClarisWorks office suite on 68k Performa 575 models running System 7. While nostalgia may be clouding my opinions, I do remember ClarisWorks being easy to use. We also had access to Apple eMate laptops which ran the same operating system as the Newton. They had a word processing application on them, and we'd use these laptops in class to type short reports, which we would later print and give to the teacher to grade. I forgot the name of the word processing application, though; it's been 21 years since elementary school and the last time I saw an eMate.

It was probably Newton Works: https://www.newted.org/download/manuals/0306284ANWWPUM.PDF (PDF User manual)

> I wonder if there's a market for a new word processor for children?

Undoubtedly.

...but not one that the market will pay actual money for, so you'll have to plaster it in ads - but having ads targeting children is unethical and/or illegal.

The market isn't the kids, it's the schools.

Counterpoint: Schools, and even the highest regarded institutions of higher-education in the world, seem to think that Blackboard is good software.

I've used Google Docs probably since I was 8 or 9, I don't remember it being particularly hard to pick up. Also, Google has Google Classroom which works best with Google Docs, so Google Docs is probably what's most common with kids.

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