The woman who created and sold what many recognise as the world’s first word processor has died at the age of 93. Evelyn Berezin called the device the Data Secretary. She launched the product in 1971 with her company Redactron.

Redactron grew from 9 employees to nearly 500 and was named one of America’s top leaders by Business Week magazine in the year she sold it, 1976.

The innovation – which matched customers and available seats – was tested by United Airlines in 1962. According to the Computer History Museum it had a one second response time and worked for 11 years without any central system failures.

In addition, Ms Berezin helped pioneer other types of special-purpose computing such as: an automated banking system, a weapons-targeting calculator for the US Defence Department, and terminals for a horse-racing track that monitored how much money was being bet on each animal.

www.bbc.co.uk/technews (13th December 2018)