Hello Russell and Rohan,
Snip
The vast majority of computer use is not reading books
or writing essays.
In the 80s there were dedicated wordprocessing PCs. Such things could
appear
on the market again.
I still have DECmates, a micro PDP8 that was a dedicated
wordprocessor. Unfortunately they need major service before I would
apply power, dried out electrolytics being the major issue. There were
advantages, the (l)users did not need to understand a general command
line OS, they had a text based menu, and provided they understood
backing out to earlier menus, and reading the copious manual, they
were very effective. I have daisy wheel printers of the same era, and
sitting there a DEC LN03 laser printer, the OPC belt has probably aged
too much, along with the toner, and possibly some of the electronics.
I even have a genuine PDP8 that was a wordprocessor, complete with
four 8" floppy drives, and the daisy wheel printer in a desk for it.
Now put a suitable dedicated front end on Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi,
and it could happen again, but a small and low power device.
Regards,
Mark Trickett