First documents: Training materials for Amada's Amacom programming system, ca. 1983. Used Wordstar 3.x under CP/M running on an Amacom computer, printing to an Epson dot-matrix printer. Produced by printing from the Epson, pasting graphics in, and running documents from the photo-copier. (very limited numbers).
Later, used Frameworks to create a paper for an SME "Laser Robotics" conference, ca. 1986. Frameworks was an interesting software, but buggy enough to eat documents. After Frameworks ate the SME paper, we abandoned it. (Frameworks, that is- and Ashton Tate abandoned it somewhat later...)
Our group were engineers and machine tool guys, and none of us wanted to tackle WordPerfect. When Word came out, we learned to use it, and produced many proposals, responses to RFQs, etc.
We (at Amada) didn't like Prima's manuals for the Optimo very much, and decided to create our own. We started with supplements, and eventually created a fairly complete set. We knew that Word wasn't the tool to use, so based on reputations of the available software on the PC platform, I chose Ventura Publisher.
After Amada stopped marketing the Optimo machines, I moved back to the X-Y machines (flat cutters) and did applications work and documentation for them. This was the time when the Pulsar and Altair machines were introduced in the US.
TECHWR-L - a very serious technical writing resource
techcomm - a very un-serious group of writers, who can also be a great resource.
more later...