Hackaday

PROFS (Professional Office System) was IBM's mainframe-based office suite from the early 1980s that pioneered features now standard in modern productivity software. It offered screen-oriented text editing, email (called 'notes'), calendar management with access controls, document versioning, and markup-based formatting similar to HTML. The system used block-mode terminals where users filled out forms and transmitted them to the mainframe. PROFS included advanced features like spell checking, grammar suggestions, thesaurus access, and document search capabilities that eliminated physical filing cabinets. It eventually evolved into OfficeVision before IBM shifted to Lotus Notes. The system gained notoriety during the Iran-Contra affair when investigators recovered 'deleted' PROFS messages that provided key evidence.

PROFS: The Office Suite Of The 1980s