I came across some startling news today.

Those of us that have hated all this new ‘ribbon’ talk since Office 2007, seemed to have forgotten that the blasted ribbon was there all the time. Most of us called it a tool bar for some reason, but here let me show you.

Here is Microsoft Word 1.1 for OS/2

Hello, ribbon?

Now with no ribbon!

And here we go!

Ok but what about Word 2.0?

Word 2.0 for Windows

What is this? Ribbon??!?

Word 2.0 with no ribbon.

Ok but what about Word 6.0? Although they were going to write a whole new engine for Word, they gave up, and instead revamped the Word 2.0 engine, although…

Let’s try Word 6.0 for Windows NT! The first 32bit Windows Word processor from Microsoft.

Oh what’s this? No ribbon?

That’s right, the ribbon just got renamed, and buried.

So there we go there has always been a ribbon in Microsoft Word, but it’s become another toolbar to only resurface and take over the entire interface. Although I’m not a Word expert by any stretch, I do have to say, if I was given the chance, I’d certainly go back to the Word 6.0 interface ….

But I guess I’m just old.