‘Micro-Soft’

Added this footnote just now to yesterday’s piece on MSNBC’s rebranding to “MS NOW”:

Historical pedantry: from 1975–1979, Microsoft spelled its name “Micro-Soft”, with, yes, an uppercase S. But that’s not camel-case, and that hyphenated spelling is as much a footnote to Microsoft’s brand history as the woodcut Isaac-Newton-under-a-tree logo is to Apple. Microsoft’s logo from that era was very disco-’70s and kind of cool — but while “Micro” and “Soft” were broken across two lines, there’s no hyphen in the logotype.

★ Thursday, 21 August 2025