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Old 02-17-2011, 06:25 PM   #67
DMcCunney
New York Editor
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Quote:
Originally Posted by snipenekkid View Post
Dennis,

ya got my curiosity up now as the only word processor I can remember using on CP/M was Wordstar which was eventually ported to DOS. The only other off the wall but well regarded word processor I have in my noggin' is Xywrite and as I remember that was DOS from day one or close enough.
The one I was referring to was Eric Meyer's VDE, which was a WordStar clone that ran entirely in RAM instead of using overlays. Eric ported it to MS-DOS and released it as shareware. Carson Wilson picked up the CP/M sources and continued to develop it for CP/M as ZDE. He also did a Linux version called SUE (Simple Unix Editor). Eric still develops and supports the MS-DOS version. It's freeware these days, and there was a November 2009 1.96a release. See http://sites.google.com/site/vdeeditor/ for information and downloads. There is an associated mailing list I maintain.

I have XyWrite about, too. I described it as a programming language for manipulating test, wrapped in a clever word processor disguise. XyQuest and XyWrite are long gone, but Nota Bene, a product based on it aimed at the scholars market still exists, and the former chief XyWrite developer is an investor and helping in development. See http://www.notabene.com/

XyWrite reminds me of Emacs on Unix. Emacs is a Lisp interpreter, and most of the editor is written in the dialect of Lisp it supports. If you know elisp, you can get Emacs to do just about anything, and people have. With XyWrite, you did it in XBL.

Quote:
My first and favorite word processor was the only one built from the first version as a Windows app called Ami Pro (now known by the unfortunate name of Word Pro) that was then bought by IBM and just left to die even though it was so much faster and feature rich than MS Word or the abomination that was Wordperfect.
I used Ami Pro a bit. Most of what I do these days requires a text editor, not a full word processor. So while I have Word, Open Office, and a few other things about, I seldom use them.

Quote:
I still liked all the Wordstar commands as they worked in Borland's Turbo Pascal IDE/compilier so I knew them by default. I actually liked a small word processing app called pfs:Write (aka Professional Write) as it could do rectangular/block cut/copy 'n paste that even the big boys did not support.
I stayed fluent in WordStar because most editors either used it as their command set or could be told to. I had Emacs customized to use WS keystrokes at one point to save retraining my fingers.

Quote:
So what the heck are ya using...curious minds wanna know!
See above for a very partial explanation. I collect text editors, and the results of my investigations appear here: http://texteditors.org

If it's an editor that ran on a computer, the TextEditors wiki tries to document it.
______
Dennis
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