gilsaluki Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 When the Atari Computers first came out, the company tried its best to convince the World their computers were not just Super Game Machines. Atari published word processors, assembly languages, utilities, etc. I was thinking, how many here on AA still use their 8-bits for word processing. I do. I find it still the easiest way to compose my words. I have tried a lot of WPs over the years. Still my favorite is Atariwriter and Atariwriter +. My second favorite is Compute Magazine's Speedscript. I love it's black lettering on a pure white background, easy on these eyes. I have tried more "advanced" WPs, but they are not easy and no fun. I put myself through college using Atariwriter. I still come back to it. Who else out these forsakes Uncle Bill (Word) for these letter writing? Does anyone out there, but me, still write letters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 Have you tried "The Last Word" by FJC? http://www.atari8.co.uk/lastword/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 I write all my readme files (for A8 software) on the A8. I haven't done any creative writing for a while, but if I did, I like to think I'd use the Atari for that as well. I once wrote a novel on the 8-bit, and since I moved to the PC and MS Word I've had writer's block for fifteen years. My favourite A8 word processor back in the day was TextPro (itself a heavily pimped up SpeedScript), mainly because of the cool macro feature and SpartaDOS X compatibility. I couldn't get away with anything which didn't let you quit to DOS, and that includes AtariWriter plus, although AWP's editor is a fair bit faster than TextPro's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 When the Atari Computers first came out, the company tried its best to convince the World their computers were not just Super Game Machines. Atari published word processors, assembly languages, utilities, etc. I was thinking, how many here on AA still use their 8-bits for word processing. I do. I find it still the easiest way to compose my words. I have tried a lot of WPs over the years. Still my favorite is Atariwriter and Atariwriter +. My second favorite is Compute Magazine's Speedscript. I love it's black lettering on a pure white background, easy on these eyes. I have tried more "advanced" WPs, but they are not easy and no fun. I put myself through college using Atariwriter. I still come back to it. Who else out these forsakes Uncle Bill (Word) for these letter writing? Does anyone out there, but me, still write letters? I use a SPEEDSCRIPT I modified to exit on RESET. The original speedscript would just flash and return to speedscript on RESET if I remember. I named it 'S2.COM'. Also on this Sparta 3.2g .ATR is SCRIPT30.DOC, a doc for speedscript commands and use. MYSPSCRPT.ATR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricortes Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 I went so far as to burn Speed Script into a cartridge. With the printer handler built into the OS the Atari was a natural for short toss away messages and you didn't even need a disk drive to compose them. Speed Script even included the brackets {} as part of the character set. It probably isn't important since not a lot of people write in C on the Atari vs. some like cc65 on a clone. The brackets were briefly important to me as I took a class in C programming and it got me going until I could buy a compiler for my clone. I seem to recall at least one compiler on the 8 bit understood brackets in addition to the $( escape sequence we normally used as a work around, perhaps Lightspeed C? You needed to use some odd sequence of keystrokes to get it to work. In the emulator with Speed Script running, type something like esc shift+home if you want to see }. I can't remember the sequence for {. It was a life saver for the first few weeks of the class. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 I'd forgotten that SpeedScript employed that rarely-used 10-line character mode. That went when TextPro came along, but then you could load different standard fonts from disk anyway. Speaking of TextPro, I always found it mildly odd that in all the manuals it never once said "Based on SpeedScript". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 I always found it mildly odd that in all the manuals it never once said "Based on SpeedScript". "Odd", or arrogant? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 ...rarely-used 10-line character mode. Rarely used, and never done with justice yet, even by SpeedScript. 10-line mode, combined with some other techniques, could even add to what's possible in character based text-mode. It's hard to justify thinking about it at the moment though, with the GUI's graphics-mode text at hand, except maybe as a diversion project. Of course the downside is how many rows of characters you get per screen with 10-line mode (even less with the other techniques I have in mind). Yet the possibilities for readability are intriguing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 (edited) I actually have used The Last Word quite a bit for coding in the last few years. Soft 80-column mode works nicely for it. I wrote all the utilities for processing graphics for the Last Word in it. Edited November 1, 2014 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Still my favorite is Atariwriter and Atariwriter +. AtariWriter+ got our whole family through the mid to late 80's. I thought (and still think) it was great, with it's fast spell-checking and nicely implemented page-preview mode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Hello guys I've used T:Edit a lot in the past. IIRC it was a type-in from ANALOG Computing. I even had it patched, so it could use D1: thru D8: instead of only D1: thru D4: and D8: (thanks again for that!) Sincerely Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 I've used T:Edit a lot in the past. IIRC it was a type-in from ANALOG Computing. Yeah, T:EDIT was done by Bryan Schappel, who also did Debug+ and other applications/utilities for Analog: T:EDIT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 (edited) Hello MrFish Your post reminded me that the original T:Edit and the patched version are on my special stuff page. Sincerely Mathy Edit: And it looks like D9: was also added. Man, the stuff a person can forget... Edited November 2, 2014 by Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 (edited) I put myself through college using Atariwriter. These are the word processors that got me through college though (didn't have an Atari around by that time): ClarisWorks' word processor seemed to be a really good balance of features and simplicity. I never felt like I was missing anything with it. BBEdit (Bare Bones Editor) was my choice for plain text and coding - although I'd later use Think C to edit a lot of my code directly. Edited November 2, 2014 by MrFish 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefan Both Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 I must say that LW (LastWord) is my favored word processor. I (just) tried others (just for testing purposes). But LW rocks. Stefan 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbking67 Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 I used different word processors during my Atari days... particularly AtariWriter on cartride. Later on (like 1985-1986) I used a word processor that had good feature-set and an 80 column preview mode that worked well... I can`t remember the name of the program though. My Atari and my Star NX10 were with me for years. I wrote many articles and essays with that combination... even after I got an ST I preferred to write on the A8 for some reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricortes Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Home Pak included a preview screen. Just something like a graphics 8 with pixels representing letters on the page. I liked Home Pak quite a bit to a point. It only had ~8k buffer for downloading and took so long to write the buffer out to disk, your link could fail. There was a hack available to modify the program so you could use a ram disk as a work around. It was OK as a word processor with the same kind of limits on buffer. There was enough room to do a handful of pages so it worked well for short correspondence. I may have to boot it up in an emulator to see if it is as good as I remember. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted November 3, 2014 Author Share Posted November 3, 2014 I have a copy of Home Pak by Batteries Included. I tried it, just too many darned codes, key combos to learn. Atariwriter on cart, along with the Proofreader has always been the WP I return to. I don't even fight it any longer. For longer documents, I turn to Atariwriter +, it recognizes the 130XE memory banks. I also have a 256K version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timdu Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 I've been trying to remember the name of the Atari word processor I used in the early 1980s. All I remember is it had a black screen with white text on it. Can you help me identify this program? thanks Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Paperclip? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pirx Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 (edited) My fav was The First XLENT Word Processor. Word wrap, copy-paste and extremely slow insert in long documents. Edited November 5, 2014 by pirx 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD6502 Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 On the very rare occasions when I need to write a letter I use PaperClip, printing to my Panasonic 1080i. I keep a business letter template on disk so I don't have to mess with format codes. I have fun wondering what the recipients think. Do they know what a dot matrix is? What do they make of the four sided perfs of tractor feed paper? The default screen for PC was white over black, but you could change to any color combo of the Atari palette(I like light green over dark). I think GT Estate also used the white-black scheme. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted November 6, 2014 Share Posted November 6, 2014 (edited) Hello MrFish Your post reminded me that the original T:Edit and the patched version are on my special stuff page. Sincerely Mathy Edit: And it looks like D9: was also added. Man, the stuff a person can forget... The file TEDIT2.ARC cause an error 404 WebPage not found.. Edited November 6, 2014 by rdea6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted November 6, 2014 Share Posted November 6, 2014 Hello rdea6 Please try again. I changed the name of the file. Sincerely Mathy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
576XE Posted November 6, 2014 Share Posted November 6, 2014 (edited) Hello friends. As I can understand that there are no one 80-col device being perfect for ATARI. FJC - is powerful enough but he only gave us perfect Word processor. (It's evidently perfect. I said that FJC is perfect TOO!) I need only editor. PLEASE!!! He said about text editor like ED in SDX but ... Does anyone heared smth. about this 80 col? Edited November 6, 2014 by 130XE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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