The Last Word 3.2 Released

[flashjazzcat]

The Last Word 3.2 is finally complete and can be downloaded here.

 

 

I decided to skip version 3.11 altogether because so much has changed since the second release candidate. The fact it's taken since last November to get from version 3.1 to version 3.2 is a testament to how many improvements have been made (as well as to how side-tracked I've been with other projects). It may not look too different, but believe me I've lost count of how many antedeluvian bugs I've fixed over the past few months.

 

I intend to put up PC-based plain text readme files at some point, but in the meantime all the changes since version 3.1 are described in the three files RC1.TXT, RC2.TXT and README.TXT on the disks (these text files are on disk 2 in the DOS 2.5 package; the SpartaDOS ATR has everything on one 360KB image). Printer drivers have changed subtly for those of you who missed that meeting, the keyboard's been significantly re-mapped, and a couple of new macro commands have been added. The most important improvements, though, have been to the reliability of the program, and I have David Whyte in particular to thank for putting this increasingly complex software through its paces in a practical working environment over the past couple of months.

 

Doubtless I'll get a "I hate to tell you this, but..." PM in a day or two, but I fully expect to do a minor revison update on this thing before it gets the golden seal. The fact is I was determined to get 3.2 released this weekend, particularly given how buggy last November's release turned out to be and that there are betas floating around all over the place. Any imperfections in the presentation and the manual can be put down to fatigue; it's a BIG job.

 

Anyway: enjoy it and let me know what you think. I get just as much enjoyment out of writing this program now as I did ten years ago and I have no shortage of ideas for new projects. All I need is a little encouragement sometimes.

Edited August 29, 2010 by flashjazzcat

[AtariNerd]

Good things come to those who wait. Congratulations, Jonathon on a job remarkably well done!

[dwhyte]

Excellent! Downloading it now...

[Jacques]

Great! Does 3.2 support VBXE?

[flashjazzcat]

Great! Does 3.2 support VBXE?

Not yet: you should see something along those lines in the next couple of months. I have a quick and dirty VBXE beta but I want to do the job properly...

[GroovyBee]

Now after the serious stuff you can do the fun stuff and code a game or two .

[Roydea6]

Great job..

 

Just one small edit of lw.sys so it will work MyDOS folders. I just changed the Path to D: instead of D1:

Downlaoded and transferred to MyDOS and SDX ATR's for SIO2SD.

 

Ideal

[spookt]

Installed on my SDX image. Excellent work! The manual alone must have been a labour of love, absolutely professional.

[flashjazzcat]

Thanks for the kind comments, and the donation - greatfully received.

 

One thing that still troubles me is the complexity of the advanced features and the difficulty of explaining them clearly, but you folks seem to be coping OK. Maybe I'll get those instructional videos done one day.

[twh/f2]

this is really a fantastic piece of software! I'm very impressed by the comfort and bunch of functionality "The Last Word" offers. It's probably the most complete and professional text authoring tool in the 8bit atari. and that in 2010!!!

 

Jonathan, you did a great job!!

 

grtx,

\twh

[jimarm]

Amazing work! Wish I had it back in college instead of 'Paperclip'.

[flashjazzcat]

Amazing work! Wish I had it back in college instead of 'Paperclip'.

Heh. Thanks. I wish I'd had it at University instead of TextPro, great though TextPro was at the time (it was my favourite app, actually).

[sven86]

Great, now all you need to do is get Alan Alda and that little girl to do a commercial for you! But then again, the little girl is pretty much a woman now, so just get another one.

 

[flashjazzcat]

Great, now all you need to do is get Alan Alda and that little girl to do a commercial for you! But then again, the little girl is pretty much a woman now, so just get another one.

 

Magic. I remember seeing that commercial before.

 

I do a pretty good Mike Strutter (probably meaningless to most people), and I was considering doing a Struttergear Infomercial about the product.

[JonnyBritish]

Great, now all you need to do is get Alan Alda and that little girl to do a commercial for you! But then again, the little girl is pretty much a woman now, so just get another one.

 

Magic. I remember seeing that commercial before.

 

I do a pretty good Mike Strutter (probably meaningless to most people), and I was considering doing a Struttergear Infomercial about the product.

 

Are we going to see a cartridge version for sale at any point?

[flashjazzcat]

Are we going to see a cartridge version for sale at any point?

If there's enough demand, it's possible. GR8 Software were reluctant to entertain a disk package, and I wasn't happy with the concept of a disk version using a cartridge as a "launch pad". My own inclination was to produce the next version in disk form but requiring 128K+, since it's basically easier and doesn't get in the way of hardware plugged into the cart slot (such as Maxflash SDX and external MyIDE; I use an external MyIDE cart myself). A cart version will be more work but I appreciate that it's a more tangible product for the collector.

 

In any case - whichever format the next version adopts - I'm already planning out the display driver model. For version 4, users can expect:

 

• Up to ten 32K text banks
• Multi-level undo/redo
• Three supplied display drivers (40 col, pseudo 80 col, and VBXE 80 col) with the option of adding support for other display devices in the future without any changes to the core program
• A menu system

I'm also considering a revamp of the macros so they will be written as scripts, something like:

 

Cursorhome
Insert "Re: "
Print "Enter subject"
Getline

One advantage of putting the program on a cartridge is that it still - at a pinch - would be able to run on a 64K machine, although I think that's more of a novelty than a necessity now. Version 4 will also use no RAM under the Operating system, so will be compatible with almost all known DOSes.

Edited September 4, 2010 by flashjazzcat

[Heaven/TQA]

I am not worthy... I am not worthy... Kudos!

[+Philsan]

Last beautiful words of The Last Word's manual:

The 8-bit Atari has been part of my life – on and off – for over twenty years, and I hope I’m still tinkering with the130XE twenty years from now. Meanwhile, I think the PC on which I’m typing this manual will be a distant memory by then.

[+wood_jl]

Great, now all you need to do is get Alan Alda and that little girl to do a commercial for you! But then again, the little girl is pretty much a woman now, so just get another one.

 

 

They could use the same girl and Alda where she's now a sophisticated woman showing Grandpa how 8-bit word processing is done in the 21st Century.

[Almost Rice]

Nice, I use Ultraedit on the PC and may start using LW with that macro feature.

 

On the 64k issue, I would think someone using an 8bit for text editing would not have a problem getting a system with more than 128k RAM. Keeping this archaic standard limits the usefulness for the majority of current users. I believe the software should motivate people to upgrade instead of having to build to the most common denominator. This formula has been shown to be more successful than dumbing down software for the most common system.

[dwhyte]

Great work with version 3.2! You seem to have hammered out all the bugs. Oh, and thanks for the mention in manual, Jon -- I wasn't expecting that.

 

I have a quick question regarding the upcoming version 4 or future versions after that. Will it ever be possible to have one text buffer comprised of all available RAM? I imagine something of that nature would probably require some heavy modifications to the core of TLW, and is, more likely than not, wishful thinking on my part, but having one large buffer was always something I liked about Paperclip XE (what I used before TLW came along). Maybe an option in the LW.SYS file to use either 32K banks, or one large one, perhaps?

[flashjazzcat]

On the 64k issue, I would think someone using an 8bit for text editing would not have a problem getting a system with more than 128k RAM. Keeping this archaic standard limits the usefulness for the majority of current users. I believe the software should motivate people to upgrade instead of having to build to the most common denominator. This formula has been shown to be more successful than dumbing down software for the most common system.

Agreed regarding the RAM. LW in 64K was quite a trick, but time to start stretching our legs now...

 

Great work with version 3.2! You seem to have hammered out all the bugs. Oh, and thanks for the mention in manual, Jon -- I wasn't expecting that.

 

I have a quick question regarding the upcoming version 4 or future versions after that. Will it ever be possible to have one text buffer comprised of all available RAM? I imagine something of that nature would probably require some heavy modifications to the core of TLW, and is, more likely than not, wishful thinking on my part, but having one large buffer was always something I liked about Paperclip XE (what I used before TLW came along). Maybe an option in the LW.SYS file to use either 32K banks, or one large one, perhaps?

If it weren't for you, David, I think there would still be several nasty bugs in the print formatter.

 

If you check out the other topic with the poll, you'll notice that joining banks together is high on the list. 32K is no problem, and 48K is a possibility. There's a trade-off between insertion/deletion speed and scrolling speed with LW: data gets moved around when you scroll through the document, and with 48K buffers, it would several seconds to get from one end of the document to the other. However, there's theoretically no limit whatsoever on how large the text buffers could be, so I'll make it configurable.

Edited September 7, 2010 by flashjazzcat

[+Stephen]

*** LONG POST WARNING ***

 

I apologize in advance for this lengthy post, but I figured the config file details were necessary. If you don't want to read a LONG post asking for help, please skip this!

 

Sorry I am a bit late to the party with this info. I am running Last Word 3.2 under the MaxFlash 1MB version of Sparta DOS X 4.42 on a 320KB NTSC 130XE using R11 of the APE Warp OS. I have been launching LW via the new Sparta Commander from a RAM disk configured as "D9:". I copy LW*.* to D9:>LW>LW*.* for fast load times (until I get your MyIDE driver). I am posting my CONFIG.SYS, LW.SYS, and LW.CFG files below. I am having two issues. First, even though I have ATTRACT OFF the machine still goes into attract mode (not a big deal). I am running an R-Time 8 cart and TD (which is turned on).

 

Now for the second issue. I am running Sparta Commander with CON80 and TD loaded. Last Word does it's job of turning both drivers off, the title screen comes up, and in a few seconds (literally) everything loads from the RAM disk. The problem is, when I try to view the help files. I get an error 130. I don't know what device the machine is trying to read the files from (APE gives me a

Device: 4F     Command: 40     Aux 1: 3E     Aux 2: 01     Checksum: CE

D1: is Device:31 through D8: which is Device:38). I would think that due to my config, it should pull the help files from D9:LW>. When I press CTRL+D it initially takes me to D9:\LW>*.* where I see all of the help files, and hitting CTRL+O I get D9:.

 

CONFIG.SYS

DEVICE SPARTA BANKED
DEVICE SIO
DEVICE ATARIDOS
DEVICE RTIME8
DEVICE D1:CON80_MD
DEVICE RAMDISK 9,4
DEVICE RC_GR8 13,176
DEVICE COMEXE
SET PATH=CAR:;D9:>SC;D9:>LW
SET SC=D9:>SC>SCMAIN.OVL,N
SET LWDRIVE=D1:
SET LWSYS=D9:>LW>LW.SYS

 

LW.SYS

banked on
banks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
reserve 0
buffer off
extpages 4
docext LWD
path D9:>LW;>D1:
loadcfg D9:>LW>LW.CFG
loadext D9:>LW>LW.EXT
loadmac D9:>LW>LW.MAC
loadfnt D9:>LW>LW.FNT
loadf80 D9:>LW>LW.F80
loadpdr D9:>LW>LW.PDR

 

LW.CFG

TMARGIN 5
BMARGIN 61
LMARGIN 10
RMARGIN 70
PAGELEN 66
HFLEFTMARG 10
HFRIGHTMARG 70
SPACING 1
HEADOFF 2
FOOTOFF 2
EOLCHAR 219
PADCHAR 0
TEXTCOL 13
SCREENCOL 176
PROMPTCOL 10
BORDERCOL 0
KEYDELAY 30
KEYREPEAT 3
TABWIDTH 5
FILESORT 2
PAGEWIDTH 80
BARCOL 146
80COLUMNS ON
PAGEWAIT OFF
WORDWRAP ON
INSERT ON
CASESENS OFF
CAPSLOCK OFF
KEYCLICK ON
SIONOISE OFF
ATTRACT OFF
WILDCARDS ON
DOCMODE OFF
SDXDIR ON
WARNINGS ON
FILEEXT TXT
DRIVE D9:
FILESPEC *.*

 

Can anybody see what I may be doing wrong?

 

Other than this one issue, everything has been great. I am SO impressed with the PATH variable in Sparta DOS X. From anwhere on any drive, I simply type LW and within seconds I am in the editor with 146KB available to 9 files

[+wood_jl]

I haven't tried this latest version of The Last Word yet, but suffice it to say it's one of the reasons I bought an Ebay Epson FX-80!

 

I can't wait to start sending my correspondence in 9-pin non-NLQ dot matrix format again!

[flashjazzcat]

*** LONG POST WARNING ***

 

I apologize in advance for this lengthy post, but I figured the config file details were necessary. If you don't want to read a LONG post asking for help, please skip this!

 

Sorry I am a bit late to the party with this info. I am running Last Word 3.2 under the MaxFlash 1MB version of Sparta DOS X 4.42 on a 320KB NTSC 130XE using R11 of the APE Warp OS. I have been launching LW via the new Sparta Commander from a RAM disk configured as "D9:". I copy LW*.* to D9:>LW>LW*.* for fast load times (until I get your MyIDE driver). I am posting my CONFIG.SYS, LW.SYS, and LW.CFG files below. I am having two issues. First, even though I have ATTRACT OFF the machine still goes into attract mode (not a big deal). I am running an R-Time 8 cart and TD (which is turned on).

 

Now for the second issue. I am running Sparta Commander with CON80 and TD loaded. Last Word does it's job of turning both drivers off, the title screen comes up, and in a few seconds (literally) everything loads from the RAM disk. The problem is, when I try to view the help files. I get an error 130. I don't know what device the machine is trying to read the files from (APE gives me a

Device: 4F 	Command: 40 	Aux 1: 3E 	Aux 2: 01 	Checksum: CE

D1: is Device:31 through D8: which is Device:38). I would think that due to my config, it should pull the help files from D9:LW>. When I press CTRL+D it initially takes me to D9:\LW>*.* where I see all of the help files, and hitting CTRL+O I get D9:.

 

CONFIG.SYS

DEVICE SPARTA BANKED
DEVICE SIO
DEVICE ATARIDOS
DEVICE RTIME8
DEVICE D1:CON80_MD
DEVICE RAMDISK 9,4
DEVICE RC_GR8 13,176
DEVICE COMEXE
SET PATH=CAR:;D9:>SC;D9:>LW
SET SC=D9:>SC>SCMAIN.OVL,N
SET LWDRIVE=D1:
SET LWSYS=D9:>LW>LW.SYS

 

LW.SYS

banked on
banks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
reserve 0
buffer off
extpages 4
docext LWD
path D9:>LW;>D1:
loadcfg D9:>LW>LW.CFG
loadext D9:>LW>LW.EXT
loadmac D9:>LW>LW.MAC
loadfnt D9:>LW>LW.FNT
loadf80 D9:>LW>LW.F80
loadpdr D9:>LW>LW.PDR

 

LW.CFG

TMARGIN 5
BMARGIN 61
LMARGIN 10
RMARGIN 70
PAGELEN 66
HFLEFTMARG 10
HFRIGHTMARG 70
SPACING 1
HEADOFF 2
FOOTOFF 2
EOLCHAR 219
PADCHAR 0
TEXTCOL 13
SCREENCOL 176
PROMPTCOL 10
BORDERCOL 0
KEYDELAY 30
KEYREPEAT 3
TABWIDTH 5
FILESORT 2
PAGEWIDTH 80
BARCOL 146
80COLUMNS ON
PAGEWAIT OFF
WORDWRAP ON
INSERT ON
CASESENS OFF
CAPSLOCK OFF
KEYCLICK ON
SIONOISE OFF
ATTRACT OFF
WILDCARDS ON
DOCMODE OFF
SDXDIR ON
WARNINGS ON
FILEEXT TXT
DRIVE D9:
FILESPEC *.*

 

Can anybody see what I may be doing wrong?

 

Other than this one issue, everything has been great. I am SO impressed with the PATH variable in Sparta DOS X. From anwhere on any drive, I simply type LW and within seconds I am in the editor with 146KB available to 9 files

This is a nice easy one to fix, Stephen, if the dumps of your config files are accurate. Look at your path definition in LW.SYS:

 

path D9:>LW;>D1:

 

You have no trailing ">" after "LW"; it's transposed with the semicolon delimiter. The net result is that when LW builds the paths to look for the help files, it will first try:

 

D9:>LWLWn.HLP

 

and then:

 

>D1:LWn.HLP

 

Neither or which are legal paths. Also, in this case (perhaps deliberately), the default drive will never be searched (last) because there's no trailing semi-colon. That's OK and probably intentional, but just in case...

 

So you need to say:

 

path D9:>LW>;D1:>

 

To first search the RAMdisk, then the root of drive 1.

 

You may prefer to set LWPATH in CONFIG.SYS and remove the path definition in LW.SYS. In CONFIG.SYS:

 

SET LWPATH=D9:>LW>;D1:

 

or some such.

 

The attract mode issue is a strange one. I wonder if it has anything to do with the custom OS?

 

I haven't tried this latest version of The Last Word yet, but suffice it to say it's one of the reasons I bought an Ebay Epson FX-80!

 

I can't wait to start sending my correspondence in 9-pin non-NLQ dot matrix format again!

Great - let us know how you get on. I don't have a dot matrix printer myself, sadly...