[Coco] I said *word* *processors*!!!

[Willard Goosey]

>From: Leon Howell <puritan_2076 at yahoo.com>
>Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 21:14:31 +0000 (UTC)

>  Maybe I misunderstand just what T/S-Word or Dynastar can do. The
>ads for FHL in Rainbow 1988 said Dynastar had centering, align
>left/right, page numbering, auto page breaks, auto indent, word wrap,
>etc., all with the Wordstar commands I'm already familliar with. But
>did it really? 

Most of that is done by Dynastar itself.  

>Or was all that done by a seperate program called
>DynaForm? And would it be shown on screen, or would I have to wait
>and print it to see what I get?

Well... Dynastar expects to run in text mode, using termset rather
than gfx.  There are limits to what you can do in text mode.
>
>What about T/S-Word? I understand it acts as a graphical main menu for the 
>editor, T/S-Spell, and formatting. At least that brings everything into one 
>environment, even if it's all done at seperate times. But do I get to see it 
>all on screen, or do I have to print it to see anything?

T/S Word runs on a CoCo 2.  WYSIWYG is sort of a joke when your choice
is a 32-column text screen or a 256x200 graphics mode.   It also has a
seperate formater, tsfmt.

Others have mentioned Window Writer, and I confirm that it's a very
nice GUI word processor.  Not as powerful or programable as, say,
dynastar/dynaform or nroff, but pretty solid within its limits.

I'm afraid this is one area where OS-9 shows its UN*Xish roots, as
well as it's origins in Level I. When 64K is ALL the memory you have,
splitting the compilicated parts of an application into logical pieces
makes more sense -- both the editor and the formatter can be larger,
more complicated, than a all-in-one design.  

Yes, you can get around that limit under Level II, but the techniques
weren't widely know back in the day, and (mostly) still aren't!

Willard
-- 
Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
Socorro, New Mexico, USA
"I've never been to Contempt!  Isn't that somewhere in New Mexico?"
   --- Yacko