Other names | Wordwise Plus, InterWord |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Computer Concepts |
Initial release | 1981 (Wordwise) 1984 (Wordwise Plus) 1986 (InterWord) |
Platform | BBC Micro Acorn Archimedes (InterWord only) |
Type | Word processor |
Wordwise is a word processor program published in 1981. [1] It was the best selling word processor in the UK for the BBC Microcomputer during the 1980–1990 time period (~50,000 copies sold as of January 1985). [2] The program was supplied on an 8K ROM, and was published by Computer Concepts. [3] The use of ROM allowed the entire RAM of the host machine to be used for storing and manipulating the text, and providing printer-buffer functionality.
The program was not a WYSIWYG text editor. Printer codes, controlling the formatting of the text when printed, had to be defined via the OC command. [4] [5] followed by the exact string of Escape-sequence characters for the specific printer that you were using, to enable bold, italic, line-length, font-pitch, font size etc. [6]
Many companies such as Watford Electronics provided utility-ROMS that allowed customers to use 'macro-commands' to call pre-programmed escape-sequences for their printers, vs. having to memorize / refer to cheat-sheets every time they wished to enable a font-change.
The program offered a rudimentary Print-preview mode, using the 80-column 'Mode 3' mode on the BBC Model B (ordinary text editing used the 'Mode 7' 40-column mode). However, this print preview mode could not display printer-specific effects such as Bold, underlining or Italic. (The BBC computer did not natively support the display of these font effects on-screen)
Expansion hardware (paged RAM) tools were also manufactured by companies such as Watford Electronics, to enable larger printer-buffers, and print-previewing of large documents in the 80-column screen modes.
More complete WYSIWYG functionality was only introduced later (again, subject to the same limitations of the font-display on the BBC), with the company's 'Inter Word' ROM in 1986. Due to these limitations, from an end user experience perspective, Wordwise was often thought of as not being as advanced as the competing 'View' word processor from Acornsoft.
Wordwise menu:
WORDWISE (C) Computer Concepts 1982 1) Save entire text 2) Load new text 3) Save marked text 4) Load text to cursor 5) Search and Replace 6) Print text 7) Preview text 8) Spool test ESC Edit Mode Please enter choice_
The program was upgraded in 1984 with the introduction of 'Wordwise Plus', on a 16K ROM. This introduced new features such as 'contiguous files', which used the entire space on an attached disk-drive as virtual memory. (The original Wordwise program limited the document size to 27K - the amount of usable RAM on a 32K BBC Micro Model B), up to 11 documents in memory simultaneously (1x main text document, and 10x 'Segments'), and a Macro-programming language, along with compatibility with the 6502 Second Processor.
Wordwise Plus main menu:
WORDWISE-PLUS (C) Computer Concepts 1984 1) Save entire text 2) Load new text 3) Save marked text 4) Load text to cursor 5) Search and Replace 6) Print text 7) Preview text 8) Spool test 9) Segment menu ESC Edit Mode Please enter choice_
In 1986 Computer Concepts published InterWord as a successor to Wordwise Plus. [7] InterWord was shipped on a 32k ROM with a custom carrier board allowing specific memory accesses to page different parts of that ROM in and out of the 16k address space that the BBC Micro reserves for user ROMs. This approach was later expanded on by Computer Concepts for their 1987 ROM SpellMaster, which paged 128k into the 16k address space and acted as a spelling checker for InterWord, Wordwise and View. [8]
InterWord was a menu-driven WYSIWYG wordprocessor which allowed 80-column editing (screen modes 0 or 3, with the latter taking less screen memory but displaying fewer lines on the screen), as well as a non-standard 106-column view using custom fonts. 40- and 53-column views were also available if a larger font was required or to reduce screen memory footprint, and the display would scroll horizontally when narrower than the printed page. InterWord could not use the extra-low-memory teletext mode except for its main menu, and recommended that the machine have Shadow RAM (like the BBC Master) so that screen memory would not be an issue. [9]
Computer Concepts also published a spreadsheet (InterSheet) and graphing package (InterChart), [10] and a database (InterBase). [11] These ROMs could co-operate via their "ROM-Link", together holding up to 16 documents (word, sheet or database) simultaneously in RAM and switching between these on command, provided there was sufficient RAM for the documents. Using data from one document in another (such as mail-merging a database into a letter) was also possible. [12]
As of 2023 [update] only the MAME emulator can run InterWord [13] [ failed verification ] as other emulators such as BeebEm do not emulate the custom carrier board that bank-switches its 32k ROM.
Wordwise was upgraded multiple times during the lifetime of the product, as listed below:
Main ROMs - Computer Concepts
Ancillary programs and utilities (multiple vendors) [2]
The Acorn Electron was introduced as a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers, to provide many of the features of that more expensive machine at a price more competitive with that of the ZX Spectrum. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC II together with the operating system. Announced in 1982 for a possible release the same year, it was eventually introduced on 25 August 1983 priced at £199.
The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer, is a series of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Computer is a completely different system and a radical departure in design based on the Motorola 6809E processor rather than the Zilog Z80 of earlier models.
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online content. Desktop publishing software can generate page layouts and produce text and image content comparable to the simpler forms of traditional typography and printing. This technology allows individuals, businesses, and other organizations to self-publish a wide variety of content, from menus to magazines to books, without the expense of commercial printing.
The Commodore 128, also known as the C128, C-128, or C= 128, is the last 8-bit home computer that was commercially released by Commodore Business Machines (CBM). Introduced in January 1985 at the CES in Las Vegas, it appeared three years after its predecessor, the Commodore 64, the bestselling computer of the 1980s. Approximately 2.5 million C128s were sold during its four year production run.
The ImageWriter is a product line of dot matrix printers formerly manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc., and designed then to be compatible with their entire line of computers. There were three different models introduced over time, which were popular among Apple II and Mac owners.
The Timex Sinclair 2068, released in November 1983, was Timex Sinclair's third and last home computer for the United States market. It was also marketed in Canada, Argentina, Portugal and Poland, as Timex Computer 2068.
The Enterprise is a Zilog Z80-based home computer announced in 1983, but due to a series of delays, was not commercially available until 1985. It was developed by British company Intelligent Software and marketed by Enterprise Computers.
LocoScript is a word processing software package created by Locomotive Software and first released with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985. Early versions of LocoScript were noted for combining a wide range of facilities with outstanding ease of use. This and the low price of the hardware made it one of the best-selling word processors of the late 1980s. Four major versions of LocoScript were published for the PCW, and two for IBM-compatible PCs running MS-DOS. LocoScript's market share didn't expand with the PC versions, which were not released until after Windows had become the dominant PC operating system.
MicroBee was a series of networkable home computers by Applied Technology, which became publicly listed company MicroBee Systems Limited soon after its release. The original Microbee computer was designed in Australia by a team including Owen Hill and Matthew Starr.
Timeworks Publisher was a desktop publishing (DTP) program produced by GST Software in the United Kingdom and published by Timeworks, Inc., in the United States.
Xara is an international software company founded in 1981, with an HQ in Berlin and development office in Hemel Hempstead, UK. It has developed software for a variety of computer platforms, in chronological order: the Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Z88, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and more recently web browser-based services.
AtariWriter is a word processor program for the Atari 8-bit computers released by Atari, Inc. as a 16 kB ROM cartridge in 1983. The program was fast and easy to use, while still allowing for the creation of fairly complex documents. It was a success for the platform, with at least 800,000 units initially sold, not including international versions and later updates.
The Machine Operating System (MOS) or OS is a discontinued computer operating system (OS) used in Acorn Computers' BBC computer range. It included support for four-channel sound, graphics, file system abstraction, and digital and analogue input/output (I/O) including a daisy-chained expansion bus. The system was single-tasking, monolithic and non-reentrant.
Xetec was founded in 1983 by Jon Flickinger, and was located in Salina, Kansas, United States. Before closing in 1995, the company produced many third-party products for the Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Amiga, Macintosh, Atari ST and PC computers.
Apple II graphics debuted on the original Apple II in 1977 and were used throughout the computer series of the same name. The graphics consist of a 16 color low-resolution mode and a high-resolution mode where visuals are dependent on artifact color. The Apple IIe added "double" versions of each of these, most prominently "double high-resolution" with twice the horizontal resolution in 16 colors. Internally, Apple II graphics modes are idiosyncratic and do not use a linear frame buffer.
Protext is a British word processing program, developed by Arnor Ltd, of Peterborough in the decade following 1985. Originally written for the Amstrad CPC 464, it was later sold for the Amstrad PCW series of word processors, for MS-DOS based PCs, the Atari ST, and the Commodore Amiga.
1st Word is a word processor program for the Atari ST developed by GST Computer Systems and published in 1985. It was given away with all ST systems from December 1985 for the next two years. Although it was relatively well received, it was a very simple program, lacking most power features and was very slow when working in large documents. In spite of any limitations, its wide availability made the program's .DOC file format became a de facto standard for the platform and was widely supported by other programs like desktop publishing systems.
Atari Word Processor is a word processor program for the Atari 8-bit computers, announced by Atari, Inc. in January 1981 and shipped that summer. The program was powerful for its era, including numerous features like superscripts and two-column layouts. It was also quite complex, with a long list of control keys for basic operations and text-based menus for more complex ones. It left little memory free after loading, so longer documents had to be stored as separate files of about a page each and printing demanded a long re-formatting process as they were stitched together.
WordUp is a word processor for the Atari ST platform released by Neocept in 1988. It was one of the first word processors on the platform to offer a true what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) display, using GDOS to work with multiple fonts and embedded graphics. Most previous word processors on the platform were either entirely text-based, like Atari's own ST Writer, or did not use GDOS and did not support multiple fonts and effects on-screen.