"The Last Word"
Bill Kendrick
Someone's screenshot of their VBXE -- see my other post -- was of an
80 column word processor for the Atari that I had never heard of, which
started in 1999 and was most recently released this year (2009).
http://www.atari8.co.uk/lastword/lastword.htm
"The Last Word is one of the most feature-rich word processors ever
written for the Atari 8-bit. It includes many of the innovative tools
found in programs like TextPro and The 1st XLent Word Processor, and
version 3 of the program sees the introduction of a software driven 80
column display. LW 3.1 supercedes the previously released 3.0, which
should be abandoned in favour of the new version.
The Last Word 3.1 offers:
* Dual 80 and 40 column displays, switchable at any time
* Up to 240 column editing in a horizontally scrolling window
* Editing of up 10 files simultaneously on a expanded memory machines
* Sophisticated keyboard macro language
* 80 column print preview
* Feature-packed file management menu with up to 80 filenames in a
scrolling window and support for SpartaDOS X directories with
time/date stamps
* High speed editing, even at the top of large files
* Support for SpartaDOS X, MyDOS, DOS 2.5 and many DOS 2 derivatives
* International characters and customisable printer drivers
* Comprehensive 75 page manual
* Large collection of macros, printer drivers and help files
More interestingly to me, as a programmer, was some text from a
document that was shown in the aforementioned screenshot.
It was about the design of The Last Word, and how the text is
managed in memory so that the thing responds quickly, even
with a lot of text.
Man, I've got to try this out! :)
--
-bill!
Sent from my computer
David Hopcroft
> Man, I keep finding gems this evening!
>
> <Snip>
>
>
> Man, I've got to try this out! :)
Yep, Bill you must join www.atariage.com.
I use the rss feeds for the different forums.
They really have some good discussions on various topics.
Beetle the guy that built the laptop atari 8 bit is also on the subscriber list
Other news you may have missed is Curt Vendel is hopefully making a
pizza box lid for the atari 1200xl. hard to describe but search for
"1200XL Pizza Box".
flashjazzcat
Hi,
I'm Jonathan Halliday, the author of "The Last Word", and I was
delighted to receive an email from Bill explaining the flukey series
of events which led him to discover the program. That was my
screenshot (a photo of my set-up at home; a VBXE equipped Atari 8).
Anyway, I'm really thrilled to find that the Atari newsgroup is still
going strong and I hope to be a regular visitor and contributor here.
From the topic index, it looks as if there's some good stuff going on.
By the way: if you head over to atari8.co.uk and download the latest
version of the program, you'll find the text document you're talking
about on the distribution disk.
Regards
Jon Halliday
Bill Kendrick
> Other news you may have missed is Curt Vendel is hopefully making a
> pizza box lid for the atari 1200xl. hard to describe but search for
> "1200XL Pizza Box".
That seems like the most backwards thing to do. The 1200XL has the best keyboard
of any Atari... why would you want to cover it up and replace it with an
external one!?!?
I also think, despite how _huge_ it is, that the 1200XL is one of the nicest
looking form-factors of all the 8-bits. (And it never occured to me how much
nicer side-loading carts are, which is I guess why Curt's doing this to the
1200XL, and not any other 8-bit.)
I need to dig up a treasure chest and have Ben Heckendorn construct
a 1200XL laptop for me, with the original keyboard.
Bill Kendrick
> I'm Jonathan Halliday, the author of "The Last Word", and I was
> delighted to receive an email from Bill explaining the flukey series
> of events which led him to discover the program. That was my
> screenshot (a photo of my set-up at home; a VBXE equipped Atari 8).
> Anyway, I'm really thrilled to find that the Atari newsgroup is still
> going strong and I hope to be a regular visitor and contributor here.
> From the topic index, it looks as if there's some good stuff going on.
> By the way: if you head over to atari8.co.uk and download the latest
> version of the program, you'll find the text document you're talking
> about on the distribution disk.
I realized I was wrong when I mentioned (in a flaberghasted Facebook
status at 2am last night?) that The Last Word was under development for
10 years. I guess it was "hibernating" for the majority of that. ;)
I spent a little time this mornign skimming the user manual PDF that
comes with the ZIP. You said that that doc was generated in TLW itself?
(aka, "you ate your own dogfood") If so, that's awesome! :)
I noticed a _few_ glitches here and there (font switch for a word or
two, as well as missing inverse characters in some places;
e.g., " ord haracter ine", or somesuch).
I fired it up for all of 30 secs in Atari800 on my Linux laptop.
Sadly, Ctrl+Shift combos don't seem to work for me. But that's
fine, I've got little reason to run an Atari 8-bit word processor,
let alone on an emulator.
However (much as I find my own "Tux Paint" is useful for me when I want
to be artistic, since it's such an up-front UI and somewhat limiting
environment), I started thinking "man, I wish I had something to write".
I've had rare occasion to use a word processor that isn't one of these
modern abominations, like MS Word or OpenOffice. The ones where
writers are SO easily tricked into doing some of the absolute worst
formatting (e.g., hitting [Enter] 20 times to force a page break).
And I'm not brainy enough to want to use LaTeX for anything. ;)
PS - My day job is, in fact, helping authors publish their works as ebooks,
where page-based formatting HAS to be avoided, since screens all differ
and text and reflow, even on the same device (change font/size and/or
screen orientation on the fly!).
flashjazzcat
The formatting problems are Word 2007's fault: I thought I'd caught
them all, but obviously not. Too bad that thirty seconds using The
Last Word has flattened your enthusiasm completely! ;) If your
emulator set-up can cope with CTRL+L, you can load up DESIGN.TXT and
read all about the programming concepts that appeared to interest you.
I read somewhere recently an article about the perceived advantages of
separating text composition from text layout. I do believe that the
appearance of the document gets in the way of creative flow in the
likes of MS Word: hence programs like Q10 on the PC. My writerly
output when using an Atari 8 back in the nineties was greater to a
ratio of 10:1 compared to my literary output on the PC. There may be
other factors contributing to this, like not being at college any
more. :)
The original manual for LW was written using LW 1.0 back in 1999 (For
information, BTW, the software initially took six months to write. Ten
years later, the 80 column version took another six months' worth of
evenings and weekends to write, test, and debug) and then ported over
to the PC this year for sheer convenience. The source code for the
software was compiled "in situ" (on an emulator) using my own MA65
assembler until June this year, when I upped sticks and moved to a
cross-assembler.
Bill Kendrick
> The formatting problems are Word 2007's fault: I thought I'd caught
> them all, but obviously not. Too bad that thirty seconds using The
> Last Word has flattened your enthusiasm completely! ;)
Oh, only in terms of using it in an emulator. And as much as I love
and promote Atari800, I still prefer the real thing for real uses.
(I'll crack something open in an emulator to get the gist,
but if I really want to enjoy a game or demo, or do some coding,
I do it on my 800XL or my (new-to-me!) 1200XL.)
flashjazzcat
> and promote Atari800, I still prefer the real thing for real uses.
> (I'll crack something open in an emulator to get the gist,
> but if I really want to enjoy a game or demo, or do some coding,
> I do it on my 800XL or my (new-to-me!) 1200XL.)
>
of VBXE support means I'll be doing more development with a cross-
compiler and a real Atari hooked up via SIO2PC. And as for the 1200XL:
always yearned after one of those!