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Text-Console Based Word Processing?
chipperdog asks: "I am looking for an activly maintained console based word processor, similar to what one could find with Appleworks, from the Apple // era (Prodos 8 version, pre-//gs), or even one comparable to DOS versions of WP and Microsoft Word. An open-source one that compiles and runs in Linux would be best, although it would be nice to find one that could run on a 486DX2 50MHz with 8MB. A Google and Freshmeat search only turned up editors that seem to lack some of the necessary word processing features I am seeking.
Although I mostly use VI (and *TEX when necessary), some no-so-geeky end users need the quasi-WSIWYG interface."
Although I mostly use VI
Try Emacs.
Looks like you can go buy Wordperfect 10 for Windows in a family pack for $49 - $20 holiday discount from corel, then go Here to buy a legal $40 copy of the Wordperfect 5.1 floppies that you are then entitled to use.
;)
Many Wordperfect DOS tips here.
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o/~ Join us now and share the software
As I recall, the Linux version of WordPerfect that was available as a free download a few years ago, had a console mode as well as a GUI mode. I can't say for sure, since I never could get it to install :)
And when did pico become a WYSIWYG word-processor? Read the question!
I think it's a dead end. Either run DOS and find old copies of MS Word 2 (which was a great product...), or get slightly more powerful machines and run something like lyx. Or teach people how to use nroff/groff -- probably easier for non-geeks than TeX.
Rats drown in Wordstar.
(An old palindrome)
I was remembering back in the day of Wordstar, lo and behold it is a add-on for Word 97/2000! We are talking functionality of those classic keystrokes!
Another interesting page.
Using linux, I prefer joe over vi. Any idiot (that would be me) can use joe.
Joe, Pico, and Jed have major shortcomings, I found. Vi and Vim and Emacs have commands that were designed in the days of 9600 baud terminals.
There is a big misunderstanding about "Word Processing". It is two separate processes: 1) Keystroke capture and initial formatting, and 2) Final WYSIWYG formatting. I use Ventura Publisher version 5 for number 2 because Corel made mistakes in the later versions of Ventura Publisher that made Ventura useless to me.
Microsoft Turd ^H^H^H^H^H Word is useless to me because it is so quirky. Also, it doesn't have on-screen kerning (after all the many versions!).
It's amazing. There are hundreds of editors available, but none that finish the job. I wish that all of that work had gone into just a few editors, or only one. It seems that many programmers make an editor or a compiler as part of their self-training. (I wrote a compiler for HP data acquisition equipment.) Very few of those efforts are ever finished.
I really need open source. That way I'm protected from events outside my control. MicroStar International, makers of WordStar, stopped being a competitor when Mr. Rubenstein, the CEO and biggest stockholder, died of a heart attack.
Open source software and world standards are the only answers. Suppose Bill Gates becomes unavailable for some reason? Would anyone else have an interest in the Visual Basic programming language (which is itself programmed in C++)? If not, all those who chose that language would suffer.
There was an MS-DOS shareware product -- in fact, it was the product for which the word "shareware" was coined, and by a guy who'd been Microsoft employee number 9, no less -- called PC-Write. It was a lightweight (fit on a floppy), blindingly fast (even on an original 4.77 MHz 8088) quasi-WYSIWYG word processor. I tried it, I paid for it, I used it a lot. With a little care, you could do fairly close to WYSIWYG editing of plain ASCII files.
The author (Bob Wallace) passed away September 29, 2002. His company is long gone, as is the company his product was sold to.
It looks as if you can download version 3.04 here. Halfway down this page you'll find version 4.15. The Pascal source code was available at one point; it's probably disappeared.
A similar product, "Breeze Word Processor," appears to be available here. This is a four year old (to the day!) Netnews discussion of lightweight MS-DOS word processor packages. Your very best bet might be an MS-DOS or Windows 3.x version of WordPerfect or Microsoft Word.
None of these are actively supported.-(
In this day when people lightly port Sim City and Civilization to PDAs and phones and web browsers, it shouldn't be that hard to recreate one of these.
P.S.: What OS is your 8 MB system running?
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Emacs is a light weight OS?
Ya. Now if only someone would write a decent text editor that ran on it.
Some people think that "legacy stretching back further than TeX" is not a "win".
These same people might question why you are suggesting that something "used for man page formatting on tty devices" should be used for printed documentation.
Of course, such people clearly don't know the power of groff (for those people: try printing man pages out, and you'll see that it handles paper copy very well), but you're not exactly selling it.
And really I would recommend (La)TeX because I think it's more usable (closer to "what you see is what you mean" than roff); but if someone doesn't want to use TeX, I would recommend looking to modern-day roff users for information on using it: Plan 9.
--Matthew