PC-Write was a computer

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...

and was one of the first three widely popular

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

products sold via the

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

method that became known as

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...

. It was originally written by Bob Wallace in early 1983.

Overview

PC-Write was a

modeless In user interface design, a mode is a distinct setting within a computer program or any physical machine interface, in which the same user input will produce perceived results different from those that it would in other settings. Modal interface c ...

editor, using

control character In computing and telecommunication, a control Character (computing), character or non-printing character (NPC) is a code point (a number) in a character encoding, character set, that does not represent a written symbol. They are used as in-band ...

s and special

function key A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard that can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions, a form of soft key. On some keyboards/computers, function ...

s to perform various editing operations. By default it accepted many of the same control key commands as

WordStar WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It was published by MicroPro International and originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Barnaby was the sol ...

while adding many of its own features. It could produce plain

ASCII text ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

files, but there were also features that embedded control characters in a document to support automatic section renumbering, bold and italic fonts, and other such; also, a feature that was useful in list processing (as used in Auto LISP) was its ability to find matching open and closed

parenthesis A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

"( )"; this matching operation also worked for the other paired characters: , and < >. Lines beginning with particular control characters n and/or a period (.) contained commands that were evaluated when the document was printed, e.g. to specify margin sizes, select elite or pica type, or to specify the number of lines of text that would fit on a page, such as in

escape sequences In computer science, an escape sequence is a combination of characters that has a meaning other than the literal characters contained therein; it is marked by one or more preceding (and possibly terminating) characters. Examples * In C and man ...

. While Quicksoft distributed copies of PC-Write for $10, the company encouraged users to make copies of the program for others in an early example of

. Quicksoft asked those who liked PC-Write to send it $75. The sum provided a printed manual (notable for its many pictures of cats, drawn by Megan Dana-Wallace), telephone

technical support Technical support (abbreviated as tech support) is a call centre type customer service provided by companies to advise and assist registered users with issues concerning their technical products. Traditionally done on the phone, technical suppor ...

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

, and a registration number that the user entered into his copy of the program. If anyone else paid the company $75 to purchase an already-registered copy of the software, the company paid a $25 commission back to the original registrant, and then issued a new number to the new buyer, thereby giving a financial incentive for buyers to distribute and promote the software. A configuration file allowed customizing PC-Write, including remapping the keyboard. Later versions of the registered (paid for) version of the program included a

thesaurus A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym diction ...

(which was not shareware) along with the editor. In addition, there was vocabulary available in other languages, such as in German. Utilities were also provided to convert PC-Write files to and from other file formats that were common at the time. One limitation of the software was its inability to print directly from memory - because the print function was a separate

subprogram In computer programming, a function or subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Functions may ...

, a document must be saved to a file before it could be printed. Bob Wallace found that running Quicksoft used so much of his time he could not improve the PC-Write software. In early 1991, he sold the firm to another

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

alumnus, Leo Nikora, the original product manager for

Windows 1.0 Windows 1.0 is the first major release of Microsoft Windows, a family of graphical operating systems for personal computers developed by Microsoft. It was first released to manufacturing in the United States on November 20, 1985, while the Euro ...

(1983–1985). Leo Nikora purchases Quicksoft, Bob Wallace stays as lead programmer. Wallace returned to full programming and an updated version of PC-Write was released in June 1991. One unusual feature of PC-Write was its implementation of free form editing: it could

copy and paste In human–computer interaction and user interface design, cut, copy, and paste are related commands that offer an interprocess communication technique for transferring data through a computer's user interface. The ''cut'' command removes the ...

a block of text anywhere. For instance, if one had a block of information, one per line, in the format Name (spaces) Address, one could highlight only the addresses section and paste that into the right-hand part of a page. Today,

Emacs Emacs , originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor MACroS"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, s ...

and jEdit are also capable of performing this function. When the market changed to multi-program software (

office suite Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital paintings, ...

s combining

word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...

, and

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

programs), Quicksoft went out of business in 1993. The first

Trojan horse The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...

(appearing in 1986), PC-Write Trojan, masqueraded as "version 2.72" of the shareware word processor PC-Write. Quicksoft did not release a version 2.72. PC-Write had one of the first "as you type", in "real-time mode"

spell checker In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic di ...

; earlier spell checkers only worked in "batch mode". Charles Spezzano. "Professional Word Processing Packages". Sectio
"PC-Write Version 2.71"
InfoWorld. 1987 April 13. p. 42. The Brown Bag Word Processor is based on PC-Write's source code, licensed by Brown Bag Software, with some minor modifications and additions."Brown Bag Word Processor"
PC Magazine. 1987 Feb 24. p. 131.

Reception

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...

'' stated that version 1.3 of "''PC-Write'' rates extremely well and compares favorably with many word processors costing much more". It cited very fast performance, good use of color, and availability of source code as advantages, while lack of built-in support for printing bold or underline and keyboard macros was a disadvantage. ''

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...

'' complimented the software's "clean implementation of standard editing features", cited its "truly staggering" level of customization, and after mentioning a few flaws stated that they should be "viewed in context of the program's overall excellence".

References

External links

PC-WRITE: Quality Word Processing at a Price That's Hard to Beat
Review of PC-Write in ''COMPUTERS and COMPOSITION'' 2(4), August 1985, page 78. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pc-Write 1983 software Shareware Word processors DOS text editors

Overview

Reception

See also

References

External links