Apple Writer is a

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. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current ...

for the Apple II family of personal computers. It was created by Paul Lutus and published in 1979 by Apple Computer.

History

Apple Writer 1.0

Paul Lutus wrote Apple Writer alone in a small cottage he built himself atop a hill in the woods of

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

, connected to the electricity grid via of cable strung in

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s. The original 1979 version of Apple Writer ran from a 13-sector DOS 3.2 diskette and supported 40-column text display. It displayed text entirely in uppercase, but case could be toggled by pressing the ESC key; characters that the user signified as uppercase appeared in inverse (black-on-white) capitals, while characters in lowercase appeared as standard capitals. The names of the binary files Apple Writer 1.0 produced began with the prefix "TEXT". An undocumented feature was its ability to print to printers using a game paddle port as a serial interface. Users had to build their own serial cables; the risk of damage to the computer or printer was why Apple did not publicize the information, but Lutus documented the feature in a letter to ''

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

''.

Apple Writer 1.1

Released in 1980, Apple Writer 1.1 took advantage of DOS 3.3 and ran under the newer 16-sector format. It also featured a spell checker known as Goodspell and some minor bug fixes.

Apple Writer II

Apple Writer II was released in 1981 and, like its predecessor, ran under DOS 3.3 on an

Apple II Plus The Apple II Plus (stylized as Apple ] or apple plus) is the second model of the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. It was sold from June 1979 to December 1982. Approximately 380,000 II Pluses were sold during its ...

. Unlike the original, Apple Writer II could display both upper and lower case characters and, with a Sup'R'Terminal card in slot 3, could support both 40- and 80-column text. It also wrapped text too long to appear on the current line (rather than breaking it mid-word) and included a glossary and the Word Processing Language (WPL), a macro-like resource that allowed certain tasks to be automated. Apple Writer II files saved as standard text files rather than the older binary files.

Apple Writer ///

This program was released in 1982 for the Apple ///, and was able to use the enhanced capabilities of the Apple ///.

Apple Writer IIe

Released in 1983, Apple Writer IIe took advantage of the

Apple IIe The Apple IIe (styled as Apple //e) is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The ''e'' in the name stands for ''enhanced'', referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in ...

's built-in 80-column display and full keyboard and featured the ability to create larger files, print files to disk and directly connect the computer keyboard to a printer for typewriter-like operation.

Apple Writer 2.0

Apple Writer 2.0 was released in September 1984 and was the first version of the series to run under

ProDOS ProDOS is the name of two similar operating systems for the Apple II series of personal computers. The original ProDOS, renamed ProDOS 8 in version 1.2, is the last official operating system usable by all 8-bit Apple II series computers, and w ...

. It allowed users to set screen margins and to connect the computer's keyboard to a

modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...

, allowing it to be used as a rudimentary terminal program.

Apple Writer 2.1

Published in late 1985, this version corrected a problem with parallel printer cards present in 2.0 and changed printed characters from low-ASCII to high-ASCII, correcting an issue with certain interface cards and printers.

Freeware

Following the success of

AppleWorks AppleWorks was an integrated office suite containing a word processor, database, and spreadsheet. It was developed by Rupert Lissner for Apple Computer, originally for the Apple II platform and launched in 1984, and was later reworked for the Ma ...

, Apple discontinued the Apple Writer series. Creator Paul Lutus agreed in 1992 to make his program available on a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

basis: it could be copied freely and given away, but could not be sold for a profit.

Interface

Apple Writer used inline commands, so formatting did not appear on-screen; it would appear when the document was printed. Paragraph formatting was specified with dot-commands, each of which required its own line. For example: .ff form feed (new page) .lmXX set left margin to XX characters .rmYY set right margin to YY characters .cj center justification .fj full justification Character formatting was specified with escape-commands, which varied depending on the printer. Common commands included Esc-X to begin underlining, and Esc-Y to end underlining.

Reception

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 ...

''s reviewer wrote in 1980 "I have looked at other text editors for the Apple, some of which were overloaded with features. Given the hardware limitations of the Apple II, I feel that Apple Writer is a very useful document creation tool", and stated that he wrote the review with Apple Writer. ''II Computing'' listed it third on the magazine's list of top Apple II software as of late 1985, based on sales and market-share data.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite news , url=https://archive.org/stream/1980-07-compute-magazine/Compute_Issue_005_1980_Jul_Aug#page/n47/mode/2up , title=APPLE WRITER / A Review Of The Text Editing System From Apple Computer, Inc. , work=Compute! , date=July–August 1980 , accessdate=25 October 2013 , author=Thornburg, David D. , pages=46

External links

Apple II History, Chapter 18: Apple Writer

Apple Writer 1.0 Software
1979 software Apple II word processors