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 software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
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 empha ...
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 Bob or Bobby Wallace may refer to:
*Bobby Wallace (American football) (born 1954), college football coach at the University of North Alabama
*Bobby Wallace (baseball) (1873–1960), Baseball Hall of Fame member
*Bobby Wallace (footballer) (1908–19 ...
in early 1983.
Overview
PC-Write was a
modeless editor, using
control character
In computing and telecommunication, a control character or non-printing character (NPC) is a code point (a number) in a character set, that does not represent a written symbol. They are used as in-band signaling to cause effects other than the ...
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, func ...
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 computing, 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Ba ...
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 ...
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
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 ...
. 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 support ...
,
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...
, 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, 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 corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
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 Eu ...
(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, ...
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 painting ...
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 ce ...
, 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 spa ...
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 ...
; 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'' 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".
See also
*
Andrew Fluegelman
Andrew Cardozo Fluegelman (November 27, 1943 – July 6, 1985) was a publisher, photographer, programmer and attorney best known as a pioneer of what is now known as the shareware business model for software marketing. He was also the founding ...
*
Jim Knopf
Jim Knopf, nicknamed Jim Button ("Knopf" meaning "button" in German) (October 20, 1942 – October 1, 2013), was considered by many to be one of the "fathers" of shareware (so named by fellow software veteran Peter Norton). As an IBM emplo ...
, also known as Jim Button
*
PC-File
PC-File was a flat file database computer application most often run on DOS. It was one of the first of three widely popular software products sold via the marketing method that became known as shareware. It was originally written by Jim "Button" ...
*
PC-Talk
PC-Talk is a communications software program. It was one of the first three widely popular software products sold via the marketing method that became known as shareware. It was written by Andrew Fluegelman in late 1982, and helped created sharew ...
References
External links
PC-WRITE: Quality Word Processing at a Price That's Hard to BeatReview of PC-Write in ''COMPUTERS and COMPOSITION'' 2(4), August 1985, page 78.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pc-Write
1983 software
Shareware
Word processors
DOS text editors