gnu (02/09/83)
When I had the use of an Apple last year I used Apple Pie from Programma International extensively. It was not a bad editor considering the limitations of its I/O (lousy keyboard and 40x20 screen). It's a screen editor. You can edit files up to about 70 chars wide and it will switch the screen for you between left and right halves. It can also support various 80-col cards. I believe it wins over vi in one important issue: when you type printing characters, it puts them in your file. I used it for extensive assembler language editing as well as invoices and random documents -- it did well on all. It has a lot of options on how the text gets in and out of the editor -- normal appledos text files, special fast-load format files, from a chunk of memory, to/from I/O slots, etc. It's also claimed to interface well to their text formatter, but I never needed it. I often moved text in and out of the Apple by dialing the modem and getting online, running Pie, and using the "output to slot 2" or "input from slot 2 500 lines or until you see 'foo'" features. Almost like C pipes, except you need one machine per process... I think Programma is in the L.A. area but no longer have an easy way to find their address. John Gilmore, Sun Microsystems
avsdS:avsdT:yawitz (02/16/83)
Programma closed up shop about a year ago. Apple Pie is now sold as Pie Writer by Hayden Publishing (for about $150 list).