info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/05/84)
From: Richard Furuta <Furuta@washington.arpa> I've heard a few rumors about a new MacWrite which is disk based. Does anyone have more information on these? One rumor is that a beta test has been out and a friend of my friend saw it. Another rumor is that this has gotten beyond beta and is being prepared for shipping. Confirm or deny, please. Anyone know about update policies? --Rick -------
info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/21/84)
From: John W. Peterson <JW-Peterson@UTAH-20.ARPA> I saw a demo of the "Disk Based MacWrite" a couple months ago. Although it wasn't near release then, it was still VERY impressive. Features included... Designed to work with very large files (up to a diskful). Doesn't slow down when inserting into the middle or end of a large file like MacWrite does. Integrated spelling checker/corrector. Uses clever word compression to minimize the lookup time for large percent of the cases. Horizontal scrolling. Allows the editing of -multiple column- text. Insertions and deletions are handled intelligently and quickly (WYSIWYG). Super- and Sub-scripts can be adjusted on a pixel by pixel basis. Makes doing fancy equations and such easy. Multiple windows to multiple files. Upward compatible to Write (i.e., it can read macwrite files). Also interesting was the amount of "behind the scenes" wizardry involved. The whole thing was hand-crafted machine code, and (at least the version I saw) the application was actually smaller than MacWrite. They also went to a lot of work to avoid the "flicker" that occurs when typing with Text Edit or Write. Italics are carefully done so overlapping characters work properly. As I understand it, this will be released as an "Apple label" product (e.g, like Write or MacPascal is). I have no clear idea on what the expected release date is. -------