cwilliam@umd5.umd.edu (Christopher Williamson) (04/13/89)
WANTED: PaperClip Word Processor.
Looking for the 'newer' version that supports the extra memory in
a 130XE and has a spell checker. I have searched everywhere and Batteries
Included doesnt sell it anymore. If I cant find this, do any of you have
any recommendations on word processors? Nobody at the stores in my
area have any experience with 8bit software. It must have a GOOD spelling
checker and preferably use the extra memory in the XEs. Recommendations,
anyone?
Thanks for your comments,
Chris Williamson
cwilliam@umd5.umd.edu ARPANET
cwilliam@UMDD BITNET
(301) 779 - 5408 C&PNETdlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (04/14/89)
in article <4694@umd5.umd.edu>, cwilliam@umd5.umd.edu (Christopher Williamson) says: > WANTED: PaperClip Word Processor. > Looking for the 'newer' version that supports the extra memory in > a 130XE and has a spell checker. I have searched everywhere and Batteries > Included doesnt sell it anymore. Batteries Included folded over 2 years ago. They were killed by a mixture of low sales in the ST world and some management mistakes. Electronic Arts bought the rights to Atari PaperClip and all the other BI products from the receiver who was holding the assets. EA stopped shipping new copies of Atari PaperClip about the middle of last year. You want version 2.0 or 2.1 of PaperClip. 2.0 was released thru BI and included the 130XE support and the spell checker. Version 2.1 removed the copy protection (no more hardware key) and also fixed a bug in spelling words starting with "z". (The 2.0 program file was missing 16 bytes at the end. Those bytes contained the index into the "z" words on the dictionary disk.) You might be able to get a copy of version 2.1 from EA if they still have any in stock. (I haven't had any reports from them since last year so I doubt they still have any stock.) There are some distributors who still have copies, your local dealer (assuming you have one) might be able to find a copy by calling them. Some of the mail order houses also had copies. Be careful with the distributors and mail order places, they may still have old versions with out the spell checker or the 130XE RAM support. (Version 1.2 and 1.2X added support for the extra memory in the 130XE; version 1.1 only used the memory under the OS ROMs in XLs/XEs; version 1.1A is a downgraded version 1.2 (some features removed) which was shipped on a flippy disk, C64 version on one side Atari on the other; I wouldn't recomend version 1.0 to anyone, it was only shipped for about 2 weeks before 1.1 was released.) > If I cant find this, do any of you have any recommendations on word > processors? Nobody at the stores in my area have any experience with > 8bit software. It must have a GOOD spelling checker and preferably use > the extra memory in the XEs. Recommendations, anyone? The only other word processor for the 8 bits that I know uses the extra RAM in the XEs is AtariWriter+. Unlike PaperClip it doesn't manage the extra memory without help from the user. The user can tell AW+ which bank to load text into, and when a bank gets full the user must choose another one. PC just told the user there was a lot of RAM, it made all the decisions about where to place text in memory. The user didn't have to do anything special. Personally I think PaperClip is much better than AtariWriter or AtariWriter+, but then I have a very obvious bias in the matter. Both PC and AW+ use the versions of the same spell checker. ANTIC also used to sell (and still may) a stand alone version of it also. The only difference between the three versions are the dictionary files, some words were added/removed between each version. (NOTE: the dictionary disks can NOT be exchanged between versions.) There are a couple of newer word processors out for the 8 bits. I haven't used any of them so I can't say how good/bad they are. They are cheaper than PC and AW+ used to be. (Prices on both PC and AW+ have dropped a lot.) Dan Moore AT&T Bell Labs Denver dlm@druwy.ATT.COM