Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-ngp.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!mercury From: mercury@ut-ngp.UUCP (Larry E. Baker) Newsgroups: net.micro.pc,net.micro.ti Subject: MIX editor "review" Message-ID: <2646@ut-ngp.UUCP> Date: Sun, 24-Nov-85 16:02:35 EST Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.2646 Posted: Sun Nov 24 16:02:35 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 25-Nov-85 21:25:33 EST Distribution: na Organization: University of Texas at Austin Lines: 118 [frustration is the mother of invention] You will note that this is a sketchey "review," at best. This is due mainly to the fact that I have only made a superficial examination of this product, but felt that my initial observations might be of use to the net populance. NOTE: I have no connectons with MIX Software, save as a satisfied customer. NAME: The Mix editor DESCRIPTION: Full screen, multi-machine text editor. PRICE: $29.95 (actually $36.?? after shipping, etc.) COMPANY: MIX Software 2116 E. Arapaho, Suite 363 Richardson, TX 75081 Order line: (800) 523-9520 (Visa, MC) Inquiries: (214) 783-6001 CLAIMS: Autoindent, automatic line numbering, fill and justify ala Wordstar but with straight ASCII, split screen with multi- file editing, alterable command-key mappings (initially like Wordstar) with macro-key assignments and a DOS shell escape as well as other features. OVERALL: I think it's great, for the price. Seems to do just about everything that the documentation claims, though there are a few minor bugs. And there's a *lot* to it for $29.95. OVERVIEW: The MIX editor falls into the category of Emacs/Wordstar editors; that is, a single keystroke (usually a control key or alt-key) corresponding to some editor function, such as moving down a line, deleting a line, etc. It is somewhat more like Emacs in that there are a large collection of "functions" that are available for mapping to any key, though they are available from a "command mode" as well. Macros are supported, and are constructed out of a kind of abbreviated command language. COMMENTS: The editor seems pretty nice, given its cost. I have not had a chance to examine or test it completely, mainly due to problems with our TI PCs: currently, the editor must use the subset of the ANSI screen driver present in the BIOS, which is so awful that the editor is reduced to re-drawing the screen whenever you want to scroll the screen down a line. As soon as I can get my hands on a TI TRM, I'll patch it to use the video interrupt (it comes with some crude instructions on how to do this) which will make it *much* friendlier. With a good ANSI driver, or something that supported things like "insert a line," it would be even faster. On a reasonably intelligent ASCII terminal, it would really fly. The documentation is rather complete, in a softback, bound 8.5x11 booklet. It is nicely prepared, photoreprodced from letter-quality printer outut. It is terse, and obviously designed for the experienced programmer. This is possibly the most portable editor I have seen, right up there with the TURBO Pascal editor. It is completely configurable for nearly any display device: any ASCII terminal that supports direct-cursor addressing, and just about any MS-DOS personal computer that has a BIOS video interrupt to locate the cursor. It is able to take advantage of more "advanced" features of a terminal/screen driver, like "erase to end of line," "insert line," "delete line," etc. though it can make do with nothing but direct cursor addressing, or even vertical/horizontal cursor movement. Detailed instructions are provided for installing the editor, and ours was up within about 15 minutes of opening the box. Instructions are provided for patching the editor for using the video interrupt to address a PC's cursor directly (it comes set up for the IBM PC), though I have not yet done this due to a lack of TI technical documentation. This editor can be easily adapted to look almost exactly like many other editors, excepting editors that have "modes," like VI. This is convienent, as one can standardise key-mappings across machines (say, to look like Emacs) removing the need to know 50 sets of editor key assignments. You can also have different start-up files, thus having a seperate set for Pascal, C, etc. with appropriate macros. COMPLAINTS: The manual could be more complete, though it is pretty complete as it is. It is somewhat terse when it comes to patching the editor to use a different BIOS interrupt to control the cursor. They could have used a more verbose command language. Commands consist of two-letter abbreviations, which (to me) is inconvienent as it is virtually unreadable to the inexperienced eye. The command set is very extensive, though, which sort of makes up for it, and some commands have long forms (RS == REPLACE string) which helps. The .EXE file is rather large, ~50K, so if you plan to use the DOS escape function (which I have not tried) you should probably have a lot of memory handy. Considering the size of some of Microsoft's compilers, I'd think that 512K would be just about right. BUGS: The only bug I have detected to date is that some of the macros provided with the editor do not seem to work as documented. I cannot tell (yet) whether or not I am using them incorrectly, or if they are not acting the way they are supposed to (I suspect the former). I welcome comments and constructive mail, and am willing to post or mail more detailed observations and descriptions to those who want them. Larry