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From: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: Software for OS9/68K
Message-ID: <2072@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-Oct-87 22:54:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: lsuc.2072
Posted: Sun Oct 11 22:54:26 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Oct-87 23:35:37 EDT
References: <163@sems.UUCP> <841@pur-phy>
Reply-To: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Organization: Consultant, Toronto
Lines: 55
Summary: Editors


     First, regarding text editors, we have version 3.8i MicroEMACS which
has some more features than the version that comes with Professional
OS-9.  However, I still use 'umacs' myself.  Frankly, I can't use
all the features.  I use too many text editors to get to learn any
of them thoroughly.

     Aside from those we also have GNU EMACS which is yet another
version of MicroEMACS, but more compatible with GNU EMACS (I should
have said *Micro*GNU EMACS).  If you don't like EMACS' this won't help.

     From Microware there is also Scred which is apparently sort of
'vi'-like.  I've only used 'vi' a couple of times and so I can only
say that the general user interface is like 'vi'.  I hear that 'vi'
is much more powerful, but I've not experienced it fully.

     Commercially I also have Dynastar.  Dynastar is a word processor
package by Frank Hogg.  This is sort of Wordstar-like.  It comes with
a compatible text formatter which I haven't tried yet.  Frank Hogg
has an ad in October's Byte Magazine.  Check it for the phone number
and address.

     There's also Stylograph.  I have Stylograph on a 6809 Color Computer
II but not on the 68000, so if you're interested in trying it, all
I can say is it's available.  For the most part, I *like* Stylograph.
The only problem is that the version I have for the 6809 has bugs
which don't make it totally unusable, but can be annoying.  I currently
use it for all my letters and articles.  I have used it for programming
and found it quite acceptable.

     In Europe there's at least one more Wordstar clone around.  Why
Wordstar I'll never understand.  You know, of all the word processors
I've tried, the best design I've tried was VIP Writer on the old
Color Computer.  It wasn't a "fully featured" word processor, but
it came very close and what was there was *right*.  They'd obviously
looked at the others and learned from the scr*w*ps that the others
made.  If I had the time to write a word processor from scratch
I'd write a new version of that program.  Anyway, VIP seems to
have given up on word processors.  They're making their money on
spread sheets and databases.  Not much you can do about that.

     As for porting OS-9, well, you have to get in touch with Microware.
The difficulty of porting is probably less than other Unix-like OS's
since it's been done more often than most other Unix-like OS's.
However, it's expensive.

     Generally, do you guys know about 'comp.os.os9'?  The moderator
has copies of MicroEMACS 3.8i executables.  With luck we'll have
the sources as well.

Cheers! -- Jim O.
-- 
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
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