Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL
From: SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Laser 128 and also Appleworks on Old ][
Message-ID: <8808250951.aa06826@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Date: 25 Aug 88 14:38:16 GMT
References: <ericw%sgi.COM@decwrl.dec.COM>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 41

>What word processors do you like?  From what I've seen of Appleworks, I like
>it, but what does it take to run on a pre-//e?

ProDOS will run on a II+ with 64K and an 80 column card.  However, the
desktop is only 10K.  There may be some patch that'll let a II+ have a
larger desktop in a RAM card, but the cost of all that probably is out
of hand versus a Laser 128.

Hayden's PIE Writer works just fine on a (64K) 40 column Apple II+.
Alas, Hayden went Chapter 11 and sold out to Spinnaker which kept
Sargon and punted the rest.  Perhaps Spinnaker still markets the "Writer"
(which was sort of a cheapo "poor man's" PIE Writer -- had just about
everything but the mail merge -- but I don't recall whether that worked
with a 40 column II+ 'tho I suspect it did).

The real difficulty with the II+ is that most of the software that was
designed for it is no longer on the market (no longer supported by the
original vendor even if the company remains in business).

>For the money to make the old ][ a decent word processor (80 column board,
>maybe some more memory, some kind of keyboard fix, etc) we could get a
>Laser 128 ($470 last I saw).  What do you think of them?  How compatible
>are they?

For what you indicate you want to do (word processing), the Laser 128
may be your best bet (most software thinks a Laser 128 is a //c).  You
can get FreDwriter from APPLE2-L (a freeware word processor by the author
of AppleWriter which has nearly all of AppleWriter's features except WPL).
I don't know that FreDwriter will work with a 64K II+ (under ProDOS) even
if you get an 80 column card (possibly it will as it doesn't make use of
the "Apple keys.").


Murph Sewall     Sewall@UCONNVM.BITNET
Business School  sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu          [INTERNET]
U of Connecticut {rutgers psuvax1 ucbvax & in Europe - mcvax}
                 !UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL                        [UUCP]

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