ChiWriter
Encyclopedia
Text editor
A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....
for MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, created by Cay Horstmann in 1986. It was one of the first WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
editors that could write mathematical formulas, even on IBM PC XT computers that were then common.
The editor was more oriented to speed and interactive aspect of editing, rather than on visual appearance of the result, therefore, it has its own graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
with bitmap fonts of fixed width. Although popular (easier to use than TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
for many scientists), this unfortunately led to its demise as more text editors with vector fonts for MS Windows began to appear, and in 1996, it has been discontinued.
The basic idea of ChiWriter is that you can add lines above or below the current text line (by half of the base line height), and write text there too. The additional lines are treated as part of the original text line. This can be used to create subscripts and superscripts, and also more complex formulas such as fractions. Combined with the possibility to use several fonts (up to 20) at once, such as Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
, Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
, and mathematical and other symbols, ChiWriter is quite easy to write mathematical texts in. Every font has the same fixed dimensions, but you can use different sets for different output devices (for example, you can use low-resolution fonts for screen and high-resolution fonts for printer). You can also manually create the larger objects (such as sums and integrals) by using several symbols for each part of the object.
The editor was quite customizable. There was also a font editor
Font editor
A font editor is a class of application software specifically designed to create or modify computer font files.Font editors differ greatly depending if they are designed to edit bitmap fonts or outline fonts. Modern font editors mostly deal with the outline fonts, because bitmap fonts are an older...
, which allowed to modify fonts and introduce user-designed fonts (including proportional ones) and symbols.