XyWrite
Encyclopedia
XyWrite is a word processor
for DOS
and Windows
modeled on the ATEX mainframe program. Popular with writers and editors for its speed and degree of customization, XyWrite was in its heyday the house word processor in many editorial offices, including the New York Times from 1989 to 1993. XyWrite was written by David Erickson and marketed by XyQuest from 1982 through 1992, after which it was acquired by The Technology Group. The final version for DOS was 4.18 (1993); for Windows, 4.13.
The turning point for XyWrite came in the form of a disastrous near-partnership with IBM
, which was seeking a modern replacement for its venerable DisplayWrite
word processor. Working under an agreement signed in June 1990, XyQuest devoted nearly all of its development resources to revising Erickson's XyWrite IV to IBM's specifications, including IBM Common User Access-style menus, mouse support and a graphical user interface
. Envisioned as a marriage between XyQuest technology and IBM marketing, the product was to be called Signature.
But on the eve of Signature's release, IBM announced a strategic decision to withdraw completely from the desktop software market, shocking XyQuest and leaving Signature in limbo. When a prospective new alliance with Lotus
did not materialize, XyQuest had no alternative but to resticker the ready-to-ship Signature packages as XyWrite 4.0 and attempt to carry on.
However, the changes IBM had insisted on were a liability where the III Plus user base was concerned. Some key reviews (such as in The Wall Street Journal
) were harsh, and there were complaints that 4.0 was buggy and slow. Moreover, in the years since the last major XyWrite release, WordPerfect
had cemented its hold on the DOS word processor market. Already financially strained by the long development cycle for Signature, by the end of 1992 XyQuest was bleeding money. The sale to The Technology Group ensued.
While there were a few maintenance releases of 4.0 after the acquisition, The Technology Group's major commitment was to developing XyWrite for Windows. But XyWrite remained a niche product, unable to compete for the business user against Word for Windows, WordPerfect for Windows, and Ami Pro, despite added versatility and customization potential. The Technology Group was dissolved in 2003.
Several versions of XyWrite for DOS and Windows were also localized for use in European countries. For example, the programs were offered in Germany under the name "euroscript" by North American Software GmbH.
A descendant of XyWrite called Nota Bene (word processor)
is still being actively developed. Nota Bene, which runs on the XyWrite engine, is popular among academics. Nota Bene for Windows is now in version 9.
Thanks in large part to the work of users of XyWrite, the program is still very usable with Windows (or MS-DOS, and thus Linux). Even on Pentium and similar hardware, it remains noticeably faster than MS Word
or OpenOffice.org
. Despite these advantages in speed, XyWrite does not have as many features as Word or OpenOffice.org. For example, XyWrite is unaware of Windows ANSI or Unicode character sets and Nota Bene does not support languages (such as Chinese) that require double-byte characters.
Word processor
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
modeled on the ATEX mainframe program. Popular with writers and editors for its speed and degree of customization, XyWrite was in its heyday the house word processor in many editorial offices, including the New York Times from 1989 to 1993. XyWrite was written by David Erickson and marketed by XyQuest from 1982 through 1992, after which it was acquired by The Technology Group. The final version for DOS was 4.18 (1993); for Windows, 4.13.
Features
- Its file format consists of plain text (IBM437, or so-called "extended ASCIIASCIIThe American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
") with markup (within guillemetsGuillemetsGuillemets , also called angle quotes, are line segments, pointed as if arrows , sometimes forming a complementary set of punctuation marks used as a form of quotation mark....
: « »). This capability is useful for typesetters who need to convert to various formats, e.g., LaTeXLaTeXLaTeX is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. Within the typesetting system, its name is styled as . The term LaTeX refers only to the language in which documents are written, not to the editor used to write those documents. In order to...
. A plug-in for ANSI characters is available.
- XyWrite is written in assembly languageAssembly languageAn assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
, allowing it to run faster than word processors written in a higher level language.
- It has a flexible macro-programming language (XPL) that offers many advantages for quick search and replace, copy-editing and reformatting of raw text. Users continue to write and share macros extending XyWrite features (printing to USB devices, for example).
- Plain-text, editable configuration fileConfiguration fileIn computing, configuration files, or config files configure the initial settings for some computer programs. They are used for user applications, server processes and operating system settings. The files are often written in ASCII and line-oriented, with lines terminated by a newline or carriage...
s allow easy customization of the keyboard—for remapping keystrokes and for execution of complex commands with individual keystrokes—as well as customization of what is loaded on launching the program.
- Commands can be typed in directly on a command line, without the use of a mouse. Commands are usually in simple English, such as "Save," "Print," and "Search," or their shorter versions, such as "Sa" for "Save" (commands are case-insensitive).
- Up to nine files can be opened for editing at one time in separate "windows" that allow quick copy-and-paste among several files. Two files may be opened on the same screen for easy comparison of changes; a XyWrite command will do the comparison automatically, putting the cursor on the location at which the two files first differ (from which the user can move to the next difference).
- Version 4 has full WYSIWYGWYSIWYGWYSIWYG 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...
graphical editing capabilities including on-screen display of bitmapBitmapIn computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to...
s.
History and current usage
XyQuest was founded in June 1982 by former ATEX employees Dave Erickson and John Hild. Its most successful product was XyWrite III Plus, which attracted a devoted following among professional writers.The turning point for XyWrite came in the form of a disastrous near-partnership with IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, which was seeking a modern replacement for its venerable DisplayWrite
DisplayWrite
DisplayWrite was a word processor software application that IBM developed and marketed for its line of IBM PCs. Its document files used the RFT or DCA filename extension, both of which were standards on IBM mainframe computers...
word processor. Working under an agreement signed in June 1990, XyQuest devoted nearly all of its development resources to revising Erickson's XyWrite IV to IBM's specifications, including IBM Common User Access-style menus, mouse support and a 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...
. Envisioned as a marriage between XyQuest technology and IBM marketing, the product was to be called Signature.
But on the eve of Signature's release, IBM announced a strategic decision to withdraw completely from the desktop software market, shocking XyQuest and leaving Signature in limbo. When a prospective new alliance with Lotus
Lotus Software
Lotus Software is a software company with headquarters in Westford, Massachusetts...
did not materialize, XyQuest had no alternative but to resticker the ready-to-ship Signature packages as XyWrite 4.0 and attempt to carry on.
However, the changes IBM had insisted on were a liability where the III Plus user base was concerned. Some key reviews (such as in The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
) were harsh, and there were complaints that 4.0 was buggy and slow. Moreover, in the years since the last major XyWrite release, WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
had cemented its hold on the DOS word processor market. Already financially strained by the long development cycle for Signature, by the end of 1992 XyQuest was bleeding money. The sale to The Technology Group ensued.
While there were a few maintenance releases of 4.0 after the acquisition, The Technology Group's major commitment was to developing XyWrite for Windows. But XyWrite remained a niche product, unable to compete for the business user against Word for Windows, WordPerfect for Windows, and Ami Pro, despite added versatility and customization potential. The Technology Group was dissolved in 2003.
Several versions of XyWrite for DOS and Windows were also localized for use in European countries. For example, the programs were offered in Germany under the name "euroscript" by North American Software GmbH.
A descendant of XyWrite called Nota Bene (word processor)
Nota Bene (word processor)
Nota Bene is an integrated suite of applications for writers and scholars. It operates on the Windows platform and comes in two major versions: Scholar's Workstation, and Lingua Workstation.Both versions include:* Nota Bene, the word-processing application...
is still being actively developed. Nota Bene, which runs on the XyWrite engine, is popular among academics. Nota Bene for Windows is now in version 9.
Thanks in large part to the work of users of XyWrite, the program is still very usable with Windows (or MS-DOS, and thus Linux). Even on Pentium and similar hardware, it remains noticeably faster than MS Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
or OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
. Despite these advantages in speed, XyWrite does not have as many features as Word or OpenOffice.org. For example, XyWrite is unaware of Windows ANSI or Unicode character sets and Nota Bene does not support languages (such as Chinese) that require double-byte characters.
Version history
- XyWrite I (DOS)
- XyWrite II (DOS)
- XyWrite II Plus (DOS)
- XyWrite III (DOS), May 1990 - distributed on 5.25" HD floppy diskettes, and shipped with a 3-ring looseleaf manual in fabric-covered slipcase
- XyWrite III Plus (DOS)
- XyWrite 4.0 (DOS), Jan 1993 - distributed on seven 3.5" HD floppy diskettes, and shipped with five bound manuals: Installation & Learning Guide, Making the Transition, Customization Guide, Command Reference Guide, and LAN Administrator's Guide (together weighing nearly 4.5 pounds)
- XyWrite for Windows
External links
- Nota Bene (corporate site)
- xyWrite resources by Diane Fischer (concentrating on XyWrite III)
- XyWrite history within Diane Fischer's site
- XyWWWeb by Carl Distefano and Robert Holmgren (concentrating on XyWrite IV)
- XyWrite.com A General XyWrite Resource by Brian Henderson
- The Xy Files Feature article on Salon.com about people who continue using XyWrite.