ftp.whtech.com/ftp.whtech.com.tar/ftp.whtech.com/articles/limanews/PRES.TXT

Text File | 2006-10-19 | 12KB | 198 lines

      The PRESS Word Processor
          reviewed by Charles Good
          Lima Ohio User Group

          In the past I have reviewed 99/4A and CC40 products that were
     never officially released but which nevertheless managed to get into
     my hands as working software or hardware.  This review is the first I
     have ever done of a product that never did exist.

          PRESS is probably the most legendary piece of vaporware in the
     history of the 99/4A.  I remember seeing it in September 1988
     advertised in the Fall 1988 Triton catalog ("available November 1"),
     probably the only time Triton ever advertised a TI product sight
     unseen.  I was impressed and wrote Asgard asking about its
     availability at the upcoming Chicago Faire.  Chris Bobbitt responded
     with a two page personal letter listing many virtues of PRESS and I
     was hooked.  Chris is a very good sales person.  At the Chicago show
     that year Chris said PRESS wasn't quite ready, but he took my check
     for $60 and promised the product shortly.  Two yearslater I got my
     uncashed check back.  Charles Earl, the PRESS programmer never came
     through, but in the meantime Chris Bobbitt managed to sell himself and
     the rest of the TI community on this fantastic word processr.

          I now have a copy of the September 1, 1989 beta test version of
     PRESS and its ready for release documentation.  Having seen the
     software I'm glad I didn't purchase it.  If completed it would have
     had a couple of significant features I don't like.

          The documentation is very fancy looking and probably cost Asgard
     software a lot of money up front to print.  You get a
     paper-with-plastic-coating box containing a 8x9 inch 3 ring plastic
     coated binder.  Both the box and binder have professional artwork on
     the outside.  The pages in the binder are professonally printed on
     heavy paper with plastic index tabs dividing the pages into different
     sections.  In the back of the binder is the program disk (there are
     supposed to be 3 other disks containing the spelling checker) and a
     quick reference card.  Very professional!

          A little quote from the voluminous advertising text Chris put on
     the back of the box gives you some idea of why PRESS seemed so great
     to me and Chris Bobbitt back then.  "PRESS has hundreds of features -
     including hundreds available in no other word processor for the
     TI99/4A or its compatibles.  You can easily do things in PRESS that
     are difficult or impossible in TI-Writer or enhancements of it such as
     MY-Word."

          The main advertised features are unlimited document size and on
     screen formatting, and a 100000 word built in spelling checker.
     Document size is limited only to the size of the mass storage medium,
     since only a piece of the document is in memory at any one time.  With
     a hard drive I could easily have put my great American PhD
     dissertation all in one continuous file.  This feature actually works
     in my Sept 1989 version.  On screen formatting means there is no
     separate formatter.  Right and left justification are shown on screen
     as you type (not yet in my Sept 1989 version).  Double strike,
     underline, and italic, or any combination of these show up just like
     that on screen as you type (this is in my Sept 1989 version).  Just
     like most PC word processors you can insert text and all the text to
     the right of the cursor just moves over one letter at a time to make
     room for your inserted text (not in my Sept 1889 version).   Like a
     lot of PC word processors such as Word Perfect, many operations of
     PRESS are performed on bocks of text.  Move the cursor next to the
     beginnign of a block and press Fctn/B.  Move the cursor down to the
     end of the block and press Fctn/B again (doesn't work on my version).
     Then delete or move or save only the blocked text.

          My version comes with a mouse driver usable with the Myarc mouse
     on a Geneve.  It is supposed to come with a bunch of printer drivers
     for common dot matrix printers so that you can print the fancy text
     displayed WYSIWYG on screen.  My version has no printer drivers and I
     can't get it to print anything from its editor.

          The software loads parts of itself off of disk as needed.  The
     numerous features planned just couldn't be made by the programmer to
     properly fit into the 99/4A's limited memory.  When your first boot
     PRESS you get a fancy title screen with a picture of an old fashoned
     printing press.  Then you are asked for bitmap or text mode.  Bitmap
     mode shows on screen all the fancy fonts.  Text mode is faster but
     doesn't show the fancy fonts.  You can still select italic, etc, but
     all looks the same on screen.  Bitmap is slow, particularly at work
     wrap and at left/right up/down screen scrolling.  Because of this
     slowness in redrawing the screen the software includes a keyboard
     buffer.  You can type ahead of the screen and the screen will
     eventually catch up.  Keyboard buffers are automatic in the PC world
     since they are built into the PC keyboard.  PRESS is the only 99/4A
     software I know of that simulates a keyboard buffer.

          After selecting bitmap or text if the software senses that you
     have an 80 column card or Geneve you are asked for 40 or 80 column
     display.  You are then given the main menu which offers you EDIT DISK
     FORMAT PRINT SPELL CONFIG and QUIT.  The 80 column  display looks
     quite good with a white background.  40 columns are windowed right
     with Fctn/5 and (unlike TI Writer) left with Ctrl/5.  Windowing in
     bitmap mode is kinda slow.

          At startup from the main menu you must first choose DISK and then
     open a document.  You enter a document name, then press Fctn/9 (back),
     then use the left arrow to move to EDIT, and then press <enter> to
     display the first part of the document.  This seems to be to be a very
     cumbersome procedure.  If you have a file in memory and you want to
     look at another file you first have to close the current file and than
     load in the next file.  The procedure for closing a file is Fctn/9
     (Back), then right arrow to DISK, then <enter>, then down arrow to
     "Close Document", then up arrow to "Open Document" to load in the next
     document.  This also is a cumbersome procedure but there are hot key
     shortcuts to these commands.

          I DON'T LIKE THE PRESS DISK FILE FORMAT.  Minimum file size is 51
     sectors!  When you open a file, if the specified file isn't on disk a
     new empty file 51 sectors long is created with the open name you
     specified.  Have a two sentence note you want saved?  51 sectors.  How
     about a 1 page letter?  51 sectors.  If you have a really long
     document it is saved in multiples of 50 sectors plus one file
     allocation sector (51, 101, 151, etc sectors long).  This wastes losts
     and lots of disk space.  Files are saved in DF255 format, which means
     that only PRESS can read PRESS text files.  PRESS is supposed to be
     able to import DV80 files into an already open PRESS document
     (cumbersome) and export its text to DV80 format.  My beta test PRESS
     can't do these things.  Like it or not DV80 is the text format
     standard in the 99/4A world.  The inability to scan a disk of PRESS
     files on screen with a file viewer such as DM1000, DSKU, or Funnelweb
     is potentially very inconvenient.  Because of the 51 sector minimum
     DF255 file format I would not now purchase PRESS even if I had the
     chance.

          Here are the options available from each of the  PRESS main menu
     headings.  Most of these features can also be accessed directly using
     Ctrl or Fctn plus a letter key.  You can also create macros which are
     user defined hot keys that invoke a specific chain of these commands.
     Macros can make some cumbersome repetitive keypresses easier and more
     user friendly.

          EDIT.  This puts you in edit mode and displays one screen of the
     current document.  Most of the document is not in memory and remains
     in "virtual memory" on disk.  As you write the document is
     continuously being saved to disk.

          DISK.  Open Document- do this before moving to EDIT.  Close
     Document- this exits a document saving it.  Merge Document- similar to
     TI Writer's mail/merge option.  Get Document- merges a second document
     into the current document at the cursor position.  Import Filet- Input
     a DV80 file into an already opened PRESS document.  Export File- save
     text as DV80 with no left margin.  Save Block- Saves a blocked part of
     current document as a separate smaller document while retaining
     current document on disk and in memory.  Directory- of any path.  You
     move the cursor next to a file name and press a key to open import
     copy delete protect get view move rename or unprotect the file and you
     can move foreward and back among the directory tree structure of a
     hard drive.  None of this Directory stuff works on my beta test
     version.

          FORMAT.  Vertical Dimensions- This gives you a sub menu that
     lists Top Margin, Bottom Margin, Lines/Page, Lines/Inch, and Line
     Spacing.  Margins- which gives you a sub menu listing Left and Right.
     Tabs-. Indent-. Outdent-. Pitch- which gives you the sub menu 10
     Chars/in, 12 Chars/in, Compressed, and Proportional.  Justification-
     which gives you your choices of Left (even margins on left only),
     Right (even margins on right only), and Full (even margins on both
     sides).  Header-. Footer-. Page Numset-. Center- which gives your
     choice of Page (vertically between top and bottom of page) and Text
     (current line centered between margins).  Define Columns- in which
     your choices are Snaking (like a newspaper text goes to top of next
     column) and Parallel (for alligning tables of numbers).  With each of
     these column types you get a new menu that says Automatic or Custom.
     Notes- include a short note with the document that is displayed on
     screen but not printed with the document.

          PRINT.  Current Document- with a sub menu listing Selected Pages,
     Range of Pages, All, or Merge.  External Document- ie a PRESS file
     that isn't the one currently open.  Select Printer- from the list of
     printer drivers (that doesn't exist in my beta version).  Device Path-
     to redirect output to a disk file.  Printer Feed Options- your choice
     of Continuous or Single Sheet.  Insert Printer Code-.

          SPELL.  Word- the word under the cursor.  Selected Pages-. Range
     of Pages-.  Full Document-.

          CONFIG.  This does absolutely nothing in my beta version and
     there is nothing about this menu item in the docs.  Presumably this
     lets you set up a path name for loading PRESS, a default printer with
     driver, and extra memory.  The documentation says PRESS takes
     advantage of "extra memory in minimems, supercarts, etc." but it
     doesn't say what this memory is used for.

          QUIT.  This closes the current document and returns you to the TI
     title screen with just one keypress.

          In conclusion, PRESS does some tricks that other TI word
     processors can't do, such as on screen underlining and italics.
     Nevertheless, the huge minimum file size and non standard file type
     would make many TI users unhappy.  I talked to Jack Sughrue, a beta
     tester mentioned in the documentation, and he agrees with me about
     these two problem areas.  I think Funnelweb, with its on screen right
     justification and IBM graphics, is now better than PRESS was supposed
     to be.
          .PL 1