4 ms·

Keyboards got cursor keys and mice, so the Wordstar diamond wasn't as great/needed anymore for the general user. It has its fanbase, but then again, a lot of d

by mhd 10y ago

Keyboards got cursor keys and mice, so the Wordstar diamond wasn't as great/needed anymore for the general user. It has its fanbase, but then again, a lot of dead word processors do. Especially amongst journalists, where Amiga word processors and XyWrite still are being kept alive artificially...

bhaak 10y ago
Amiga word processors? Why and which ones? Given that the Amiga never got a strong hold in media outlets unless it was video related, the statement "especially amongst journalists" needs some backing. Back in the day, even Amiga magazine weren't done on the Amiga. AFAIK, most used what the industry used (that is, Macs).
- DanBC 10y ago
  Here's an old submission about "How QuarkXpress became a mere afterthought in publishing" which is pretty interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360076
- mhd 10y ago
  I was mostly using it as an example for something quite rare and seemingly weird, even compared to WordStar or WordPerfect. If your newspaper, magazine or website uses some kind of CMS that's based on text files, any old editor or word processor would do. It's not like they'd accept the native formats of WordStar/XyWrite, so once you're down to .txt, anything goes (if UTF-8 is mandatory, some more tech savviness might be required). I think that an Amiga was explicitly mentioned in an old article about Germany's heise publishing house (mostly known for tech publications, so maybe a bit more accepting in that regard). Germany also had a pretty large Amiga fanbase, so that might bias things. (And I remember Ataris being quite popular in publishing, too)
Finnucane 10y ago
I used XyWrite extensively back in the DOS era. I recall that it was favored by newspaper and magazine writers because the codes matched the Atex typesetting system, and you could configure it to match line lengths of your typeset output. But the features that made it nice in a non-wysiwyg environment were of little value later.

by mhd 10y ago

bhaak 10y ago

Amiga word processors? Why and which ones? Given that the Amiga never got a strong hold in media outlets unless it was video related, the statement "especially amongst journalists" needs some backing. Back in the day, even Amiga magazine weren't done on the Amiga. AFAIK, most used what the industry used (that is, Macs).

DanBC 10y ago
Here's an old submission about "How QuarkXpress became a mere afterthought in publishing" which is pretty interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360076
mhd 10y ago
I was mostly using it as an example for something quite rare and seemingly weird, even compared to WordStar or WordPerfect. If your newspaper, magazine or website uses some kind of CMS that's based on text files, any old editor or word processor would do. It's not like they'd accept the native formats of WordStar/XyWrite, so once you're down to .txt, anything goes (if UTF-8 is mandatory, some more tech savviness might be required). I think that an Amiga was explicitly mentioned in an old article about Germany's heise publishing house (mostly known for tech publications, so maybe a bit more accepting in that regard). Germany also had a pretty large Amiga fanbase, so that might bias things. (And I remember Ataris being quite popular in publishing, too)

Finnucane 10y ago

I used XyWrite extensively back in the DOS era. I recall that it was favored by newspaper and magazine writers because the codes matched the Atex typesetting system, and you could configure it to match line lengths of your typeset output. But the features that made it nice in a non-wysiwyg environment were of little value later.