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It was text only. The article says it was WYSIWYG, but that was only the later Mac and Windows versions. The early text versions only did some stuff like underl

It was text only. The article says it was WYSIWYG, but that was only the later Mac and Windows versions. The early text versions only did some stuff like underlining, bold and alignment. Microsoft released Word for DOS even after the Windows version came out, and I remember a lot of people were surprised that they bothered -- 5.5 was even transformed into a curses-style "graphical" DOS app [1] with colour, drop down menus (with shadows!) and mouse support (but drawn with ASCII characters), similar to Borland's DOS apps, but it seemed like a perfunctory release -- at that point it was obvious DOS was legacy and that Windows was the future of Microsoft. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+word+5.5+dos&num=30&safe=off&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy3PCcpZjRAhUP6WMKHVcMB1IQ_AUICCgC&biw=375&bih=559 https://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+word+5.5+dos&num=3...

anonymfus 10y ago
>similar to Borland's DOS apps And to Visual Basic for DOS.
- int_19h 10y ago
  This one was more similar to QBASIC and QuickBASIC, and also EDIT.COM. All of these used the same UI toolkit, so far as I know. VB for DOS was a bit different, and tried harder to look like Windows (3.x). You can tell by looking at push buttons and window decorations: http://toastytech.com/guis/textvbdos.png http://toastytech.com/guis/textvbdos.png
  - stuaxo 10y ago
    I wish they would release that textui used by qbasic, edit and Microsoft works.
    - rzzzt 10y ago
      Borland's version is called Turbo Vision, and it was available as a framework to build applications on in their Pascal IDE.
      - Narishma 10y ago
        And their DOS C and C++ IDEs as well.
    - lobster_johnson 10y ago
      As rzzzt says, you can get Turbo Vision [1], which is the framework that Borland used for all their apps. Borland released the C++ source code in the public domain, and it's since been ported to a bunch of platforms, including Linux. Google Images has lots of screenshots [2]. It supports multiple overlapping windows, including modals, and since window rendering is based on buffers, it automatically supports things like region repaint and shadows; it comes with an extensible file editor that supports selection, clipboard and undo/redo; form validation; and even persistence (any UI widget, or set of widgets, can be written to disk and read back again). It's quite an advanced object-oriented toolkit that's impressive even now, though it seems a bit insane today that they spent so much effort on something that could render only VGA's 80x25 characters. Documentation is spotty, but it exists [3]. [1] http://tvision.sourceforge.net http://tvision.sourceforge.net [2] http://bit.ly/2iJuckO http://bit.ly/2iJuckO [3] http://www.sigala.it/sergio/tvision/html/index.html http://www.sigala.it/sergio/tvision/html/index.html
      - int_19h 10y ago
        What's more, Turbo Vision source code was eventually adopted by FreePascal, and they ship with it to this day. Their text-mode IDE that looks a great deal like Borland Pascal (but with a lot more features) is written in it. Oh, and it's available on all platforms, not just Windows! http://www.linux-community.de/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/internal/artikel/print-artikel/linuxuser/2016/02/angetestet/fp-003.png/2806320-1-ger-DE/fp-003.png_lightbox.png http://www.linux-community.de/var/ezwebin_site/storage/image...
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    EDIT.COM was actually just a shortcut to QBASIC.EXE with the /EDITOR flag
    - qubex 10y ago
      Wow. That makes so much sense now... I remember using those for ages and I never realised.
    - int_19h 10y ago
      If I remember correctly, EDIT.COM was a separate binary back when QBASIC didn't ship with DOS. When they started shipping the latter in the box (DOS 5.0?), it became a shortcut.
      - kalleboo 10y ago
        Wikipedia says it was the other way around - EDIT didn't even exist until they bundled QBASIC in DOS 5.0, but after they killed QBASIC in the DOS bundled with Windows 95 it became it's own binary.
Narishma 10y ago
The article isn't really wrong. From the very first DOS version it had support for mouse, (non-overlapping) windows, color and some limited WYSIWYG (it can display bold, italic, underline and so on). Here's a screenshot from version 1.15: https://winworldpc.com/res/img/screenshots/1x-dos-e22144b8ec0b755eb237207260ec8f3a-Microsoft%20Word%201.15%20for%20DOS%20-%20%20Windows.png https://winworldpc.com/res/img/screenshots/1x-dos-e22144b8ec...

anonymfus 10y ago

>similar to Borland's DOS apps And to Visual Basic for DOS.

int_19h 10y ago
This one was more similar to QBASIC and QuickBASIC, and also EDIT.COM. All of these used the same UI toolkit, so far as I know. VB for DOS was a bit different, and tried harder to look like Windows (3.x). You can tell by looking at push buttons and window decorations: http://toastytech.com/guis/textvbdos.png http://toastytech.com/guis/textvbdos.png
- stuaxo 10y ago
  I wish they would release that textui used by qbasic, edit and Microsoft works.
  - rzzzt 10y ago
    Borland's version is called Turbo Vision, and it was available as a framework to build applications on in their Pascal IDE.
    - Narishma 10y ago
      And their DOS C and C++ IDEs as well.
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    As rzzzt says, you can get Turbo Vision [1], which is the framework that Borland used for all their apps. Borland released the C++ source code in the public domain, and it's since been ported to a bunch of platforms, including Linux. Google Images has lots of screenshots [2]. It supports multiple overlapping windows, including modals, and since window rendering is based on buffers, it automatically supports things like region repaint and shadows; it comes with an extensible file editor that supports selection, clipboard and undo/redo; form validation; and even persistence (any UI widget, or set of widgets, can be written to disk and read back again). It's quite an advanced object-oriented toolkit that's impressive even now, though it seems a bit insane today that they spent so much effort on something that could render only VGA's 80x25 characters. Documentation is spotty, but it exists [3]. [1] http://tvision.sourceforge.net http://tvision.sourceforge.net [2] http://bit.ly/2iJuckO http://bit.ly/2iJuckO [3] http://www.sigala.it/sergio/tvision/html/index.html http://www.sigala.it/sergio/tvision/html/index.html
    - int_19h 10y ago
      What's more, Turbo Vision source code was eventually adopted by FreePascal, and they ship with it to this day. Their text-mode IDE that looks a great deal like Borland Pascal (but with a lot more features) is written in it. Oh, and it's available on all platforms, not just Windows! http://www.linux-community.de/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/internal/artikel/print-artikel/linuxuser/2016/02/angetestet/fp-003.png/2806320-1-ger-DE/fp-003.png_lightbox.png http://www.linux-community.de/var/ezwebin_site/storage/image...
- kalleboo 10y ago
  EDIT.COM was actually just a shortcut to QBASIC.EXE with the /EDITOR flag
  - qubex 10y ago
    Wow. That makes so much sense now... I remember using those for ages and I never realised.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    If I remember correctly, EDIT.COM was a separate binary back when QBASIC didn't ship with DOS. When they started shipping the latter in the box (DOS 5.0?), it became a shortcut.
    - kalleboo 10y ago
      Wikipedia says it was the other way around - EDIT didn't even exist until they bundled QBASIC in DOS 5.0, but after they killed QBASIC in the DOS bundled with Windows 95 it became it's own binary.

Narishma 10y ago

The article isn't really wrong. From the very first DOS version it had support for mouse, (non-overlapping) windows, color and some limited WYSIWYG (it can display bold, italic, underline and so on). Here's a screenshot from version 1.15: https://winworldpc.com/res/img/screenshots/1x-dos-e22144b8ec0b755eb237207260ec8f3a-Microsoft%20Word%201.15%20for%20DOS%20-%20%20Windows.png https://winworldpc.com/res/img/screenshots/1x-dos-e22144b8ec...