Possible activity heading towards XyWrite replacement

[wbass@xxxxxxxx]

Hi. Folks

I've been thinking about upgrading my computing software environment with
some new tools. The main tools that I care about are my text/programming
editor and the tool that I use for writing. For the most part, XyWrite
III+ has filled my needs in both areas up to now.

But XyWrite is getting old, and living within 8.3 filenames and 16 bit DOS
boxes is getting a bit old, so I've been looking at alternatives. I've
owned an editor call "epsilon" from Lugaru Software, Ltd (www.lugaru.com)
for a long time, but really haven't used it much, in part because I've
never had the time to personalize it.

But I've started to get serious about epsilon, and I've reached the
tentative conclusion that I can probably personalize epsilon to the point
that it would be nearly indistinguishable from XyWrite III+ as a writing
tool, up to a certain point, at least for what I do. (I haven't thought
all that much about printing yet, but I rarely print stuff.)

Let me say a bit about epsilon. First, it's fairly expensive -- $250. It's
been in development, I think by the same two guys, since about 1983, and
is now at version 13.06. For $250, though, you get executables for DOS,
OS/2 (although those two haven't been updated since version 10.03),
Windows console (e.g., a 32 bit module that runs in a Windows cmd.exe
"MS-DOS" box), Windows GUI, Linux, BSD, and Mac. (Perhaps not all Macs --
I don't know Macs, but folks should be able to figure out if it runs on
their Mac from looking at the Lugaru web site.) More than one person who
uses epsilon has declared it to be the best implemented/maintained program
on the planet, and there is no doubt that Lugaru's approach to
implementation and maintenance is just about exactly what such a plan
should be (e.g, major releases which cost money, usually from about 6 to
12 free upgrades to major releases until there are no more bugs to be
found, etc.).

You could think of epsilon a clone of emacs, if you know anything about
emacs. The biggest "technical" difference in the "architecture" is that
emacs uses a lisp interpreter as the primary personalization
language/mechanism, whereas epsilon uses a "C"-like, semi-compiled
language called "EEL" as the primary personalization language/mechanism.
By "semi-compiled," I mean that you write in "EEL" and it is compiled to a
byte stream file that is interpreted by a what folks these days might call
a "virtual machine," which is within the editor module. My guess is that
makes this kind "personalization code" probably 100 to 1000 times faster
in epsilon than in emacs. Epsilon also has "keyboard macros," which
implemented at an interpreted level -- since XPL is strictly interpreted,
XPL would in some ways be more like epsilon's keyboard macro files (called
"command files") than it would be like EEL.

The other big differences are that is that (1) emacs is something of a pig
in size, whereas epsilon is somewhat more of the "small, tight" program
variety, and (2) emacs inherits somewhat more from the "Unix culture" than
Epsilon does (although epsilon does show some Unix thinking/roots). The
Unix influence on emacs shows up particularly in the way that it views
keyboards -- the keyboards of terminals like the VT-52 were the kind that
it deals with easily, and stuff like the function keys found on a pc are
kind of "glued on" to emacs in an ugly sort of way (last time I looked).
Epsilon started on the PC, and has much less of that kind of problem.

So, anyhow, the questions would be: would folks here have any interest in
a "XyWrite emulation" effort based on a platfrom like epsilon? For
example, would folks spring for spending the $250? Any guesses as to
whether there would be interest larger than group that gathers here?

Also, would any folks here be interested in a bit more of description of
exactly what I'm thinking, why I think epsilon would be a reasonable
platform, and so on? To describe my thinking in more detail might involve
quite a long post, but I'll attempt to do such a post if there is any
interest.

Wally Bass

PS: One of my off-the-wall measures of what is going on in the XyWrite
world is to watch the appearance and disappearance of Tyson's "XyWrite
Revealed" book in Amazon's used books. A while back, there were none.
Then, I looked about three days ago, and there were two -- one for about
$180, and one for something over $700. Then I looked again two days later
and there were three -- each for about $180. (I have two copies, myself.)
Anyway, does anyone have any idea if these are actually selling, and if
so, who's buying, and why?