Re: URGENT--features for "XyWrite 5," replies needed

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Hi Harry,

When you first broached the general idea, I have to say I thought it had to be in the "pipe dream" category,
but you may have advanced it to the only slightly far-fetched, which is fairly remarkable in itself.
 Is there a realistic market for such a thing these days ? I guess we can find out. That Guardian (?)
article certainly set the door ajar to some degree.

I like the basic contours of what you've suggested. I've been very dissatisfied with NB's major
limitations in handling our rather extensive library of existing Xy 3 & Xy4 documents. I have had a license
for NB for quite some time, but I would tell Anne that 11.5.12 has most likely marked the end of the line for
me: the academic / scholarly orientation and features of it are mostly irrelevant for me, and mainly just
get in my way; my primary use for it had been in Windows printing support -- which vDOSXy largely finessed --
and to a lesser extent things like format conversion. For me, I think the cost of further updates would
be money much better spent on a Xy-5 such as you propose. I could see going in on that as much as $500., but
I definitely do not like the subscription or endless frequent-upgrades-cost model.

Hopefully, the personalized tweaking we would need to do to get it the way that we want it would not be
overly complex or elaborate. A detailed guide on that would be essential. I'd like to be able to adapt (or even
preferably re-use) things like existing keyboard macro files and XPL routines. The more we can carry over from
what we already have, the better. (And don't leave Xy-3 users out in the cold, either !)  Of
course, the U2 library is a must. I would cast a huge vote in favor of portability: being able to carry this around on a
thumb-drive and run it from there would be a gigantic plus, in my view.

If I think of anything else, I'll chime in.


  Jordan


--------------------------------------------
On Thu, 11/8/18, Harry Binswanger  wrote:

 Subject: URGENT--features for "XyWrite 5," replies needed
 To: "xy" 
 Date: Thursday, November 8, 2018, 12:49 PM

 Fellow XyWriters,
 XyWrite V (based on Nota Bene) is  now a real possibility.
 I've been in informal discussions with Nota Bene's Steve Siebert
 about our financing their development of a 32-bit version of
 XyWrite, based on the 32-bit engine they developed for Nota
 Bene.  This, "XyWrite 5," would run on 64-bit systems, without
 any virtualization (as in vDos) needed. What they already
 have, for Nota Bene, is written in Assembler (as XyWrite has
 always been) and is adapted to sit on top of Windows. What
 Steve is talking about doing is streamlining what they have
 and getting it to work with the U2, then adding whatever
 features we are willing to pay for.
  I have been using VDosPlus for some months, and I am very, very grateful
 to Wengier for developing it. This new program would,
 however, have advantages:
 1. Windows screen fonts--all of them (yes, I mean fonts like Arial and
 Georgia, not just monospaced fonts).
 2. Windows undo. Ctrl-z undo, of virtually unlimited depth.
 3. Windows printer drivers, so that you can print from XyWrite just as
 you do from Notepad and Word.
 4. Windows Clipboard.
 5. Windows color palette (I think).
 6. Running without virtualization (should be considerably
 faster).
 7. More memory for programs and keyboard files, etc. As I understand it, a
 reasonably priced XyWrite 5 won't give us megabytes of
 memory, but it can definitely give us something like triple
 or quadruple the program and module memory we now have.
 So, what we need now from the XyWrite collective is an indication of how
 many people want which features and would be willing to pay for it.
 Running the U2 is a given; there's no viable project without that. And
 all the above Windows-based features are already there,
 though they may need tweaking. And having something a lot
 closer to the XyWrite interface is a given. It won't
 have the bells and whistles (and complexity) of the
 word-processing part of Nota Bene.
 So what else would you like? For instance, 
 PortabilityAbility to shell to DOS
 or otherwise run external programs, as now (I don't know
 if this is automatically included)Ability to handle files
 larger than 2 MB (this probably is already included). Then I need to
 find out how many of us would be willing to put up what kind
 of money. No commitments at this exploratory stage, but what
 is the approximate max you'd be comfortable in paying
 for each thing? As an example, here's my own list
 (don't let my large dollar amount scare you off from
 making much smaller estimates): 1. Basic
 features (listed above): $20002. Ability to shell to
 DOS or otherwise run external programs additional
 $5003. Ability to handle files larger than 2 MB: additional  $1004.
 Portability: 0
 Hopefully,
 there will be enough people who are willing to put in, say,
 $500 that this thing can be financed. 
 The ballpark
 figures that Steve was playing with (and he is forthright
 about not really knowing how much paid-programmer time this
 project would take) is $5000 -- $10,000.
 Personally, I
 don't mind paying $2000 even if some others are paying
 only $100. But let's make $100 is the minimum.
 The idea is to
 make this profitable for NB, to make them eager to do, and
 to do it well. So I proposed that they would be able to sell
 the resulting product as their own, and that our investment
 would not begin to get repaid until they had made a good
 profit.
 Example: suppose it costs $6000, which a pool of us put in. Those in
 that pool get XyWrite 5 for no additional charge. After that
 it's sold at whatever price NB thinks is best. Then the
 first $6,000 of proceeds goes 100% to NB. After that (if
 there are any such sales--it's a long shot), the
 proceeds of sales are split 50-50 between NB and those in
 the pool, until we got our money back. If we ever get all
 our investment back, the proceeds of subsequent sales go
 100% to NB.
 Frankly, it is unlikely that we'd ever get our money back. I'm
 viewing the money I'll put in as paying for the product, XyWrite 5.
 Again, this is
 just to feel out the possibilities. Absolutely no commitment
 at this early stage.
 But the
 urgency mentioned in the header is real: their programmer
 has some free time NOW. (The programmer is a guy named Sam,
 not Dave Erickson, who's too expensive for us.)  So
 please reply immediately.
 Regards,Harry