Re: NotaBene DOS 3 question

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Interesting questions, but why, other than historical curiosity, would you
want to use NB 3.0 for DOS? Xy 4 is decidedly superior, works on any files
that NB would have produced, and is, I think, free. At least it's abandonware.

Does anyone know if Xy 4 is indeed free now?
> I've been looking back at NB 3.0 for DOS (exe dated 5/25/90), and I'm
> wondering if anybody here can answer a few question I have about it.
>
> 1. Most of the additional function that differentiates NB from XyWrite of
> the same period seems to be implemented as XPL code. Yet, NB says that
> they got a customized EDITOR.EXE file from from XyQuest (which they call
> NB.EXE).
>
> Does anyone know the nature of the customization that was actually
> required by NB in the EDITOR.EXE module, to implement the various things
> that NB wanted to do? I'm just looking for rough descriptions, such,
> perhaps, as an enhanced printing engine, or things of that type.
>
> I think I know of one thing. Much of the XPL distributed with Notabene is
> hashed in some way, so as to "protect" in some way NB's "exclusive" XPL
> code from user inspection. I think that that was moderately insane and
> customer unfriendly (for no real reason), and it vastly diminished the
> customizability of NB, but they did it nonetheless. But, the capability to
> unhash XPL modules before executing them had to be (and was) built into
> the NB.EXE engine. But there had to be more than that -- NB.EXE is 187,792
> bytes, whereas EDITOR.EXE (v3.57, 7/9/91 ) is only 182,882 bytes.
>
> 2. If you toss most of the NB XPL stuff, how useable is the version 3.0
> NB.EXE module (5/25/90), in lieu of, say, a v3.55 version or of
> EDITOR.EXE? Would it be able to run the XPL distributed with XyWrite, and
> other XyWrite 3+ XPL that is floating around the net, without alteration?
> How about XyWrite help files? XyWrite's ala'carte stuff? Does NB.EXE 3.0
> have the XS "parsing" operator?
>
> 3. NB.EXE DOS 3.0 has "textbase" functionality. Is this in anyway
> integrated into the NB.EXE module. If so how?
>
> I'm sure I have more questions, but I can't think of them right now.
> Comments appreciated.
>
> Wally Bass


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx