Title: RE: Xywrite -- missed chanceThis was a much more pleasant fantasy before you brought this ugly reality into the picture, Mike. = :>)
If you're going to bring Unix into the picture, then all bets are off. I'm talking about creating an application that's evolving in a MORE user-friendly direction. As far as I can tell, Unix lovers like Unix BECAUSE it's so difficult. Working in that environment is somewhat like programming continuously...on the fly! Sure, you'd have smoother sailing once you fire-up Xywrite...but
OK, I'm just going to come right out and say it...I love Xywrite SO much that I want the whole world to be able to use it. And as things stand today the "whole world" means a "windows-type" world. I mentioned earlier a program called Textpad. It's pretty much what I'm thinking of when I think about a 21st century Xywrite. It's simple to use but full of useful features. You can customize the keyboard as fully as you can with Xy. It's useful to writers AND programmers. The only thing it's missing is a decent programming language. What it has now is only slightly better than a plain key-recorder...fix that and it would be the most universally useable app on the planet.
That said, I realize the obstacles to doing ANYTHING with Xy are probably too great...but I can dream can't I?
-Bry
>Hmmm... I'd love to see a UNIX/Linux version of XyWrite.
>The problem is, XyWrite was originally written for assembly language,
>for Intel machines (and clones) using 16-bit MS-DOS. Transforming
>it into a 32-bit (or 64-bit) version which would live happily in
>a multiple-user and possibly multiple-processor environment on
>everything from I386 to IBM mainframes would not be a simple job.
>It'd likely have to be re-written from scratch in C++.>And a lot of issues would have to be decided up front:...