Re: XyWrite on an old laptop?

[Peregrine@xxxxxxxx]

James writes:

> I'm going to be getting an old laptop to use just for word processing on
> the road. It's a 386 with 1 meg of RAM. On my desktop, I've been using
> WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS, but I just know that will run too slow on the
> laptop. How about XyWrite? Do any of you use it on a similar machine? Is
> the performance acceptable?
>
> Thanks!

At this point I guess I am just adding my voice to the chorus, James, but
here goes:

I am running XyWrite 4 (DOS) on a Tandy 1800HD powered by an 80286 chip and
MS-DOS 5.0, and it is GREAT! This old laptop came with 1MB of RAM and a 20MB
internal hard drive, and that was far more than adequate for XyWrite. I later
bumped up the onboard RAM to the maximum 3MB. Yowza!

If my memory serves, a 386 is the minimum platform for MS-DOS 6.22 ... and
though I have no complaints with 5.0, the 6.22 version is simply better if
available. So you will be in fine shape.

This little 286 bogs down slightly in XyWrite (but still runs, albeit slowly)
when calling up the thesaurus and under some other rare conditions like
calling the U2 help index or a really huge text file. Even so, in most
regards XyWrite makes other word processors look bloated and slow. And it
STILL runs faster than the 8086 Leading Edge desktop machine on which I first
learned Xy. (My original Xy III disks are 5.25 floppies, the kind that
actually flop.)

So enjoy!
Jeff