Re: XyWrite Publications? [First list]

[Daniel Say say@xxxxxxxx]

[in reply]

Xywrite books that I know of:
.............................................
1 ]
XYWrite made easier : Revised and expanded to include Version
      XYWrite III Plus. by David H. Rothman
384 p.
April 1988
Paperback $21.95 (ISBN 0-318-32704-X)
Paper Text Ed $21.95 (ISBN 0-8306-3040-6)
Published by TAB Book
 2 ]
Expert Advisor : Xywrite III Plus. by Arthur R. Campbell
400 p
January 1989
Paperback $21.95 (ISBN 0201-51721-3)
LC Number 88-34991
Published by Addison-Wesley
 3 ]
Signature Macros. by Art Campbell and Bonnie Allen.
304 p.
January 1993
Paper $32.95 (ISBN 0-8306-4047-9)
LC Number 92-5326
Published by Windcrest
 4 ]
XyWrite 4 Macros. by Art Campbell and Bonnie Allen.
 pp.
July 1993
Paper $32.95 (ISBN 0-07-009753-4)
Published by McGraw-Hill
 5 ]
Xywrite Revealed. by Herbert L. Tyson
444 p.
1991
Paper $24.95 3.5 inch (ISBN O-8306-6749-0)
Paper $24.95 5.26 inch (ISBN O-8306-6748-20)
Published by Tab books
 6 ]
Using XYwrite III; Cover XyWrite II Plus. by John Sladek
386 p.
1987
Paper $23.95 (ISBN 0-07-881013-2)Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill
 ----------------------------------------------
AVAILABILITY
------------
Nathan Sivin says (March 9, 1995) that only the Tyson [5] book is available.
The February 1995 electronic version of Books in Print (U.S.)
from Bowker shows only 4 books available [1, 2, 3, 4; the
Campbell's three and Rothman's]. But BIP may not record that the
books are Out of Print, as I've have found with other listings.
 The Tyson book is in the index, but the subject is not XYWrite,
but "Programming languages (Electronic computers)", and further
the title was "Oxywrite Revealed (3.5)" (Spelling fault?) though
you could find it under Tyson, Herbert L.
He has written too many books on W... for Windows, but he
mitigates this slight with some good books on OS/2 operating
system.
 In Canada, the libraries, public and university, will try to
find any book that you want through InterLibrary Loan. They'd
like the title, author, publisher, year and if possible the LC
(Library of Congress) number or the ISBN (International Standard
Book Number) or both. In about two weeks they will have borrowed
the book for you for a couple of weeks and then you can read it,
and nowadays find an instant print shop and copy a few sections
from the book for later reference.  Try it, the libraries will
send out queries electronically for you in ever-widening circles
until they are around the world.
 NOTES
-----
Sladek [6] was the earliest book outside of the user manuals and
is a light rewrite by a technical writer.
 Rothman [1] is an hoary 'story' of a writer being weaned off
Wordstar (he learns to reconfigure the Xy keyboard earlier), but
the real benefit of the book is the extensive keyboard listings
in the back of other peoples: writers, script-doctors, clericals,
reporters and other's keyboard listings. There are many hints of
single key macros for software tools.
 Campbell's first book [2] is a dictionary arrangement of the
XyWrite commands and functions with explanations and the sequence
of keys to use. I found that some of the cross-references were
wrong. In the last 30 pages are some notices of XPL programs,
some listed some noted with addresses. Campbell, a technical
writer and instructor for XyQuest offered to provide the programs
on a disk. I found that the disk had missing entries in the ARC
commpressions and there were a few faults but some of the
programs were quite inspiring even if I never acted upon the
functions that wowed me. The word's "Expert Advisor" are hardly
visible on the cover.
Campbell's later books [3, 4] were quick offs listing macro
suggestions for the successor of Xy3 called Signature and
Signature's progeny Xy4 and you could send away for the disks of
XPL programs.
 Tyson's book [6] was a very technical book of his tinkering and
looking inside XY functions and commands. He found many unknown
programs. There are thousands of hints for those who like a
winter's tinkering with the editor's programs. A third of the
book is about printer files, and another third on writing help
files which you might not have given much thought to until you
see the tricks that Tyson puts them through.
 There are other mentions of XyWrite in other books. Rothman
has written several Laptop manual books and they have a chapter
or several tables of XYwrite commands.
I think that XY has been in one of those 3-in-1 books about a
spreadsheet, database, and wordprocessor that filled U.S. college
bookstores in the 1980s.