woulda-coulda-shoulda [was Re: WinText]

["..." adpf@xxxxxxxx]

Thanks, Joel Houplin, for an illuminating msg. It seems that the
sainthood we all accord Dave Erickson should at least extend to Robert
Cook. www.softek.com doesn't seem to fit your description of Cook's
present operation. Wonder if the content is misleading or if Cook's
Softek is on www under another name.

You cleared up an old mystery for me. Because I mistakenly thought
XyQuest had developed Atex software and spun it off as xyWrite, I never
could fathom how XyQuest missed the incalculable opportunity the advent
of software PostScript interpreters offered. When graphical word
processors were busting out all over and attracting new users to an
all-text app was hopeless, software PS interpreter developers already
had mastered not only converting PS for virtually any laser, inkjet,
or dot matrix, but the PS preview as well.

The best hope for xyWrite's future was joining forces with one of those
developers, staying true to xyWrite's typographical roots while acquiring
an instant graphical preview. The Mac/PostScript/publishing
menage-a-trois should have been the tipoff. Optimized for PostScript,
XyWrite would have been stunning, a prepress front end valuable to
publishers for more than just speed and pure ascii, equally useful to
businesses and the rest of us. Instead we got A la carte, Bitstream, IBM,
and now pleas for drivers--a chorus that xyW/software PS users need never
join. Lest we forget xyWhine, look at the http://www.wix.com/PageDraw/
PageDraw editable EPS Windows freeware--one programmer's effort--and
weep. The haunting question now is, given his typographical smarts, had
he not already sold the code that became xyWrite, would Robert Cook have
been alert to the xyW+PS potential?

For now XyQuest and xyWrite have only a past and we're in an era when a
rendered html image rivals a print preview in importance. Interesting dos
software that's starting to come out of developing countries suggests
that I needn't despair of ever finding a dos utility that I can do from
the xyWrite CMline to render html graphically--i.e., the GoScript of
html. 	--a

================================ adpFisher  nyc

≪ Wintext is an Atex terminal emulation program that runs under
 Win 3.x, Windows 95 and OS/2.

 As regards XyWrite, Wintext is the ORIGINAL XyWrite. It's the Atex
 editor that Dave Ericson, et al, ported to DOS, founded XyQuest...and
 the rest was history.

 Wintext was written by an ex-Atex programmer named Robert Cook, who
 conceived the idea while working as a consultant for my employer
 News International Newspapers (The Times, Sunday Times, Sun, News of
 the World, etc) here in London.

 We currently run it on around 400 Windows-based PCs, replacing an equal
 number of Atex dedicated terminals.

 Robert Cook's company is called Softek and has offices in Australia
 and the US. ≫ --Joel Houplin News International Newspapers  jhl@xxxxxxxx