Re: XyWrite history?

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

--- Joseph Fisher  wrote:

> I was wondering if
> anyone could help me with my own little project of a
> highlight (&
> lowlight) abbreviated history of XyWrite over the
> past two plus decades.

Hi Joseph,

Nice to see someone attempting to do this, for the
record. If I was at home now (I'm not), I could
possibly dig out something or other that might prove
helpful. For example, a subscription to the
"Appnotes" -- actually a stream of diskettes with info
files, program revisions, etc. -- all of which are
dated. I still have a II+ demo disk (old 5.25"-er,
which I can no longer read without taking drastic
measures) that I promised to send to Brian quite some
time ago, and will indeed do so when I find it again.
In the meantime, I think one of the best things you
could do in this endeavor is to spend some time
reading through the archives of this List, which
should be available online, as I believe you would
come across a whole lot of anecdotes and
rememberances. One of the past members here, Tim
Baehr, worked with the XyQuest crew for a period of
time, and I think there may have been one or two
others who knew some of the Xy principals, at least in
passing.

> DATE? release of XyWrite II - details?
> 1985? release of XyWrite III -
> - What version
> was the first sold by XyQuest to consumers?

I have a strong hunch it was II . . . but I could be
wrong. I started with II+ (fairly briefly), before
III came out. My first P.C. was a Zenith 150, which
came out in '84, about a year after the IBM PC, of
which it was a clone. That should give you a rough
timeframe.

> 1989? release of XyWrite III+ (what made it "+"?)

I'm thinking closer to '87. Could it have been the
Spellchecker + Thesaurus . . . or were they already in
III. (My memory is not the most reliable for details
like these.)

> 1990 XyQuest deal with IBM to produce "Signature" -
> after 1.5 years
> project ends (was it ever released as "Signature" to
> consumers?)

Yes, I believe I had a release package of Signature.
Not sure if I still do. However, it *may* have been
an upgrade, sold directly to Xy customers, and I can't
say for sure if it ever was on store shelves or
otherwise sold to the general public.

> 1993-94 TTG releases XyWrite for Windows - (any
> versions or revisions
> known?)

The # that comes to mind is ver. 2.12, but I don't
know why (what became of any earlier versions ?), and
I'd have to verify this.

> ? current - remnants of XyWrite remain in Nota Bene
> word processor pgm.

Yes, the basic word processing engine, and perhaps a
few look & feel remnants. (I'm not a NB user.)
However, they have made so many modifications over the
years, plus the whole tailoring for the Windows
environment, and certainly it hasn't been written in
Assembler for a long time, so you'd probably have to
call it a distant descendant at this point.


Jordan