Xy3 and XT-CE

[Mark Seiler markseiler@xxxxxxxx]

First, I am a fairly regular lurker here because of both the quality of
information and the helpful nature of most posts. I never really post
because I am a pretty static XyWrite user - having started out with XyWrite
II and had every major upgrade - along with Nota Bene. For me, XyWrite 3.56
with Herb Tyson's PowerXy3 and a customized keyboard has been my wp of
choice for about eight years. (Xy4's inability to handle non-simultaneous
non-toggle keyboards was too much to relearn)

Anyway, a little over a week ago, someone posted about a dos emulator for
Win CE devices. This software, XT-CE, creates a window in the CE enviroment
that allows DOS programs to be run. Since I have run Xy3 on HP200's,
Poqets, Linux boxes, etc. I was very interested to try the product.

So, I invested my $40 and have been playing with this product on a HP
Jornada 820. The good news is that a number of DOS programs I like
(Grandview, InfoSelect, Agenda) seem to run - albeit a little slow at
times. The bad news is that Xy3 does not. Using the most basic 3.55
version, the emulator locks up whenever the Xy command line is accessed.
While I will report this to the program's author in the UK, I am not sure
what priority he will attach to addressing this issue. So, for the time
being, purchasing XT-CE as a way to run Xy3 on a WinCE device is probably a
mistake.

If it can be fixed, it could be a pretty terrific platform for XyWrite. The
Jornada runs for over eight hours of constant use, has a good keyboard,
relatively bright screen, and good pretty easy synching routines with a W98
machine. It also has good internet access with a built in 56k modem and IE
and Outlook.

Mark