Msg: RE: A radical idea: a new XyWrite

Harry,

Thank you for your very speedy reply… 😊

First DOS is an operating system, a.k.a., an OS, and Macro 11 is the machine language platform used to write machine code for the Digital Equipment PDP 11 computer. The PDP 11 is the machine that Atex used for the original Atex OS/editor/database that was used by newspapers and publishers all over the world. (And in some cases still is.)

Depending on the original programming code, it is now relatively easy to convert existing source code into a modern programming language, such as C or C+. The current Visual Studio dev platform has the ability to compile this into binaries (applications) that will run on Apple, Linux, and Windows operating systems simultaneously. — It can also create versions which will run on the various phones, which may not be that useful for production, but the ‘text’ files can be edited by the full-sized versions of the application running on bigger machines. This is usually accomplished by syncing the ‘data’ through a common cloud connection. (Aside: We should not underestimate the modern hand-held smart phones. By connecting them to a keyboard and monitor, they have the capabilities of full-fledged desktop machines.)

The bottom line is that by moving the XyWrite editing platform onto Windows, you can gain a lot more than merely overcoming the 64K memory boundary. Here are just a few potential ‘teasers’: There is voice recognition, group cloud sharing, modern output to printers, the ability to ‘publish’ directly into eBooks, PDF files, databases, large typographic machines, graphics, apps… The list goes on and on.

My wife has reminded me that we need to get busy and take our grandkids to an one of those new exercise places to get the deenergized enough so we keep up. (They are visiting from London; they brought their parents…)

Any questions? I’ll be back later…

Phil White

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

Phil,

Hi! Are you the Savior I've been looking for? :)

By all means, see if steps can be taken. The state of ownership of XyWrite code is unclear. It appears to be abandonware. But the previous owners, The Technology Group, are lawyers, so proceed with caution.

What is DOS Macro 11?

Do you think a porting would be easier than just writing a new editor in C++ or Python? I mean, isn't writing a text editor an assignment given in computer science classes?

Another question, if you'll be so kind. The fallback position is just to break the 64k memory barrier (then use vDOSPlus). Am I right that it would be fairly simple to plug into the existing code a swap of pages in and out of memory to accomplish this?

Regards,
Harry

Hello!

My name is Phil White. For a time I was a programmer at Atex. Presently, I am a retired Windows developer and database architect. I also supported XyWrite and Atex for a while when I had a consulting business in Florida.

If I could get the basic source for the XyWrite OS/ Editor program in native DOS/Macro 11, I may be useful in porting it into Windows, which would give it potential modern connection to all of the devices and resources that the modern Windows process has to offer.

In addition, I have (potential) access to IT graduates from a local university, (in Houston,) from which I retired several years back. I also have current licensed Windows Visual Studio with access to a public domain cross-platform development. In short the cross-platform utilities facilitates simultaneous dev for several popular platforms at once.

Perhaps my input and expertise may be helpful in getting this effort off the ground.

My retirement has (joyfully, and finally) given me a very wide selection of things to do but I’d be interested in moving the old XyWrite functionality into the present and hopefull cement it into the future.

Please let me know.

Sincerely,

Phil White

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: xywrite-bounce@xxxxxxxx on behalf of Myron Gochnauer
Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 7:59:35 PM
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: A radical idea: a new XyWrite

I'm afraid I have to agree with Bill. Just look at how long NotaBene struggled to advance into the 64-bit world, even with full rights to the XyWrite code and the services of Dave Erickson. Or those of you who are photographers know how many *years* it has taken GIMP (open sources alternative to Photoshop) to move up from 8-bit color editing to 16-bit. Even now the stable release is only 8-bit. So what looks to us amateurs like a pretty simple porting of code turns out to be mega-person-hours of work. (I *still* think, "How can it be that complex? Who designed these programming languages, anyway?" But apparently it *is* that complex, even for minds much quicker and brighter than mine. Sigh.)

Myron

On Apr 9, 2018, at 7:23 PM, Bill Troop mailto:billtroop@xxxxxxxx wrote:

Yes, you are. For one thing it's not just writing the program, it's getting thousands or millions of aggregate hours of testing. XyWrite is high quality code. The cheap programmers you're thinking of wouldn't know where to begin. If you look at the history of Mac and Win apps and the often mixedly successful attempts to bring them to another platform or more pertinently if you look at the efforts to rewrite Eudora from scratch, you might conclude that this is not the right question to ask. It might be possible for Dave to extend XyWrite in some desirable way, but who would pay?

On Mon, 9 Apr 2018 at 18:50, Harry Binswanger mailto:hb@xxxxxxxx wrote:

I'm trying to go further in adapting XyWrite for the 64-bit world. I

emailed Steve Siebert about hiring the services of Dave Erickson to break

the 64k limit on program memory (and other memory). So far, no response.

But now some new and radical thoughts are piercing my brain:

1. If extending the memory is a simple matter of swapping pages in and out

of the available addressed space, do we need Dave Erickson, or could we

hire a cheap Filipino programmer to do that? (I've hired one at $7 an hour

to do _javascript_.)

2. The next thought I had was even further out. And rather heretical. How

much would it cost to hire a programmer to write a whole new program, from

the ground up, to match exactly the functionality of XyWrite? I mean such

that it would be 100% compatible, U2 and all. But 64-bit, fast, and with

vDOS plus kind of configurability.

I would, myself, want it written in Python. And there are a lot of cheap,

foreign Python programmers out there.

I wonder how long it took Dave to write it? After all, he was doing a knock

off of Atex, so maybe we can fund a knock of XyWrite.

Am I dreaming?