xyGeos???

[OkAnnie@xxxxxxxx]

"If TTG really wanted to create a fabulous market niche--it could buy
Geosworks, which is mostly into OS's for PDAs, meld XY into Geos
with a stripped down version for PDAs (like the PCMCIA card
vversion of XY3 that was being sold awhile back) and have the
slickest system on the market--and one that would run under
windoz, OS/2, DOS, Linux (a lot of Linux users run Geos, or at
least Geowrite)--not to mention the PDA market. [...]"

I don't think so, Harmon. While Geoworks has abandoned Ensemble development,
GEOS development is intense. GW has big-time investors, most recently Toshiba
($14.5 million). Others with millions invested in GW are Hewlett-Packard,
Novell, and Nokia. (For anyone interested and unaware: GeoWrite
is the word processor module of the Ensemble software suite, the
80x86 port of GEOS. GEOS functions on some platforms as an OS, on
others--including the 80x86--as a gui.) When GW released Ensemble
2 three years ago next spring it announced that it was scrapping
Ensemble development to concentrate resources on handheld
devices, and soon went public. GW told Ensemble users then that
apps would trickle up from PDAs, but recently released GEOS 3 for
handheld devices, to correct GEOS 2's notorious comm flaws, with
no plans for desktop implementation. GWRX has been as low as
4something in the past year, a few weeks ago--when other
technologies slumped--GWRX surged to $21.25. GW has ties as well
to Canon, Casio, Sharp, and, yes, IBM/Eduquest; new Brother
dedicated Ensemble machines are about to be or have recently been released.
If TTG has resources to take over a company like GW (and, trust
me, any takeover would be hostile; GEOS is Brian Dougherty's
baby), why didn't TTG get the new release out there in time for
the PCMag word processor issue?

Further, OO, Sun assembler-native GEOS has never evidenced a hint
of connectivity and gives every indication of being a bear to
code for. Nearly three years into PDAs, e.g., GEOS still has no
fax module. Ensemble failed on the 80x86 platform because it was
always too little too late. The idea of TTG resuscitating it ...
well, GW scrapped Ensemble development because GW wanted to stay
alive: 'nuff said. But ... GeoWrite's text/graphics integration
is seamless, in a class by itself. It's the missing link between
xyDos and high-end dtp, the most dtp-tilted graphical word
processor I ever used, in fact the only one I ever used that I
didn't hate (bad-old-days TTG experiences having scared me off
xyWin, I can't compare them). Ensemble's
(non)marketed the same way xyW is. Anyone can judge GeoWrite for
him/herself riskfree: The GeoPublish demo (GeoWrite/Draw with
ascii-only impex) is at:
   ftp://arginine.umdnj.edu/pub/geos/publish
   ftp://130.219.44.141/pub/geos/publish
   ftp://ftp.mcs.com/mcsnet.users/jbarr/GeoPublish
   ... and can be found at AO <^K geoworks>
GeoWrite's xyWrite impex is faithful--predictably, since
MasterSoft wrote the filters. GeoWrite's a nice way to prettify
xyDos files--if the file is not footnoted and you can tolerate
snailpace printing of so-so quality unless you use a PostScript
driver, print to disk, and run an xpl macro that reduces file
size and print time so it will finish before New Year's Day. In
that case, of course you need a PS interpreter and Type 1 fonts
become an issue
(if anyone's interested I'll email details).

"Sigh! Well, I can dream, can't I?"

Oh, lord, Harmon, you're hooked already? That's the eternal
GEOSentric theme song. --A

========================== annie fisher  nyc