Timeworks software? Word Writer author?

[Maury Markowitz]

I'd like to write a wikipedia article on Word Writer ST, which was probably the most popular non-freeware word processor on the platform. I have all the details I need for the description of the program itself, and found a number of good reviews (including the NYT no less). However, I'm utterly lacking anything on the company, Timeworks, or anything about who might have programmed it.

 

Does anyone know anything of the history of this product or the company?

[Goochman]

Cant help you but this was one of the few productivity packages I bought on my ST and it was excellent.  First inline spell checker I used (maybe in industry?)

[Zogging Hell]

GST Software wrote Timeworks (or at least marketed it), there was also a PC version for GEM iirc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GST_Computer_Systems

 

They made a lot of cash from the ST version, Timeworks was by far the most popular (as opposed to best) DTP software due to its ease of use, and then ran off to the PC using the ST money to finance it. I'm not sure Wordwriter was the most popular WP in the UK at least, perhaps there is a difference over the pond? 1st Word (also by GST but subtley different) here in the UK was a lot more popular in the early years, as it came free with a lot of STs, and Calligrapher was more popular for the high end.. and then Papyrus was the big WP in the latter years. Word Writer was too similar to 1st Word to really get much traction here, although I do think it is a better program in many respects.

[atarian1]

Word Writer offered a lot more features than 1st Word. The big dictionary was a huge deal. I would call Word Writer the most popular commercial word processor (1986 to...1990ish when developers really started pushing the ST's untapped power) here in the US. It seemed like everyone who could afford it used Word Writer. I was a poor student, so I only used ST Writer. 🤑

 

1st Word came free with early STs so it was bound to be the most popular. I think that distinction needs to be pointed out here.

[Zogging Hell]

1 hour ago, atarian1 said:

Word Writer offered a lot more features than 1st Word. The big dictionary was a huge deal. I would call Word Writer the most popular commercial word processor (1986 to...1990ish when developers really started pushing the ST's untapped power) here in the US. It seemed like everyone who could afford it used Word Writer. I was a poor student, so I only used ST Writer. 🤑

 

1st Word came free with early STs so it was bound to be the most popular. I think that distinction needs to be pointed out here.

1st Word + (1987) was commercial and pretty much on par feature wise with Word Writer (bar that organiser part), and can put limited mono images in the text (which correct me if I'm wrong, Word Writer can't do), although the latter still seems better put together. I'm happy to cede the popularity of Word Writer in the US, but it is a small market compared to Europe, and each country here had different most 'populars', Le Redacteur in France, 1st Word + in the UK (with Calligrapher and Protext taking the high end), Germany in the eighties I'm not sure about (Protext? That's Write?). I'm not sure Word Writer really exactly pushed the boundaries for ST word processing, it was nice and functional, and importantly stable and worked well with GEM (which GST always did well), but feature wise for the time period Protext and latterly Calligrapher completely destroy it. It is interesting that sometimes the US and European markets for serious software for the ST seem almost totally off in different directions, Geneva/ Neodesk/ Warp 9 and Magic/ Ease/ NVDI  being another divergence later on.

 

Yikes on using ST Writer exclusively, you are brave! I feel your pain, I was stuck with the original free 1st Word from my ST pack for many years due to my budget until I got Compo's Write On on a coverdisk, which was a revelation (graphical fonts - wow!)

[atarian1]

I don't recall 1st Word Plus being very popular here in the US, but I remember being impressed by the ability to import pictures into the text as shown in the Atari magazine reviews. There were a lot of word processors on the ST vying for a small piece of the pie. Word Writer (for the "ordinary" people) and WordPerfect (for the "power" users) were the ones that stuck out in my mind in the US market.

 

LOL. Yeah, I'm sometimes amazed at how I stuck with ST Writer myself. 🥴 I remember buying the ST magazine (forgot which one) that had Write On on the coverdisk too! I don't know why, but I just couldn't get use to it. It seemed "cluttered" to me for lack of a better word. Something about Papyrus' design impressed me by its layout and elegance finally made me switch to a font-based word processor.

[+Sauron]

I did a lot of writing in Word Writer back in the day. I ended up trying out some other word processors (name 1st Word and Atari Works) but always went back to Word Writer due to its easy to use layout, and probably just my own familiarity with it.

[Zogging Hell]

4 hours ago, atarian1 said:

LOL. Yeah, I'm sometimes amazed at how I stuck with ST Writer myself. 🥴 I remember buying the ST magazine (forgot which one) that had Write On on the coverdisk too! I don't know why, but I just couldn't get use to it. It seemed "cluttered" to me for lack of a better word. Something about Papyrus' design impressed me by its layout and elegance finally made me switch to a font-based word processor.

ST Format I think had it on the coverdisk. I think I know what you mean, the main problem for me with Write On was my ST only had 512k of ram at the time, which meant I could use a grand total of about three fonts in any document (and if I did could only manage a page or so of text before memory ran out), and as this was the eighties I really wanted to make my text look super 'attractive' by using as many as possible! Papyrus was a joy, although the English spell checker dictionary was a bit terrible and lacked all two letter words for some reason.

 

That image inclusion in 1st Word + wasn't that great, the only format supported was IMG and it had to be in the same resolution as your document (the sample document with the tiger didn't load properly in medium res), not to mention any variations in the image spec and it wouldn't load either. Plus no text on the same lines as the images, so really a bit limited.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Zogging Hell
adding text

[MrMaddog]

On 12/8/2022 at 7:02 AM, Zogging Hell said:

ST Format I think had it on the coverdisk. I think I know what you mean, the main problem for me with Write On was my ST only had 512k of ram at the time, which meant I could use a grand total of about three fonts in any document (and if I did could only manage a page or so of text before memory ran out), and as this was the eighties I really wanted to make my text look super 'attractive' by using as many as possible! Papyrus was a joy, although the English spell checker dictionary was a bit terrible and lacked all two letter words for some reason.

 

That image inclusion in 1st Word + wasn't that great, the only format supported was IMG and it had to be in the same resolution as your document (the sample document with the tiger didn't load properly in medium res), not to mention any variations in the image spec and it wouldn't load either. Plus no text on the same lines as the images, so really a bit limited.

 

That was about my situation as well, I didn't use any GDOS based word processor not only because of the bitmapped fonts taking up precious memory but they looked ugly printed out on ym 24-pin Epson dot matrix as opposed to using the printer's built-in fonts.

 

The major different between US & European users is that Americans only used text based WP's and if they wanted to add any graphics then they import the text into a DTP program.  Meanwhile Europeans love the graphical output of apps like Papyrus.

 

I originally had Protext UK and later on got a hold of 1st Word Plus, both off a coverdisk...  I just couldn't afford the expensive commercial programs, even the older ones from mail order places.

[blakespot]

FWIW I talk about many word processors of olde in this post, including Word Writer ST along with a screenshot.

 

https://bytecellar.com/2016/06/05/a-look-back-at-three-decades-of-word-processors/

 

 

bp