reifsnyderb Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 I've seen a lot of people mention Atari Writer and fewer comments about SpeedScript 3.0. When the 800XL was the main home computer, we used SpeedScript 3.0 even though we had a copy of Atari Writer. Is there a reason to choose one over the other? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 You might prefer to use TextPro over either of them; it's based on SpeedScript but interacts with DOS much more nicely than either SpeedScript or AtariWriter. AtariWriter remains more polished and robust than either, however, although you might also consider my own WP - The Last Word - which attempts to blend to the functionality of TextPro with the performance and robustness of AtariWriter and other higher-end A8 text editors. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 Somewhat depends on your word processing needs/goals. Editing in greater than 40 columns can be nice. The Last Word has soft-80 editing, which is nice for coding. AtariWriter 80 uses XEP80. vi65 has versions to support 53, 64, and 80 soft modes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 Another of the top, commercial word processors is PaperClip. I never had a chance to spend much time with it (I owned and used AtariWriter+ back in the day); but it's pretty highly regarded among them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 Some people like SpeedScript for its use of Atari's decenders character graphics mode (Antic 3). I can't stand this mode and its deficiencies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted October 20, 2023 Author Share Posted October 20, 2023 Ok. All good answers and this shows I probably screwed up my question. In 1986, for example, I was using SpeedScript 3.0. TextPro and Last Word weren't available. So, did either Atari Writer or SpeedScript 3.0 have any advantages over the other? Was there a good reason to choose one of the other? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 AtariWriter+ can use extended RAM (at least 128KB; not sure if it can access more). I doubt SpeedScript can, in it's original form. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 SpeedScript is a tiny, free (well, the price of the book), simple text editor/word processor and AtariWriter (especially the Plus version) is a feature-rich word processor that cost money at the time. Use whatever has the functionality you require. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8guy Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 (edited) 9 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: Ok. All good answers and this shows I probably screwed up my question. In 1986, for example, I was using SpeedScript 3.0. TextPro and Last Word weren't available. So, did either Atari Writer or SpeedScript 3.0 have any advantages over the other? Was there a good reason to choose one of the other? Thanks! For me this was a cost decision (though I never purchased either). SpeedScript 3.0 seemed to be floating around for free at the local user-group. Atariwriter was a cart that I couldn't afford at the time (I know there were disk versions, but i'm not sure I knew that then, I was 12 in 1986). Edit: When I finally could afford a word processor we bought PaperClip as it what we used in schools (my school was a C64 school). Edited October 20, 2023 by Atari8guy To add Paperclip 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 I'm not sure about AtariWriter, but AtariWriter+ has a nice, virtual 80-column print-preview mode. I found this invaluable to prevent wasting paper and time. [Edit] Just checked, and yes, AtariWriter has the print-preview mode too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 AtariWriter / AtariWriter+ / AtariWriter 80... spiral-bound, printed manuals... and quick reference cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 AtariWriter+ & AtariWriter 80 both had integrated spellcheckers. AtariWriter had an APX product called ATSpeller for spellchecking. This was written by one of the authors of AtariWriter, Stanley Kistler. SpeedScript didn't have any spellchecker, on the Atari (C64 version had one, called SpeedCheck). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 1 hour ago, reifsnyderb said: In 1986, for example, I was using SpeedScript 3.0. TextPro and Last Word weren't available. Earlier versions of TextPro were available in 1986... for instance v1.2 to v2.5. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Player Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 I owned AtariWriter when I first got my 800XL in 1984 when I first started high school. I upgraded to PaperClip in 1986 when I read about the Antic magazine staff using it for their work. The details are fuzzy but I remember it being a much better word processor. I used it for any writing that I had to do for high school, not just papers. My decision was based on this article from Antic, which also has comparisons for AtariWriter+ and Superscript. https://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n10/sevenwordprocessors.html 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 32 minutes ago, Big Player said: The details are fuzzy but I remember it being a much better word processor. I used it for any writing that I had to do for high school, not just papers. My whole family (5 adults at the time -- 4 of us in college) used AtariWriter+ for home, college, and professional work (word processing and mail merge for business). As mentioned by @flashjazzcat, the plus version was more capable. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted October 20, 2023 Author Share Posted October 20, 2023 It almost sounds like a cost factor. SpeedScript was free and Atari Writer (and others) had a cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted October 20, 2023 Author Share Posted October 20, 2023 2 hours ago, Big Player said: I owned AtariWriter when I first got my 800XL in 1984 when I first started high school. I upgraded to PaperClip in 1986 when I read about the Antic magazine staff using it for their work. The details are fuzzy but I remember it being a much better word processor. I used it for any writing that I had to do for high school, not just papers. My decision was based on this article from Antic, which also has comparisons for AtariWriter+ and Superscript. https://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n10/sevenwordprocessors.html Nice article. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 1 hour ago, Big Player said: My decision was based on this article from Antic, which also has comparisons for AtariWriter+ and Superscript. https://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n10/sevenwordprocessors.html By the time that article was printed I had moved on to an ST (where it wasn't easy to find a really good word processor). Before that I had used Letter Perfect, first on cart and then - IIRC - a later version from disc. I always liked it better than various cracked word processors that I encountered from time to time but the table shows that it lacked quite a lot of its younger competitor's features. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 Hello guys I've got AtariWriter+ here somewhere. Never used it much, because somehow we're not compatible. I typed in T:Edit from ANALOG Computing and used that a lot. Plus DaisyDot for printing, first II then III. Sincerely Mathy 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+David_P Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 25 minutes ago, Mathy said: Hello guys I've got AtariWriter+ here somewhere. Never used it much, because somehow we're not compatible. I typed in T:Edit from ANALOG Computing and used that a lot. Plus DaisyDot for printing, first II then III. Sincerely Mathy I traded an XE-80 for a registered copy of DDII. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 At the time I really enjoyed Xlent Word Processor: it makes use of the help key for...guess what?... help. It also have some icons for accessing disk, print functions, search, copy paste, etc. Not sure how powerful it was on comparison with others, but I really appreciated that I did not need the manual in order to make a quick document, to format.a disk, check the directory of the disk, save the doc and print it. It also has a print preview function. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baktra Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 With all these editors, one can see that the 8-bit line was barely sufficient for a "productive work". At least 256 KB of directly addressable RAM and 80 colums would make things significantly better, but very expensive for a household or a student at the time. In any case, if it was either this or a typewriter, the choice would be obvious. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 I did all my college work using AtariWriter, most projects were probably less than 10 pages or so, so lack of memory was never an issue and I was using the disk based version. At the time I hadn't heard of any others to use. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 1 hour ago, baktra said: 8-bit line was barely sufficient for a "productive work" I don't think so at all. We were all amazed at what we could do with that little computer, two disk drives, and a good printer. It was way more than just an improvement over a typewriter. We did have a 130XE, though. So, I guess we had a little breathing room compared with the 64KB only crowd, for word processing. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted October 21, 2023 Author Share Posted October 21, 2023 (edited) 7 hours ago, baktra said: With all these editors, one can see that the 8-bit line was barely sufficient for a "productive work". At least 256 KB of directly addressable RAM and 80 colums would make things significantly better, but very expensive for a household or a student at the time. In any case, if it was either this or a typewriter, the choice would be obvious. Really? The 800XL, with SpeedScript 3.0 worked great! (It sounds like AtariWriter was a better choice, though.) The 1025 was a "little" on the slow side but once we got the Star NP-10, printing out reports and other documents worked very well. SynCalc could do spreadsheets and database software existed as well. (I've never seen Powerpoint really add much to productivity, so I don't thing that matters much. 🙂 ) 80 columns and more memory was possible with the A8's. It was no comparison to a typewriter. Most importantly, you couldn't play MULE on a typewriter. 🙂 Edited October 21, 2023 by reifsnyderb 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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