Leaving the electric typewriter behind

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 27

Leaving the electric typewriter behind

By

GARETH POWELL

I have been known to proclaim with all the fervour of a Welsh minister at the start of a religious revival in the Rhondda Valley, that the only true way to process the English language — or any other language for that matter — is through the use of a personal computer allied to a good word-processing program and a printer.

On a cost-effectiveness basis this leaves the dedicated word processor and the electric typewriter for dead. As one famous advertising copywriter has said: “They are now the dinosaurs of writing” — quite so.

Which word-processing program you choose is dictated by the sort of writing you do and what you can afford. No one person can possibly advise you as to the virtues of every wordprocessing program, but I can give some sort of a guide from my own fairly extensive experience. As always, my views are biased and dogmatic. If your major need is portability you can do no better than the NEC PC 8201 A. The NEC machine is inexpensive and has a builtin, word-processing program which is totally effective.

This particular system is very popular with journalists around the world as it is battery operated and thus free from the tyranny of

electricity supplies, which in some parts of the world can be more of a pious wish than a reality. It is inexpensive and extremely reliable.

I would not like to write “War and Peace” this way, but for articles up to 2000 words it is perfectly acceptable. You can hang it on to a printer, another computer or use a modem to send your words of wisdom down the telephone line. I think this machine and program combination are what they call in the trade "a sleeper.” NEC says the machine keeps selling and selling, despite the fact it is not backed by an all-out advertising and marketing campaign.

Incidentally, Tandy has almost exactly the same machine, TRS-80 Model 100, and Olivetti also issues it in another disguise. As I have now used one version or the other in several of the fur-ther-flung comers of the world I can recommend it unreservedly. If you are working at home or in the office, the range of word-processing programs, is of course, far larger. Word-processing programs in this situation, can be divided into two areas: those that work on IBM machines and the myriad of clones; and those that work on the others.

Almost every personal

computer has several different programs to choose from. If I omit your personal favourite it is simply because I have not had time to test everything that comes down the pipe. With the Commodore computer ranger there is a program written in England, called Easyscript. I once wrote a book using this program and found it perfectly acceptable. I am speaking here of the program, not the book, which was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a masterpiece of the English language. But you cannot blame Easyscript for that.

It does not have all the features possessed by some of the more sophisticated programs. On the other hand, it is relatively inexEensive and works with the est-selling personal computer in Australia. The second best-selling computer in Australia is the TRS-80, which uses a quite formidable powerful program called Scripsit. In truth it is not the easiest program in the world to learn, but once you have the hang of it you will be able to use functions normally only available on much larger and more sophisticated machines. Most of my word-process-ing experience has been with Zardax, written by Queensland school teacher lan Phillips. I always re-

commend it to anyone with an Apple, simply because it is one of the easiest I know to learn and yet has all the functions that you are likely to need.

Apple itself has produced a program that is worthy of more than passing mention. This is Appleworks, which contains a word-processing program as part of a consolidated package — rather after the style of Lotus 1-2-3.

The word-processing component is perfectly adequate and is fine for casual use, but not, I think, if you need the ability to perform any fancy manipulations. If you really need to use a word-processing program with all the bells and whistles and a lot of power, then it is probable that you need a personal computer which is either an IBM PC or IBM compatible, or use a CP/M based personal computer. It is no secret that I find the word-processing program Word Star singularly difficult to use. It is not an easy program for an absolute beginner to get to grips with. Having said that, it has certain functions built in which are not normally available on any other word processors.

It can handle extremely large chunks of copy at once. If you are writing a document which is going to run to, say, more than 70,000 words, and you need to be able to rapidly access any part of the text and then manipulate it, Word Star has no peer.

If you need that sort of facility then there is no doubt that you will have to sit down and learn the arcane instructions of Word Star. Hundreds of thousands of other people have done it,

which is why it is still probably the best-selling word-processing program in the world. Several of my friends have Osborne computers set up with Word Star and believe in it with a religious fervor. On IBM PCs and compatible machines, the range of wordprocessing programs available is extremely wide. However, it is important to realise that the more powerful a program is, the more features that it offers, the more random access memory (RAM) it will demand. Many of the programs now being offered use up at least 256 K of RAM. One, in its fullest form, takes up nearly three-quarters of a megabyte. Nowadays it can no longer be said that a personal computer has toe much RAM. As Oliver St John Gogarty once said: “There is no such thing as a large Irish whisky.” A program that is extremely powerful and, again, is not the simplest word-processing program in the world to learn, is MicroSoft The Word. It should not be confused with the biblical research program of the same name. The Word is designed by the amazing Bill Gates Jnr. for optional use with one of those awful mouse things, but most importantly, the •program is written to make full use of the wonders of the laser printers which will be coming on the market before the end of the year. In almost every case, the original manufacturer of these laser printers will be Canon with badge engineering being employed by other manufacturers, but the first laser printer at a reason-

able price will appear under the Hewlett Packard label. Use this machine with The Word and you will be able to achieve effects that will be able to rival the best of daisywheel printers. Indeed, this program also has real typefaces built in and has the ability to adapt itself to your particular style of working. Which is taking user-friendliness to a new level. Far easier for a first-time user to learn — but not as powerful and not, as far as I can ascertain, currently available with a laser printer driver program — is Multimate.

My guess is that this is currently the best-selling word processing program for IBM PCs and their clones. I have used it extensively and I have yet to find a user that has a harsh word to say about it. In fact, it is true that it is still missing some facilities which I consider almost essential, such as a split screen, but as the program is subject to continual updates this is a problem that time will resolve. Multi Mate emulates a Wang dedicated word pro-, cessor and it will come as no surprise to anyone that very possibly the best allround word processing package comes from Wang with their personal computer. It is easy to learn, powerful and comprehensive, and has the best documentation of any word-pro-cessing program currently available.

At the moment, the best buy in word-processing programs for IBM PCs and their clones is Electric Pencil, which sells for something like half the cost of exactly the same program in the United States. In this, it is unique. Because of its relative cheapness you should not fall into the trap of thinking

that it is inferior to more expensive programs. It has all the features that other programs boast — or at least most of them. All it lacks is the high cost I am as fickle with programs as I am in other areas of life, and I am currently tom between the loves of two “newish” wordprocessing programs. The first comes as part of Framework which is for my money, by far the best all-in-one program on the market. If you buy this program, you almost never need buy any other. The word-processing program it contains is simply one of the best on the market. When you consider that it uses the same commands, structure and indeed, program as a spread-sheet, a graphing system, a logic formatter (which I will write about separately one day) and by far and away the best database on the market, it is little short of miraculous. I can safely forecast that with the total package there is little that you would need to do with a personal computer that is not already catered for. On the other hand, I have just discovered Perfect Writer 11, which is a quan-. turn leap ahead of the current edition of Perfect Writer, even though that program was quite something. The new version lets you access a Roget’s Thesaurus and a dictionary and show’ them on the screen through windowing techniques to see several parts of the text at once. Whether either of these is the perfect word-processing program is open for debate but they come close, very close.

“How happy could I be with either, were t’other dear charmer away.”