by Richard Kushner
This article is being written using the new AtariWriter word processor. This immediately tells you that it can't be too hard to use, since I've only had it in my hot little hands for a few hours and have only skimmed the manual. The ease of my learning to use this software is partly due to its simplicity and partly due to its obvious debt to the Text Wizard word processor. (Everyone has probably heard the rumor (fact?) that the AtariWriter was written by the author of Text Wizard.) In any event, we are not here to speculate but to demonstrate!
The AtariWriter is a 16K ROM cartridge that will work with either disk or tape. With 48K of memory, you have about 20K of memory free for your text file. This amounts to about 14 double spaced pages. Longer documents are handled by chaining files together. This means that you put a code at the end of "part one" of a long file that calls the next piece into memory to be printed and continue this process until the entire file is printed.
The menu that confronts the user initially (and the only menu) consists of eight commands. You merely type the first letter of the command and you are then prompted what to do next. The function of each command is:
Once you go into the CREATE file mode, you will see an array of items surrounding the blank text window. Along the bottom are a series of arrows that indicate where the TAB positions are set. Default values are every five columns and they can be altered by the user. However, the altered TAB positions are not saved when the file is saved, so any later editing that needs other than standard TAB settings will have to have them changed again. This seems to be only a minor nuisance and falls into the "you can't have everything in 16K" category. Also on the bottom of the screen are the name of the file currently in memory (if it was retrieved from disk) and two numbers that tell you the current line and column location of the cursor (of dubious value). By the way, the cursor is a flashing underline rather than the usual ATARI flashing block and is much better for word processor work.
The very first line at the top of the screen shows the default settings for file formatting. These are all easily alterable by the user. The default values are:
Bottom margin: 12 half-lines (1 inch)
Paragraph spacing: 4 half-lines
Print style: 10 characters per inch
Paragraph indentation: 5 spaces from left margin
justified right margin: Off
Left Margin: 10 spaces from left edge of page
Right margin: 70 spaces from left edge of page
Line spacing: 2 half-lines (single spacing)
Top margin: 12 half-lines (1 inch)
Page length: 132 half-lines (11 inches)
Like Text Wizard, the AtariWriter works in halflines, but differs in using "real" spaces to measure across the page (much more convenient than Text Wizard). Any modifications that are made in these formatting values are saved when the file is saved.
To create a text file, you merely type on the blank screen "page". You do not use the return key unless you want to start a new paragraph. If a word at the end of a line will not fit on that line, the word processor moves it to the next line. All typing is done on a screen that has 36 characters per line. This was presumably intended to take care of television sets that overscan and, therefore, will not show the full 40 characters/line that are available. To start a paragraph with indentation you can just type CTRL-P as the first character and you will see a "P" symbol, which is easily recognizable as a paragraph sign. Upon printing, this will be interpreted as a command to indent five spaces.
Having typed your document on the screen you can then edit it to remove mistakes and alter its content. It is the editing capabilities that really make a word processor plus computer more than just an expensive typewriter. Gone is whiteout. Gone is retyping an entire document because of missing one word in the middle. With the screen editing capabilities of AtariWriter you can easily correct those "typos" before they get on paper. You can use the usual CTRL+arrow keys to move around the text file one character at a time or you can use other commands to move around in bigger steps. SELECT+T moves you instantly to the start of the file (T for top) and SELECT+B moves you to the end of the file (B for bottom). OPTION+up or OPTION+down arrow moves you up or down one screen at a time. CTRL+A moves to the beginning of the line that the cursor is on and CTRL+Z moves to the end of that line (A and Z being the first and last letters of the alphabet as well as being conveniently close to the CTRL key). All of these commands allow you to quickly get to where the editing needs to be done. You then can type in any additions and the program will move text out of the way to make room. You can also delete the character to the left of the cursor, the character above the cursor, to the end of the line or to the file. You can also delete blocks of text that you delineate with CTRL-X characters. If you accidentally delete text you wanted to keep, you can also take back you last command (with some limitation on the amount of deleted text that can be restored). This is possible because there is a buffer that temporarily holds any deleted text.
Additional powerful features are the ability to duplicate or move blocks of text. This can be useful to improve the meaning of a text file by shifting around its parts without having to retype or when a document has several similarly worded parts and, again, retyping can be minimized. Typing changes can also be minimized by using the Search and Replace functions. For example, you may have consistently misspelled a word. You can easily correct this by using these functions to locate and then replace the offending word. You have the option whether to change the word at each occurrence or whether to change all of them at once. Combining all of these commands and features will get you to the point of having a document ready to see the light of the printed page.
But wait a minute! Wouldn't it be nice to see on your TV what the final printed document will look like? Even though the screen only shows 36 characters per line and a printed page can have up to 132 characters per line, the AtariWriter has a "Print Preview" option (called by OPTION+P) that formats your document, page by page, as it will print on paper. You then view this "printed" page on your screen through a 36 character wide by 21 line high "window" which you can scroll around to see the entire page. This is very reminiscent of the old ATARI Word Processor that did all of its text creation and editing in this mode. With the AtariWriter, however, you can only look at the final form of the document. To do more editing you must go back into the normal 36 character per line edit mode. Nonetheless, the ability to preview the final printed version is a very nice feature to have.
We are now ready to transfer that document in memory onto the printed page. The first time you do this in any AtariWriter session you will be asked to choose a printer from among the ATARI 1025, the ATARI 825, the ATARI 820 and the ATARI 822. What, you say, you don't have any of those printers! You then choose the ATARI 822 option to get your printout. This word processor was originally written to support only the ATARI printers (failing to recognize that the Epson was the most popular and that others were also in use by ATARI owners). This is being remedied by the availability of a disk of printer drivers from the ATARI Program Exchange that will allow you to put a file on your data disk that will be loaded into the computer when it boots DOS. In this way you will be able to use underlining, superscripts, subscripts and print fonts that your printer may support without having to go through the task of inserting a complicated series of control' codes and numbers. The AtariWriter does permit inserting other printer codes using CTRL+0 followed by the decimal value of the printer code (for example, 27 for the ESCape code). This is a nice capability to have, since it is not possible to include all possible features of all possible printers in the word processor itself. It is, however, quite cumbersome to use and requires that you have ready access to the control code values. Thus, it is nice to have the most useful control codes built into the AtariWriter. The optional printer driver disk will give you this ability.
You will notice that I have pretty much avoided comparing the AtariWriter with other word processors available for the ATARI computer. I have done this because I believe the product addresses itself best to those who are new at finding applications for their computer and want to get involved in some "simple" word processing (i.e., a note to Aunt Em, a letter to their Congressman, a brief article for their local ATARI group newsletter). The AtariWriter has good documentation, is reasonably easy to learn and to use, doesn't seem to leave you hung up anywhere and has sufficient commands and flexibility to meet the needs of those who are most likely to use it. You really can't ask for much more from a word processor that sells for less than $100. Yet, as your uses for word processing grow (and they will), you will still be able to use AtariWriter by employing some of its more advanced features. After a series of strikeouts, ATARI has a hit on their hands.