Write Now - instructions
This is instructions for the vic-20 program cartridge "Write Now". A nice and quite usable text editor for the vic-20. I don't have the original instructions, so this is what I have figured out myself just by testing.
Download
WRITENOW41000.PRG (at Zimmers)
Starting WriteNow
If you have the cartridge, it's (as always) just to plug it in with the power off. The
cartridge image file is available for download at Zimmers. To load it, make sure you have ram
in block 5 and load the file ,8,1 and then start with the start sys, like this:
LOAD"WRITENOW41000",8,1
SYS41000
And the program starts...
Function keys
F1 - Print options (go back with run/stop).
F2 - Exit program ("y" to confirm).
F3 - Save to disk (runstop to cancel). If the file exists, then it will be overwritten.
F4 - Load from disk (runstop to cancel). Note that the loaded text is appended to the end of the old text, so use CLR first if you want to load a new text.
F5 - Insert the "Delete buffer" into the text.
F6 - Clear the "Delete Buffer".
F7 - Show free memory (hold down).
F8 - Go to bottom of text.
Home - Goto top of text.
Clr - Clear text ("y" to confirm).
Inst - insert - just as normal vic editing.
Del - Delete character and add it to the "Delete buffer".
Arrow left - Tab.
Ctrl 1 - Page up.
Ctrl 2 - Page down.
Ctrl 3 - Search.
Ctrl 4 - Search and Replace.
Ctrl 5 - Put Tab.
Ctrl 6 - Remove Tab.
Ctrl 7 - Show Tabs (hold down).
Ctrl 8 - View position in text. (F8 then Ctrl 8 to see length of text).
If you have quit or made a reset, you can always restart the program with SYS41000.
Copy, Cut and Paste
"Write Now" doesn't have these functions as they normally appear, but it is possible to do the same things. Every time you delete a character, it's added to the "delete buffer". F5 inserts this buffer into the text and F6 clears the buffer. So to perform a...
Cut&Paste
- Press F6 to clear the buffer.
- Delete the section you want to cut out.
- Go to the position where you want to paste.
- Press F5.
Copy&Paste
- Press F6 to clear the buffer.
- Delete the section you want to copy.
- Press F5 to put it back there.
- Goto the position where you want to paste.
- Press F5.
Printing
Printing directly with WriteNow
Good:
You can set marginals etc before printing out. The text formatting on the paper works great. A long text piece without any return
signs gets formatted according to your parameters. No words are truncated and everything
is fully justified against both margins. Looks neat and the page number is displayed at
the end of every page.
Bad:
The program prints ascii, so I had to change a dip switch on my MPS1250 printer from petascii
to ascii. If not, then everything is printed in big letters. Still, I can't use it because the
Swedish characters (ÅÄÖ) are still big when they should be small. So I have to use HtmlWalker
to print out after all.
HtmlWalker
You can use html tags in your texts and use
HTMLWALKER to preview or print out. (It now has a direct support
for WriteNow files). This is a great way to format textfiles for a nice print out etc.
Then you will have more control over the text and all other
benefets of writing html. HtmlWalker prints petascii and is specially designed for
Commodore printers (MPS1250 etc).
WN2ASCII
"Write now" doesn't save petascii or normal ascii, so I made a little converter program that converts
a WriteNow file to ascii. This way you can use WriteNow to write texts for use on modern computers.
This html file was written with "Write Now". (Download? It's included with the HtmlWalker package).
ASCII2WN
Yes, you can now go from the PC to WriteNow too! (Also included with the HtmlWalker package).
Good Luck!
/Anders Persson
https://www.boray.se
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