WriteNow

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WriteNow
WriteNow-software-screenshot.png
WriteNow 1.00 on the Mac platform
Original author(s)Bill Tschumy
Developer(s)T/Maker
Initial release1985; 36 years ago (1985)
Final release
WriteNow 4.0[1]
Operating systemMacintosh, NeXTSTEP
TypeWord processor
LicenseProprietary

WriteNow was one of the two original word processor applications developed for the launch of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, and was the primary word processor for computers manufactured by NeXT.[2] WriteNow was purchased from T/Maker by WordStar in 1993,[3] but shortly after that, WordStar merged with SoftKey,[4] which ultimately led to its discontinuation. It had a combination of powerful features, excellent performance, and small system requirements.

History[]

WriteNow was written for Apple Computer, Inc., by John Anderson and Bill Tschumy in Seattle, separate from the Macintosh computer and MacWrite word processor development teams. Steve Jobs was concerned that those programming MacWrite were not going to be ready for the 1984 release date of the Macintosh;[5] Apple Computer therefore commissioned a team of programmers, friends of Apple engineer Bud Tribble, to work independently on a similar project, which eventually became WriteNow.[2] Members of the WriteNow team knew about MacWrite, but members of the MacWrite team did not know about WriteNow.[citation needed]

Ultimately, MacWrite was completed on schedule and shipped with the Macintosh. This left WriteNow in limbo until Jobs left Apple to form NeXT and hired Bull Tschumy and his team. WriteNow marketing rights ended up being owned by NeXT,[2] and WriteNow released for the Macintosh in 1985, published by the T/Maker Company.

By April 1989, WriteNow 2.0 was released on Macintosh, adding dictionaries, character / word / paragraph count, import and export of RTF and MacWrite files, and updated compatibility with recent system enhancements.[6] Version 3.0 introduced style sheets.[7]

Features[]

A screenshot of WriteNow 1.00 on the Mac platform
WriteNow 1.00 on the Mac platform

WriteNow improved on some of the limitations of MacWrite through the better handling of large documents and the addition of features such as spell check and footnotes. It was "lean and fast," being written entirely in assembly language,[2] and it was suited for Macintosh users with only 400 KB floppy disk.[8] WriteNow went through several versions culminating (in 1993) with version 4.0.2, which continued the "lean and fast" reputation while adding features such as tables.

In the opinion of many of its users, WriteNow represented the ideal Macintosh application. It had a simple, intuitive graphical user interface (GUI), no copy protection, and it worked in practically every revision of the Macintosh operating system, including in the Mac 68k emulator on PowerPC Macs and in the Classic Environment under Mac OS X. Its biggest claim to fame, however, was its speed. It was written in assembly language (Motorola 680x0) by a group of developers who had a reputation for producing extremely efficient code. The user interface was unusual in that, while the typical word processor had a ruler embedded in the main document window, WriteNow used a separate, fixed window that could be sent into the background, freeing screen space on the compact Mac's small nine-inch screen to display an additional line or two of text.

NeXT port[]

Early on WriteNow was ported to the NeXT operating system and was subsequently bundled with NeXT workstations.

Due to concerns of third-party publishers such as WordPerfect over the issue of competing with a free word processor, it was unbundled 1st October 1991[5][9] and ownership transferred to Appsoft, which sold it as shrink-wrapped software.[10] From that time, NeXTSTEP shipped without a full-featured word processing program. WriteNow for NeXT became available for sale on October 15 for $199.[11]

WriteNow was written in Motorola 68k assembly language, upon which the NeXT hardware was based.

Reception[]

Compute!'s Apple Applications in 1987 wrote that "WriteNow is the Pegasus of Macintosh word processors—swift, easy to learn and use, and packed with power".[12]

Discontinuation[]

Around 1993, rights to WriteNow (for both Macintosh and NeXT operating systems) were purchased by WordStar.[3] Shortly after that, WordStar merged with SoftKey,[13] and WriteNow was later discontinued. The lifecycle of computers using the 680x0 architecture was coming to an end, and the architecture-specific assembly language code that made WriteNow so much faster than its competitors also made it much more difficult to port to the new PowerPC processor[1] than competing word processors written in high-level languages such as C.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Pogue, David (March 1995). "Lean Writers". Macworld. Vol. 12 no. 3. p. 116-119. Retrieved 11 August 2021.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Coulter, Leann (7 November 1993). "Evolutionary Man". NeXTWorld. Vol. 3 no. 7. p. 10. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b "WordStar Buys WriteNow". MacUser. Vol. 9 no. 6. June 1993. p. 35. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  4. ^ Picarille, List. "WordStar, Softkey merge; stock swap total $213 millions". MacWEEK. Vol. 7 no. 21. p. 36.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Ruby, Dan; Lavin, Dan (September 1991). "WriteNow spun out to software startup". NeXTWorld Extra. No. September 1991. p. 1-2. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  6. ^ "New WriteNow Now". Macworld. Vol. 6 no. 4. April 1989. p. 14.
  7. ^ Landau, Ted (September 1992). "The right word processor". MacUser. Vol. 8 no. 9. p. 101-110.
  8. ^ Bayles, Melanie; Bayles, Michael (February 1988). "Just Write". Macworld. Vol. 5 no. 2. p. 154-163. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  9. ^ Lavin, Dan (1991). "NeXT Ink". NeXTWorld. Vol. 1 no. 4. p. 17. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  10. ^ Barlow, John Perry; Lavin, Dan (1992). "Review: WriteNow". NeXTWorld. Vol. 2 no. 1. p. 65. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  11. ^ Ruby, Dan (November 1991). "Appsoft". NeXTWorld Extra. No. November 1991. p. 1,6. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  12. ^ McNeill, Dan (December 1987). "Macintosh: The Word Explosion". Compute!'s Apple Applications. Vol. 5 no. 2, Issue 6. pp. 54–60. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
  13. ^ "SoftKey to buy Spinnaker, WordStar". UPI. August 18, 1993. Retrieved 2021-08-11.

External links[]

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