7 Sep
2005
7 Sep
'05
6:33 a.m.
>>>> "arcarlini" == arcarlini
<a.carlini at ntlworld.com> writes:
arcarlini> Kevin Handy wrote:
> Word-11 was writted by DPD(?Data Processing
Design?) to bring
> WPS-8 capabilities to the PDP-11. Originally written in basic, it
> was later partly recoded into something else that compiled into
> executable code (probably macro and basic+2) to speed it up. DEC
> later bought it and renamed it to DecWord, iirc.
arcarlini> I used Word-11 (from the company MASS-11 I thought) back
arcarlini> in 1985 or so for some reports. This was under VAX/VMS. I
arcarlini> suppose that, for its time, it was not too bad. I was glad
arcarlini> to upgrade to TeX though!
arcarlini> I don't remember anything by the name of DECword, but
arcarlini> there was a DECwrite. DECwrite bore no resemblance to the
arcarlini> Word-11 that I knew.
DECwrite was a GUI document creation program for VMS/Xwindows only.
According to rumor it was based on a very very ancient version of
FrameMaker. It did become reasonably capable (certainly better than
MS Word of that era) before it was canceled. We used it extensively
in the DEC network architecture group (replacing Runoff), which may be
one reason why DECnet Phase V specs are not available anywhere.
DECword does ring a bell, but it sounds like a late name for what was
WPS-8. The PDP-11 and VMS analog was WPS-Plus, and that was written
from scratch, in a very short amount of time, at DEC.
I never used it
on VMS, but did suffer with it on a PDP-11 (Pro under P/OS, in
fact).
It worked, and it was reasonably functionally compatible with WPS-8,
but the performance was pathetic.
paul