Favourite text based word processing software

[B Degnan]

> Hello group

> I'm toying with the idea of writing a simple word processing package 
along
the lines of Wordstar for my Retrochallenge 2015/01 entry.

<snip> > So a little more than a text-editor but only enough to support 
simple
formatting and styles (bold, italic, underline for example).
> 
> Ideally I'd like to implement a clean, logical design without many 
'bells
and whistles' concentrating on the core functionality.

Mark, 

As a programmer I used to use QEDIT most of the time because it made it 
easy to edit by column as well as row, mark/move text, easy keystroke 
commands.  The copy I have is saved as q.exe.  It was better than notepad 
and I continued to use it well past it's era.  Still hard to edit by column 
when your parsing text without being forced to use a spreadsheet program. 

Sounds like you're talking more of a word processor though. So, I'd put in 
my vote for something like IBM Personal Editor (PEDIT) which gave a person 
a lot of functionality with little RAM overhead.  I never really liked 
WordStar or Word Perfect myself, but I used what I had available. 

As far as formatting to the printer goes, I suggest you include the 
capacity to enter printer codes manually so that you can use most any type 
of printer that accepts them.  I remember inserting codes into programs 
that were used for a specific printer that way.  If you have the manual and 
given you're talking simple print capabilities you would not need to supply 
drivers.  

Bill