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Comment by js2 | Hacker News Reader

My Apple II had a Microsoft CP/M card[1] in it just so we could run WordStar. I think I was the only kid in sixth grade turning in papers written on a word processor.

After AppleWorks[2] was released in 1984, I don't think I ever booted into CP/M again.

For some reason, I never used Apple Writer[3] even though it was released in 1979 and apparently a decent word processor. Decent enough for Paul Lutus[4] to retire and sail around the world anyway[5].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleWorks

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer

4. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lutusp

5. https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html

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I went from playing with Wordstar at my dad’s office to Zardax on the Apple II which was a breeze in comparison.

https://archive.org/details/ZardaxWordProcessorManualAppleII...

Zardax called today's (MS Word) "Autotext" a "Glossary", cool.

AppleWriter was interesting as it had its own built-in language, WPL, a macro language that could do a chunk more (https://archive.org/details/wpl-manual/mode/2up). That was not the sort of feature expected given the inherent limitations of an 8-bit machine.

I believe all of that came later and not in the original releases?

Yes, WPL was the most amazing feature of Apple Writer. It reminded me of programming a scientific calculator, but with text rather than numbers. When AppleWorks came out, I was really disappointed that it didn't include anything like it (this was alleviated a few years later with 3rd party macro packages).

The first program I sold for actual money, back when I was in high school, was a set of WPL programs that allowed teachers to generate exams by picking multiple-choice questions at random from a master file. The answers were also randomly permuted. It also produced the answer key for each. The idea was that teachers would use it to generate exams where each student's version would be different.

I sold a grand total of two copies. A marketing genius, I was not.

MagicWindow was an excellent Apple II word processor that was, in my opinion, much better than early AppleWorks. I used it for many years.

http://www.artscipub.com/history/magicwindow/

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