Notices

I don't know how I came across this 2.5 year old article in Download Squad (http://www.downloadsquad.com/2005/11/25/free-file/), but it got me thinking... if there is a dosbox for my n800... and a free version of MS Word 5.5 that runs under DOS... wow... I can do word processing on my n800 and party like it's 1999! I could pretend I never heard the term WYSIWYG. Maybe I can dig up Lotus 123 and Crosstalk, next. But, first things first... this thing friggin' ran! The setup was so nostalgic. Ah, the Hercules graphics card...

As for file compatibility... Openoffice doesn't have any pre-Word 6 saving options. Nor does the latest Microsoft Office. However, I was able to read in an RTF file. It kept the alignment (more or less) on the page, but it looks like text to me. I've only played for a few minutes, so I didn't have an opportunity to check out all the potential.

Bottom line... this is an interesting word processing option for the Maemo platform.

Free Word 5.5 download here: http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...S/Wd55_ben.exe

LOL, this is really kind of funny. Is it really actually useful?
P.S. - I like your background; is that cinnamon?

See? Told you. (well, not you, but I'm pretty sure I told someone on this forum recently)

Next step: WordPerfect 6.0.
(no free download AFAIK, but Abiword at least has filters for that one)

Well, it would look like text; most DOS word processors were not WYSIWYG, but used text mode, using colors to designate that a certain chunk of text was special, whether by face, weight, color, whatever. But it should still print fine, if you can figure out how to print. The print preview, if it has one and it works, would be right too.

i saw this post on the thread list and i was thinking something like this:

I think running word for mac under Mac os 7 is probably better.

At least it has a gui.

I really want to try that out this weekend.

haha thats awesome. I have a really old version of MS Visual Studio that looks about the same... all 'ascii art' window borders and such. Maybe I can bust out some win programming on my 770

I've talked[*] a lot about wordprocessing on the Itablets in the past and I've done a lot of soul-searching on that subject as well, so take the following with the proverbial grain of salt and remember who's it coming from:

There are two "strains" of wordprocessors that I'd like to see on the Itablet, meaning that their way of doing stuff kinda vibes with the form factor.

The first one is LyX, a WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You mean) editing front-end for LaTeX. I relies heavily on style sheets and templates and is very display-independent, in that it takes what you type and formats it according to the LaTeX rules of typesetting (what you see on the editor's screen bears no relationship to what will be printed). Although it's really meant for long, structured texts, its templates let you use it for something simple as a one page letter as well.

The other one is Psion's "Word" wordprocessor, especially the EPOC version that featured in the Series 5XX and the Series 7/Netbook (thanks again Frethop, if you're still reading this forum!). It combines simplicity with a rich feature set, is lightningly fast, very much taylored for smaller screens and is in its own way display-independent (can format for screen and page).

Now don't get me wrong. Neither program would do very well as a straight port: LyX is, especially due to its dependency on LaTeX, a very large program and not at all adapted to tablet-ish screens. And Psion Word is first of all extremely closed source (probably even lost forever now that Nokia has switched to Series 60 for its communicators) and developed for an alien operating system (EPOC, arguably one of the best OSes ever developed for handhelds). It does have the advantage of at least having been displayed on touch screens and EPOC has a very elegant and non-intrusive menu structure.

I'm saying that the ideas behind both programs are worth looking at and being copied. Sadly, incorporating this is beyond my capabilities, but I'm wondering if it would be really that hard to write a functional copy of Psion Word in Python.

____

[*] Okay: "ranted". Fine now?

Haven't had time to try it out yet. Not having a keyboard in dosbox immediately reduces the usefulness. It was more a trip down memory lane.

Anyone remember Multimate? I bet that would work nicely. I've got the original software with it's (I can only describe it as) "pillow-topped" user manual in the basement. Is there a 5 1/4" USB floppy drive? Has a module for OS2008 been compiled for it? Come on, someone must have thought of doing this, no?

Thank you, the background is cinnamon. It was my first attempt at an HDR photo. I wasn't thrilled with the results but made a nice enough background for my n800. Since you showed interest, I've posted it: