WriteNow
WriteNow is a word processor application released for Apple Macintosh computers in 1986. It was one of the first Macintosh applications to be offered for separate sale. (Prior to that, most if not all Macintosh applications, such as MacWrite and MacPaint, came bundled with the operating system.)
WriteNow rectified several limitations of MacWrite. It could cope with large documents; had a spell check function; and had the capability to add footnotes. It was "lean and fast", being written in assembly language; it could fit with an operating system on a 400 KB floppy disk. WriteNow went through several versions, culminating (in about 1993) with version 4.0.2, also lean and fast. Version 4 included features such as definable styles and tables.
WriteNow began life in a building on the Apple campus away from the building in which the Macintosh and MacWrite were being developed. Apparently Steve Jobs was concerned that those programming MacWrite were not going to be ready for the 1984 release date of the Macintosh, so he commissioned the WriteNow team to work independently on a similar project. Members of the WriteNow team knew about MacWrite, but members of the MacWrite team did not know about WriteNow. As it happened, MacWrite was ready on time, so WriteNow was later made available as a commercial product, owned by NeXT and published by T/Maker Company.
WriteNow represents an ideal Macintosh application. It has a simple, intuitive user interface (called a GUI) practically eliminating the need for a manual. It has no copy protection, and it works in practically every revision of the Macintosh operating system including the emulated System 9 under Mac OS X. It's biggest claim to fame, however, was surprisingly fast speed. It was written in assembly language (Motorola 680x0) by a group of developers who loved to squeeze every byte and every cycle out of their code.
In about 1992, WriteNow was purchased by WordStar. Shortly after that WordStar was purchased by The Learning Company, and WriteNow was quietly buried.
See also
- List of word processors
- Comparison of word processors