Page 1 of 9

Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:36 am
by palmheads
Hi

Has anyone else wondered why Memotech's "Memotext" word processor doesn't seem to be around much. Have seen it advertised in Memotech's old ads, & I've seen the manual for it online somewhere, but websites like http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/ don't seem to have it, and even that great emulator vb81 doesn't have it (although its does have a "Memocalc" ROM.

I wonder if it appeared late in Memotech's history with the ZX81? It would really be sweet if someone was to make the ROM available for it, be cool to see what it was like. That combined with the Memotech keyboard would have been quite a sweet set-up.

Does anyone know what other word processors were popular at the time? Looks like there was also Tasword for the '81 as well (also famous ZX spectrum wp)

cheers
Daryn

Re: Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 7:37 pm
by siggi
Indeed, TASWORD 2 is a state-of-the-art word processor for the ZX81. I sometimes used it to write an article for the german ZX-Team magazine, even Peter prefers PDF files :)

Siggi

Re: Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 11:02 pm
by Moggy
Hi Palmheads

I think the reason The Memotext never caught on was the sheer complexity of the damm thing!!!
No hi res display and to achieve anything useful you had to master a bunch control codes and guess what the output would look like! It does have a keyboard buffer built in so no lag.
I have struggled like hell with Mine. off and on over the years, to get it to do anything.

Regards Moggy

Re: Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 11:00 pm
by PrimitivePerson
Does anyone have a download link for Tasword for the ZX81?

Also, is there an easy way to get a ZX81 with an Alphacom 32 printer to print in lower case, and/or more than 32 characters per line? Ideally I'd like to do this without any extra hardware (although I do have a ZXPand :) )

Lee

Re: Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:41 am
by Christopher
PrimitivePerson wrote:Does anyone have a download link for Tasword for the ZX81?

Also, is there an easy way to get a ZX81 with an Alphacom 32 printer to print in lower case, and/or more than 32 characters per line? Ideally I'd like to do this without any extra hardware (although I do have a ZXPand :) )

Lee
Is this what you are looking for:
http://www.theoldcomputer.com/roms/get ... UyOS56aXA=

Re: Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 9:00 am
by mrtinb
Hi :)

I've downloaded 'Hi-Res Word Processor (1983) (Nissim Elmalehes) from this page: http://nitroroms.com/list/Sinclair%20ZX ... e/page-513

Does anyone have a manual for this?

Another question: I've read Andre***'s ZX91, and he uses 'Word Sinc II (P. Hargrave Nanaim)'. Is this available anywhere?

/Martin

Word Sinc II.3

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 9:04 pm
by mrtinb
mrtinb wrote:I've read Andre***'s ZX91, and he uses 'Word Sinc II (P. Hargrave Nanaim)'. Is this available anywhere?
I think I have found Word Sinc II here: http://www.theoldcomputer.com/roms/getf ... UlMjkuemlw

However it prints garbage in EightyOne. Is this a limitation of EightyOne?

Maybe a manual is needed for this to work?

/Martin

Re: Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 4:17 pm
by mrtinb
Moggy or others having Memotext. Could you dump the ROM, so we can save it for the future?

And maybe we could try out this old software in an emulator.

Is it enough just to load the ROM, or does it need hardware emulation?

Re: Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:12 pm
by Andy Rea
Moggy wrote: Sat May 02, 2009 11:02 pm you had to master a bunch control codes and guess what the output would look like!
sounds like the DOS version of WordStar :lol: :lol:

Re: Memotext & word processing in general

Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:20 pm
by Moggy
This one unfortunately is not so simple and would take a better brain than mine to do it.

For a start it has two different EPROMS (2716 and 2732) and I don't know what address space they occupy or their entry points etc.
It's also switch-able as it can clash with other Memotech modules and may therefore clash, in the same way the Cheetah sweet talker does, with something like the Xpand which is what I normally use to emulate old modules and without the physical switch it would always be "on".
It must also switch out the 81's ROM in some way as it uses its own keyboard routine to enable full speed typing and also its own load/save routine in a special format for the data files you create so again how that would work with something like the Xpand I can only guess.

A simple EPROM from say the 8K area copied then dumped to the Xpand is as far as my knowledge goes I'm afraid. :(