flatduckrecordsSaturday: time to install a Word Processor onto Hard Disc Drive. (Not to mention the 70,000 word dictionary and a collection of “several” typefaces). #Tasword #zxspectrum #plus3e #yolo
Steve LeightonUnfortunately, fool that I am, I left all of my 3” disc games behind. All I have is a copy of #Tasword (late 1980’s word processing anyone?) and a copy of #HiSoft #Pascal! Anyone for an hour of word processing on a yellow screen with a tiny font, or perhaps a fun few minutes coding in a late 80's Pascal compiler?! Not quite Jet Set Willy! #retrocomputing #sinclair #zxspectrum
old machinery (unofficial)Spring Cleaning the CPC Keyboard
Again, written on Amstrad, mistakes and all:
After experimenting with writing on Amstrad and the Tasword, I felt something could be done to the keyboard. It's not that the keys didn't work, but they tended to get stuck.
As a remedy, I decided to open the keyboard, have a look inside and clean anything that might look suspicious. Old keyboards do need some care.
On removing the keyboard module, I realised how much more impressive this is than the Sinclair membrane system. The membrane is hidden inside a very protected environment, where very little or no dust can interfere.
After carefully peeling the keyboard layer from the metal base, the parts become revealed. On top of the metal base there is the membrane, and on top of that lies the black plastic frame for holding the keys.
At this point, there is almost nothing to do, as the insides of the keyboard module are surprisingly clean. Just a light dusting off is enough. Then I can get into removing the keys.
Each of the key has two or maximum of two "hooks" which have to be carefully pressed inwards to make the key fall off. Fortunately my fingernails are of the correct length here, I could remove the keys rather easily.
I left the more difficult looking wide keys last, as they also have a tiny metal rod to balance the keypress. These keys I removed one at a time, cleaned them and their surroundings, and put them back immediately. This way I wouldn't get confused with parts.
With the Return keys I noticed one of the "hooks" were missing. However I am almost certain I did not break it myself. Putting it back together the key felt ok, it doesn't really need both of them.
Then began the tedious process of cleaning each of the keys and generally fiddling about. I didn't have a master plan here, I felt it ought to be enough if I clean everything with somewhat moist Q-tips. Although with them I have to take care not to leave the tiny pieces of fabric the Q-tips tend to leave.
Just to feel I'd done something I strecthed the large spings a little before putting them back into place. Experimentally I also filed the keyboard holes a little in the hope this would prevent them getting less stuck.
Then everything is put back together, everything's fine? Not really at first. To my horror, a single key, the key F did not function at all. There were also some problem with space key producing two spaces more often than one!
Having a single key non-functioning meant the problem was not in the matrix, as this would result in a cluster of non-functional keys. So I pushed the key with some more force, and I heard a not very reassuring "SNAP". Fortunately this was the snapping together of the final hook between the plastic case and the metal plate. For some reason I had neglected to check if they are really properly all together.
I also gave the keyboard a sort of bash-around, bit like a guitarist does to strings after changing them. This seemed to help a little and the nuisances were mostly behind. I still feel something is off with the space bar, but at least it doesn't double-space anymore.
As a test I wrote the above text and this paragraph with the Tasword. Although not everything is perfect and I have not yet become used to the keyboard, it's already better for typing and I can perhaps dare say it could be better than a Sinclair QL keyboard after all.
I felt more encouraged to do this now that I got my HxC floppy emulator write problems resolved. The writes simply failed before I disconnected the internal floppy drive entirely. So, now I don't have to resort to photographing the screen but instead had to find a way to get the file to the Linux enviroment, a much more interesting task.
End of part written on Amstrad.
**
Back to Normality**
I was so eager to transmit the above text to Linux, I did not check it and so there are a few typos.
The photograph below shows the plastic hook of the return key was already broken before I removed the key. Left from the center and a little down. Nice!
After some more typing I felt I could still open the keyboard one more time and improve some individual keys. At least the keys no longer become stuck in normal typing.
Getting the file back to Linux was easier than I thought. The HxCFloppyEmulator GUI version helped me convert the .hfe file into an Amstrad .dsk image.
Possibly because the image had not originated from iDSK, that program did not recognize it. Luckily I already had compiled the alternative sector-cpc. This did the job:
./sector-cpc --file blogpost.dsk extract post2.txt
This digs out the file post2.txt from the blogpost.dsk image file and saves it on the Linux filesystem.
Looking at the text there were some idiosyncrasies. Although I had written everything as paragraphs, pressing return only at the end, the file had 0x0D and 0x0A (Carriage Return and Line Feed) after every visible "line":
The spaces that Tasword had visually inserted to help center the columns are actually included as characters! For this one case, I manually formatted the paragraphs and used find-replace to destroy the double and triple spaces, before copy-pasting the results to Blogger.
The image above also shows the garbage at the end of the text proper, partly a leftover of earlier editing. Whether this was something the sector-cpc produced when exporting the file, I'm not sure.
These issues can probably be adjusted in the Tasword settings, should I continue with my 8-bit writing career in the future. Alternatively I could write a program or script for tidying the text files.
Blog post written with Tasword on Amstrad CPC6128
The text below was written using an Amstrad. Sadly, my HxC floppy emulator refused write operations so I couldn't save the text. Instead I photographed the text from the screen and retyped it all here, without changing anything so all the silliness and possible mistakes are present.
Blog post written with Tasword on Amstrad CPC6128
As soon as I learned that I could use the 80-column wide graphics mode on Amstrad CPC6128 and the 1084 monitor, I wanted to try out text editing on it. The first program I could find was Tasword, and it looked promising enough.
Tasword was a familiar name for me from the Spectrum days. Then it had a reputation with cramming 64 columns on the 256 pixels wide display. And being an overall comprehensive enough editor.
Here with Amstrad CPC6128, I guess the program is the same old, except it doesn't have to resort to gimmicks in order to display 80 columns of text. The 640 pixels wide mode 2 is perfectly capable of showing it all.
In fact, the experience is rather similar to using a text editor on an Amiga or Atari ST. The major difference is the obvious lack of mouse.
Typing text diretly into paragraphs is quick enough. The keyboard has seen better days, but I am not so sure if this is better than the Sinclair QL. The cursor keys are well positioned here, one of the first home computers to get it right I guess.
Writing text between existing paragraphs appears to be fine at first, but when the cursor reaches the edge it will start overtyping the paragraph below. Turning Insert on helps here, the problem was just that the Tasword does not have it on by default. Furthermore, you will have to turn on Auto-Insert to get the behaviour you'd expect nowadays. This is pretty slow! Creating new lines between already existing text is predictably slow, but not horrendous.
I have written this post mostly from top to bottom, without stopping too much to think what I ought to write. If I had to start editing the already existing text, it might result in problems, as I don't know what keys and what functions I am supposed to use.
The above paragraph was moved from above to a more suitable position. This was achieved using the Block Mark, Block End and Block Move commands. Then I had to use Delete Line and Insert Line to tidy up the space between the paragraphs. These are typical functions of old word processors, and I'm no longer under the illusion this is a more modern editor.
As the program is 6128-specific, where I think this shows is the program is occasionally using a RAM disk of sorts. There is more than 60K available for text, surely this would be enough for a school essay or a chapter in a novel.
All in all, not a bad experience, but if I was writing a longer text or something with more thought required, I would be missing the mouse movement and quicker copy and paste. Then again, this kind of old software could encourage planning the text in some other way. Possibly I'd outline and sketch it on paper first and then just clean up the manuscript on the Amstrad.
I did not look into other text editors, I guess the Amstrad scene might have produced slicker applications at a later day. I didn't really look into the matter, but perhaps another time!
