PC-Write

PC-Write

Intro screen of PC-Write version 2.5 translated in Greek. PC-Write was the de facto word processor in many branches of the Greek public sector during the early 1990s.
Original author(s)	Bob Wallace
Initial release	early 1983; 34 years ago (1983)
Type	word processor
License	shareware

PC-Write was a computer word processor and was one of the first three widely popular software products sold via the marketing method that became known as shareware. It was originally written by Bob Wallace in early 1983.

PC-Write was a modeless editor, using control characters and special function keys to perform various editing operations. By default it accepted many of the same control key commands as WordStar while adding many of its own features. It could produce plain ASCII text files, but there were also features that embedded control characters in a document to support automatic section renumbering, bold and italic fonts, and other such; also, a feature that was useful in list processing (as used in Auto LISP) was its ability to find matching open and closed parenthesis "( )"; this matching operation also worked for the other paired characters: { }, [ ] and < >.

Lines beginning with particular control characters n and/or a period (.) contained commands that were evaluated when the document was printed, e.g. to specify margin sizes, select elite or pica type, or to specify the number of lines of text that would fit on a page, such as in escape sequences.

While Quicksoft distributed copies of PC-Write for $10, the company encouraged users to make copies of the program for others in an early example of shareware. Quicksoft asked those who liked PC-Write to send it $75. The sum provided a printed manual (notable for its many pictures of cats, drawn by Megan Dana-Wallace), telephone technical support, source code, and a registration number that the user entered into his copy of the program. If anyone else paid the company $75 to purchase an already-registered copy of the software, the company paid a $25 commission back to the original registrant, and then issued a new number to the new buyer, thereby giving a financial incentive for buyers to distribute and promote the software.