SpeedScript 3.2 running on a Commodore 64
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Original author(s) | Charles Brannon |
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Developer(s) | Compute! Publishing |
Initial release | January 1984 |
Stable release |
3.2 / May 1987
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Development status | Abandonware |
Written in | 6502 assembly language, Turbo Pascal (MS-DOS) |
Platform | VIC-20, C64 / 128, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, MS-DOS |
Type | Word processor |
SpeedScript is a word processor originally printed as a type-in machine language listing in 1984-85 issues of Compute! and Compute!'s Gazette magazines. Approximately 5 KB in length, it provided many of the same features as commercial word processing packages of the early 8-bit era, such as PaperClip and Bank Street Writer. Versions were published for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and 128, Atari 8-bit family, VIC-20, and for MS-DOS.
In April 1983 Compute! published Scriptor, a word processor written by staff writer Charles Brannon in BASIC and assembly language, as a type-in program for the Atari 8-bit family. In January 1984 version 1.0 of his new word processor SpeedScript appeared in Compute!'s Gazette for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20. 1.1 appeared in Compute!'s Second Book of Commodore 64, 2.0 on Gazette Disk in May 1984, and 3.0 in Compute! in March and April 1985. Corrections that updated 3.0 to 3.1 appeared in May 1985, and the full version appeared in a book published by Compute!, SpeedScript: The Word Processor for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20. A 3.2 update appeared in the December 1985 Compute! and January 1986 Compute! Disk and again later in the May 1987 Compute!'s Gazette issue with three additional utilities.
SpeedScript was later ported to the Atari and the Apple II family in Compute! in May and June 1985 respectively. SpeedScript was written entirely in assembly language, and Compute! Publications later released book/disk combinations that contained the complete commented source code (as well as the machine language in MLX format) for each platform.