PC-Write
Dan Tobias (Talk | contribs) (Created page with "{{FormatInfo |subcat=Document |extensions={{ext|doc}} }} '''PC-Write''' was a word processor originally released in 1983 by a company (now defunct) called Quicksoft. It was r...") |
Dan Tobias (Talk | contribs) (Add table of control characters) |
||
Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
If you stick to characters found in the [[ASCII]] character encoding, and don't use any special PC-Write features, the resulting files will be completely ASCII, using the standard PC-DOS carriage return + linefeed for line breaks. If you use accented characters (you could type them by typing a letter, then the backtick (`), then another character representing the diacritical mark such as an apostrophe or tilde), those will use the active [[MS-DOS encodings|MS-DOS code page]]. Other features (accessed within PC-Write through Alt key combinations) will cause various control characters to be inserted into the file, but the rest of the content will remain plain text. The control characters have meanings that are specific to PC-Write, not generally resembling their "official" meaning in the ASCII set; for instance, a variety of special commands are done as "dot commands" (on a line by themselves, with a dot followed by a special command) which are preceded by a control character that is entered as Alt-G in PC-Write but stored as Ctrl-K, which is officially the Vertical Tab character in ASCII. | If you stick to characters found in the [[ASCII]] character encoding, and don't use any special PC-Write features, the resulting files will be completely ASCII, using the standard PC-DOS carriage return + linefeed for line breaks. If you use accented characters (you could type them by typing a letter, then the backtick (`), then another character representing the diacritical mark such as an apostrophe or tilde), those will use the active [[MS-DOS encodings|MS-DOS code page]]. Other features (accessed within PC-Write through Alt key combinations) will cause various control characters to be inserted into the file, but the rest of the content will remain plain text. The control characters have meanings that are specific to PC-Write, not generally resembling their "official" meaning in the ASCII set; for instance, a variety of special commands are done as "dot commands" (on a line by themselves, with a dot followed by a special command) which are preceded by a control character that is entered as Alt-G in PC-Write but stored as Ctrl-K, which is officially the Vertical Tab character in ASCII. | ||
+ | |||
+ | == Control characters == | ||
+ | |||
+ | {| class="wikitable" | ||
+ | ! title="Hexadecimal code point" | Hex | ||
+ | ! title="Decimal code point" | Dec | ||
+ | ! title="Standard ASCII Acronym" | ASCII Char | ||
+ | ! title="Control key" | Ctrl Key | ||
+ | ! title="PC-Write Key" | PC-Write Key | ||
+ | ! title="Description and uses" | PC-Write meaning | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |00||0||NUL||^@||||Not used | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |01||1||SOH||^A||Alt-S||Toggles Second Strike mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |02||2||STX||^B||Alt-B||Toggles Bold mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |03||3||ETX||^C||Alt-E||Toggles Elite Fast mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |04||4||EOT||^D||Alt-V||Toggles Variable mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |05||5||ENQ||^E||Alt-P||Toggles Pica Quality mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |06||6||ACK||^F||Alt-C||Toggles Compressed mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |07||7||BEL||^G||Alt-M||Toggles Marine Blue mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |08||8||BS||^H||Alt-J||Toggles Jade Green mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |09||9||HT||^I||Tab||Move to next tab stop. In some configurations, gets replaced with proper number of space characters. | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |0A||10||LF||^J||Enter||Linefeed: follows Carriage Return for line break. (Enter inserts two-character sequence ^M^J) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |0B||11||VT||^K||Alt-G||Signals that what follows is a dot command (commands should be on a line by themselves) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |0C||12||FF||^L||Shift-Alt-T||Soft page break. (If followed by ^O (0F), it's a hard page break, entered in PC-Write with Alt-T.) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |0D||13||CR||^M||Enter||Carriage Return: precedes Linefeed for line break. (Enter inserts two-character sequence ^M^J) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |0E||14||SO||^N||||Not used | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |0F||15||SI||^O||Alt-T||Follows ^L (0C) to indicate hard page break (Alt-T inserts two-character sequence ^L^O) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |10||16||DLE||^P||Alt-D||Toggles Double Wide mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |11||17||DC1||^Q||||Not used | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |12||18||DC2||^R||Alt-W||Toggles Double Underline mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |13||19||DC3||^S||Alt-O||Toggles Overstrike mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |14||20||DC4||^T||||Not used | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |15||21||NAK||^U||Alt-I||Toggles Italic mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |16||22||SYN||^V||Alt-Q||Toggles Quality Elite mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |17||23||ETB||^W||Alt-U||Toggles Underline mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |18||24||CAN||^X||Alt-H||Toggles Superscript mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |19||25||EM||^Y||Alt-L||Toggles Subscript mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |1A||26||SUB||^Z||||Not used (MS-DOS used it as end-of-file marker, but PC-Write didn't mark files this way) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |1B||27||ESC||^[||||Not used (Escape character) | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |1C||28||FS||^\||||Not used | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |1D||29||GS||^]||Shift-Ctrl-Hyphen||Soft Hyphen | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |1E||30||RS||^^||Alt-R||Toggles Red mode | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | |1F||31||US||^_||Alt-Y||Toggles Yellow mode | ||
+ | |} | ||
== References == | == References == | ||
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-Write PC-Write (Wikipedia)] | * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-Write PC-Write (Wikipedia)] | ||
* [http://vetusware.com/manufacturer/Quicksoft/?author=865 PC-Write download] | * [http://vetusware.com/manufacturer/Quicksoft/?author=865 PC-Write download] |
Revision as of 17:35, 11 November 2012
PC-Write was a word processor originally released in 1983 by a company (now defunct) called Quicksoft. It was released on a shareware basis, with a paid version available.
The files were basically plain text, with optional special functions causing control characters to be inserted. However, the default filename suggested when you started the program was "WORK.DOC", suggesting .doc as the default file extension to be used, which could be confusing given MS-Word's more well-known use of this extension. You could create or edit files with any extension, including .txt, however.
If you stick to characters found in the ASCII character encoding, and don't use any special PC-Write features, the resulting files will be completely ASCII, using the standard PC-DOS carriage return + linefeed for line breaks. If you use accented characters (you could type them by typing a letter, then the backtick (`), then another character representing the diacritical mark such as an apostrophe or tilde), those will use the active MS-DOS code page. Other features (accessed within PC-Write through Alt key combinations) will cause various control characters to be inserted into the file, but the rest of the content will remain plain text. The control characters have meanings that are specific to PC-Write, not generally resembling their "official" meaning in the ASCII set; for instance, a variety of special commands are done as "dot commands" (on a line by themselves, with a dot followed by a special command) which are preceded by a control character that is entered as Alt-G in PC-Write but stored as Ctrl-K, which is officially the Vertical Tab character in ASCII.
Control characters
Hex | Dec | ASCII Char | Ctrl Key | PC-Write Key | PC-Write meaning |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
00 | 0 | NUL | ^@ | Not used | |
01 | 1 | SOH | ^A | Alt-S | Toggles Second Strike mode |
02 | 2 | STX | ^B | Alt-B | Toggles Bold mode |
03 | 3 | ETX | ^C | Alt-E | Toggles Elite Fast mode |
04 | 4 | EOT | ^D | Alt-V | Toggles Variable mode |
05 | 5 | ENQ | ^E | Alt-P | Toggles Pica Quality mode |
06 | 6 | ACK | ^F | Alt-C | Toggles Compressed mode |
07 | 7 | BEL | ^G | Alt-M | Toggles Marine Blue mode |
08 | 8 | BS | ^H | Alt-J | Toggles Jade Green mode |
09 | 9 | HT | ^I | Tab | Move to next tab stop. In some configurations, gets replaced with proper number of space characters. |
0A | 10 | LF | ^J | Enter | Linefeed: follows Carriage Return for line break. (Enter inserts two-character sequence ^M^J) |
0B | 11 | VT | ^K | Alt-G | Signals that what follows is a dot command (commands should be on a line by themselves) |
0C | 12 | FF | ^L | Shift-Alt-T | Soft page break. (If followed by ^O (0F), it's a hard page break, entered in PC-Write with Alt-T.) |
0D | 13 | CR | ^M | Enter | Carriage Return: precedes Linefeed for line break. (Enter inserts two-character sequence ^M^J) |
0E | 14 | SO | ^N | Not used | |
0F | 15 | SI | ^O | Alt-T | Follows ^L (0C) to indicate hard page break (Alt-T inserts two-character sequence ^L^O) |
10 | 16 | DLE | ^P | Alt-D | Toggles Double Wide mode |
11 | 17 | DC1 | ^Q | Not used | |
12 | 18 | DC2 | ^R | Alt-W | Toggles Double Underline mode |
13 | 19 | DC3 | ^S | Alt-O | Toggles Overstrike mode |
14 | 20 | DC4 | ^T | Not used | |
15 | 21 | NAK | ^U | Alt-I | Toggles Italic mode |
16 | 22 | SYN | ^V | Alt-Q | Toggles Quality Elite mode |
17 | 23 | ETB | ^W | Alt-U | Toggles Underline mode |
18 | 24 | CAN | ^X | Alt-H | Toggles Superscript mode |
19 | 25 | EM | ^Y | Alt-L | Toggles Subscript mode |
1A | 26 | SUB | ^Z | Not used (MS-DOS used it as end-of-file marker, but PC-Write didn't mark files this way) | |
1B | 27 | ESC | ^[ | Not used (Escape character) | |
1C | 28 | FS | ^\ | Not used | |
1D | 29 | GS | ^] | Shift-Ctrl-Hyphen | Soft Hyphen |
1E | 30 | RS | ^^ | Alt-R | Toggles Red mode |
1F | 31 | US | ^_ | Alt-Y | Toggles Yellow mode |