Software Reviews"Software Reviews" is designed to present IEEE Software readers with timely evaluations of operating

systems, applications, and utility software. This department will concentrate on software in widespreaduse, but reviews will not be limited to technical descriptions of various packages-the economic andphilosophical cause and effect of software systems will also be examined.

Reviews from readers are welcome, as are comments and opinions on controversial subjects. Pleasesend all correspondence to Ted G. Lewis, Software Reviews Editor, IEEE Software, 4400 Sulphur SpringsRd., Corvallis, OR 97330.

Word processing for the masses: A Review of Bank Street Writer

Ted G. Lewis

Bank Street Writer is a simple gram, however, so apparently you do word(sword processing program for the not need it. word($Apple II microcomputer. Since it Bank Street Writer is also adver- text, awas released in late 1983, it has tised for the Atari and Commodore text.reached the top sellers' list of Com- home computers. These versions Theputer Retail News, Softalk, and were not available for testing at the itializeSofsers "Hot List." It was an in- time of this writing. However, by the save dstant success; it remains a success to- time you read this, Bank Street file, clday. For this reason, I have chosen Writer should be available on a varie- ment fBank Street Writer as an object les- ty of computers. formatson in designing software for the In addition, you will need one or (withnovice user. two disk drives and a printer. TheDoes Bank Street Writer represent program will work with a single disk

-the state of the art in personal com- drive, but you must manually ex- Sevputer software design? What does it change diskettes whenever you save a inclihave that other, less-popular word document. This is an inconvenience, the Ivprocessors lack? What is the secret of but it will not prevent you from usingthe success of this program? To help the program.you decide the answers to these ques-tions yourself, I have included mattinphotos of the program in action. In Features. Bank Street Writer line spthe end, I believe you will conclude, allows you to write, edit, or transfer pausesas I have, that the world of personal text on an 18-line by 38-column Severacomputer users is not ready for the screen. like ncsophistication that software de- In the write mode, you can enter and Isigners often build into their pro- text, including upper- and lower-case togethgrams. letters, backspace, and word wrap.

Required equipment. The versionof Bank Street Writer used in thisevaluation runs on an Apple II with a48K RAM. It was advertised as a pro-gram for use on the Apple II, 11+,and Ile personal computers; accord-ing to the advertisement, all threemachines require Applesoft Basic torun Bank Street Writer. Our tests didnot require the Applesoft Basic pro-

April 1984

Since Bank Street Writer is aformatting-type word processor,your text may not appear on thescreen the same way it will appear onthe printed page. Thus, the writemode simply allows you to enteryour document, move the cursor,and backspace.The edit mode allows you to in-

sert/add, find a letter or word of upto 29 characters, replace a letter or

LimapplauprocesobvioicannolThe

the licharactions (

gramtunate

s) with some other letter ors), erase/lnerase a block ofLnd move/unmove a block of

transfer mode is used to in-document diskettes, retrieve/aocuments, rename a documentlear the screen, delete a docu-file, print a draft copy (withoutiting, and print a final copyformatting beforehand). For-

veral helpful options areluded, like noting where.ast page ends- and linkingtwo or more files.

ig consists of setting margins,?acing, page numbering, pages, and entering headings.d helpful options are included,)ting where the last page endslinking two or more filesker to make one long report.

titations. Bank Street Writer isaded as an easy-to-use wordssor. But the consequences areus; there are many things youit do with this program.first thing you will notice is

,imited screen width of 40cters. This is due to the limita-of the hardware that the pro-was designed to run on. For-zly, you can print more than 40

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characters per line on any printerthat supports 60, 80, 120, etc., char-acters per line.The second major drawback is the

way in which the program was im-plemented. Both program and textmust reside in main memory whileyou are using them. This limits thesize of a document to about 1300

words in a 48K computer-about3200 words if you have a 64Kmachine.The third major drawback is the

speed of the program. Again, theease of use has taken its toll, andspeed has been sacrificed for com-fort. After you become accustomedto using Bank Street Writer, you will

notice the delays that occur whenswitching modes of operation, orwhen erasing or moving paragraphs.Speed becomes worse as the memorybegins to fill with text, so it is best tolimit text to short letters, memos,and brief term papers.

Other less-obvious shortcomingsare the lack of justification,

1. SELECT EDIT MENU. Get into the EDIT MODE bypressing ESC and you will see the EDIT menu. Notice thechoices: ERASE/UNERASE, MOVE/MOVEBACK, FIND,REPLACE, and TRANSFER MENU. Use the left- or right-arrow keys to select one of these operations, then press theRETURN key. Suppose we see what happens when theREPLACE operation is selected.

2. GLOBAL REPLACE. The REPLACE operation searchesfor all words that match the word(s) you give it, and thensubstitutes other word(s) you specify. Enter the word(s) to bereplaced first.

__, _I. _

! .

4. ENTER WORD TO SUBSTITUTE. Now enter thesubstitution. All matches will be located and highlighted on thescreen. You can choose to replace each one individually as it ap-pears.

IEEE SOFTWARE

3. ENTER WORD TO FIND. As an example, suppose youwant to replace "grandmothers" with "Grandmother's." Enterthe word to look for as shown.

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hyphenation, and embedded com-mands, such as bold lettering andunderscoring. And then there arelittle things that become annoyingafter using the program awhile.Block moves are limited to 15 linesmaximum, for example, and you canonly unerase or moveback im-mediately following an erase or moveoperation. Finally, on the negative

Ease of use has taken its toll,and speed has been sacrificed

for comfort.

side, the Bank Street Writer has anexcellent tutorial, but it is also a rigidcollection of exercises that do notallow you to drop in at an ap-propriate place or browse around.

Who can use Bank Street Writer?This word processor is obviouslyaimed at students, housewives,teachers, or anyone wanting an ex-tremely simple, easy-to-use wordprocessor program. It is easy to learnbecause of its companion tutorialand its extremely simple structure.

Our tests suggest that it is bestsuited for young children or for cor-respondence in the home. For exam-ple, it could be used very effectivelyin preparing term papers, family let-ters, short notes to the groceryman,seasonal greetings, and numerous,short, word processing tasks aroundthe home or school.

How good is the documentation?The program comes with a 35-pagemanual and a short tutorial on theflip side of the program diskette. Themanual is straightforward and brief,and the tutorial is sufficient to getyou started.

It is probably best to skip themanual and begin with the tutorial.The examples in the tutorial are moreinteresting than the manual and tellenough for anyone to begin using theprogram. Save the manual for ques-tions about setting up printers,changing the margins on the printedpage, and converting text on diskettefrom Bank Street Writer format intoa format that other programs under-stand.More detailed questions can be

answered by browsing through the

manual. It has a table of contentsand also contains a good index/glossary, making it easy to use as areference. It does not pretend toteach you about word processing oreven how to use the Bank StreetWriter program, but since the pro-gram is quite simple, this should notbe of concern.

Using Bank Street Writer. Spacedoes not permit me to show youeverything about this program, so,instead, I will illustrate only how youwould select the EDIT MODE andthen perform a global-search-and-replace operation. The example isgiven in the sequence of framesacross the bottom of these pages.

Parting comments. At first youwant to love Bank Street Writerbecause it is for cute little kids,mothers, and apple pie eaters. Butafter you use it for awhile, the charmwears off. It is definitely a toy wordprocessor, lacking many of the fea-tures that cause people to botherwith computers in the first place.Maybe Bank Street Writer is a

great little word processor for people

5. FOUND WORD IS HIGHLIGHTED. The first (and only) 6. ALL MATCHES FOUND. When all substitutions have beenmatch is found and highlighted. You can answer "Y" to go made, the program tells you as shown. Press RETURN to con-ahead and substitute, or you can answer "N" to skip the tinue editing.substitution. If you skip one substitution, the program continueson to the next match, and so forth, until all matches have beenlocated.

April 1984 91

to learn from. After all, it has atutorial, and it is easy to use. Butthen, what is learned from using atoy word processor?One thought is that it gets reluc-

tant young writers started along thepath of writing creative prose.Another thought is that it teaches"typing" rather than word process-ing. There is a big difference.

Typing is the process of puttingwords on paper. Word processing isa whole level of abstraction abovetyping. The difference between typ-ing and word processing is the dif-ference beween backspacing over anerror and completely reforming aparagraph. It is the difference be-tween looking a word up in the dic-tionary by hand and using a spellingchecker. A typist produces text onpaper, a word processor creates en-tire documents of elegance, clarity,and sophistication.The price of Bank Street Writer

makes it a bargain, and it is a ruggedtyping tool that has many uses in the

home. Don't buy it to teach youngminds what word processing is. Buy-ing it to teach word processing willgive first-time computer users thewrong impression. Instead, buy itbecause it is inexpensive and handilyreplaces the worn-out, old type-writer.

Broderbund Softwareresponds

Richard Whittaker

There seems to be a condescendingattitude about BSW that appearsunrelated to the program itself.Perhaps one must read Ted Lewis'sother reviews to fully comprehendthe foundations and biases of this at-titude. In the context of this singlereview, however, it is unclear why hereacts so negatively to the program.

Specifically, we are puzzled by hischaracterization of BSW as a "toy

word processor" that does nothingto teach young people what wordprocessing is.We, and countless reviewers, feel,

to the contrary, that BSW is avaluable word processing tool forwriters of all ages.According to Webster's New

World Dictionary, "word process-ing" is "a . an automated com-puterized system, incorporatingvariously an electronic typewriter,video display terminal, memory,printer, etc., used to prepare, edit,store, transmit, or duplicate letters,reports, records, etc., as for abusiness."

We, and countless reviewers,feel BSW is a valuableword processing tool for

writers of all ages.

Bank Street Writer fulfills thisdefinition superbly. It allowschildren and adults to write, edit,store, retrieve, perform globalreplacements, move blocks of text,format their entered text innumerous ways, search, center, in-dent, paginate automatically,number pages, place automaticheaders, and perform many otheruseful word processing functions.The fact is, no word processor can

fulfill Lewis' definition of creating"documents of elegance, clarity, andsophistication."

Writers create documents ofelegance, clarity, and sophistica-tion-using pencils, typewriters, orword processors, such as BSW andothers that are even more powerful.

It is worth noting that a word pro-cessor as uncomplicated and easy touse as BSW can actually facilitate thecreative process (and contribute tothe desired result of elegance, clarity,and sophistication) by not getting inthe way of the creative flow ofthoughts.We feel that Lewis is being unfair

and less than objective in his negativeevaluation of BSW.

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