LocoScript: История простого текстового редактора для Amstrad PCW

LocoScript is a word processing software package created by Locomotive Software and first released with the Amstrad PCW, a personal computer launched in 1985. Early versions of LocoScript were noted for combining a wide range of facilities with outstanding ease of use. This and the low price of the hardware made it one of the best selling word processors of the late 1980s. Four major versions of LocoScript were published for the PCW, and two for IBM compatible PCs running MS DOS. LocoScript's market share didn't expand with the PC versions, which were not released until after Windows had become the dominant PC operating system.

LocoScript's developers, Locomotive Software, had produced Locomotive BASIC for Amstrad's CPC 464 home computer, introduced in 1984. For the Amstrad PCW, introduced in 1985, Locomotive produced the LocoScript word processor and Mallard BASIC, and also wrote the PCW's User Guide. These programs and a dot matrix printer were included in the price of the PCW, gained 60% of the UK home computer market, and 20% of the European personal computer market. According to Personal Computer World, the PCW "got the technophobes using computers". LocoScript was regarded as easier to use than Wordstar and WordPerfect, which in the mid 1980s were the dominant word processors on IBM compatible PCs, and many users needed no additional information beyond what the manual's "first 20 minutes" introductory chapter provided. while LocoScript's competitors required a wide range of key combinations that the user had to remember. Locomotive Software's slogan for the product was "Everything you need, nothing you don't." LocoScript faded into obscurity because its developers were slow to produce a version for IBM compatible PCs. By the time they released a version that ran under MS DOS, Windows was becoming the dominant operating system. The developers of WordPerfect made a similar mistake, releasing their first Windows version in 1991, shortly after the second Windows version of Microsoft Word.

LocoScript was the principal software included with Amstrad's PCW 8256 and PCW 8512, both of which launched in 1985. LocoScript did not run under the control of an operating system; instead, the computer was booted from the LocoScript floppy disk, and LocoScript ran exclusively on the system. The user had to reboot in order to run any other program (a variety of CP/M applications were supplied on a separate disk). In later years a third party utility called "Flipper" eventually became available, restricted to those PCWs with the greatest RAM memory, which could divide the bigger memory between LocoScript and CP/M, allowing both to run without the need to reboot. The "limbo file" facility enabled users to recover accidentally deleted documents until the disk ran out of space (there was no hard disk, all files were stored on floppy disks), when the software would permanently delete files from "limbo" to make room for new ones. Journalist Dave Langford published a collection of his articles about the PCW, and titled it "The Limbo Files". LocoScript was designed to accommodate add on programs, which could be selected via the file manager. LocoScript could also display mathematical and technical symbols. All these characters and symbols could be printed, unless the printer was a daisy wheel unit. All of these except those that affected font size and spacing were displayed on the screen. LocoScript automatically avoided widows and orphans, ensuring that, if a paragraph of four or more lines split across pages, at least two lines appeared on each page. Users could also tell LocoScript to keep a group of lines or paragraphs together on the same page, or to avoid splitting paragraphs throughout a document, and could force page breaks. Users could control placement of text by means of: margins; indentation; normal tab stops; decimal tab stops, which set the position of the decimal point rather than the start of a number; and left, right or full justification. Different combinations of these settings, called "layouts", were automatically numbered, which made it possible to re use layouts and to make changes that applied to all parts of a document where a specified layout was used. These facilities could be used for presenting tables. The "find" and "find and replace" facilities could operate on a whole document, or small sections of one, and "find and replace" ("exchange" in the manual's terminology) had an option to confirm each change or just go ahead. LocoScript allowed the user to edit one document while printing another, so that the relative slowness of the bundled dot matrix printer seldom caused difficulties. Users could ask for all of a document to be printed or a range of pages, set the print quality to "high quality" or "draft", and set the paper used to single sheet or continuous stationery. LocoScript automatically adjusted the size of margins so that the same number of lines per page appeared on both single sheet and continuous stationery. Despite the sophistication of the software, the great drawback of the PCWs was the exclusive reliance of the early models (the PCW 8256 and 8512) on a poor quality dot matrix printer, coupled with the eventual introduction (with the 9512) of a high quality daisy wheel printer that could not print any of the wide range of non alphanumeric symbols which the LocoScript software was capable of producing. The software was seriously hamstrung by the poor quality of the hardware: but this was due in large part to a commercial decision not to provide any support for third party printers so long as the software remained exclusive to the PCW format.

LocoScript 2 was bundled with the Amstrad PCW 9512, introduced in 1987. This version was significantly faster, included the LocoSpell spell checker, and came bundled with a high quality daisy wheel printer in addition to supporting the original dot matrix printer. The software increased its character set to 400 and allowed users to define up to 16 of their own characters. Besides the addition of LocoSpell, LocoScript 2 was also the earliest version to support the optional LocoFile add on, providing database functionality.

LocoScript PC, later known as LocoScript PC Easy, was the first version of LocoScript to be incompatible with the Amstrad PCW, instead targeting IBM compatible PCs running MS DOS 3.0 and above. Released in 1990, the program's feature set was largely inline with LocoScript 2, supporting LocoSpell, LocoMail, and LocoFile, while also adding a few new features, such as support for mixing text with different fonts and new text styling options, as well as a substantially increased range of compatible third party printers.

Released in May 1992, LocoScript Professional, or simply Script, was the second major release of LocoScript to run on MS DOS and included a number of new features and improvements over LocoScript PC. It supported printers that connected using the then standard parallel port, such as most HP DeskJets and some Brother HL series Laser printers (which could be run under DOS using the generic LaserJet4 driver). It did not support printers which required a USB connection or which were labelled "Windows only". Some issues exist as to its compatibility with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10 (when run on those systems' DOS mode or using the DOSBox emulator). For example, it loses WYSIWYG functionality. However, version 2.51 can be tweaked to work in Windows 10 under DOSbox MB6 {Set in LocoScript by selecting F9 Settings F5 ScreenMode Text Screen Direct OK F10} (DOSBox MB6 maintains printing via the parallel printer port, running in text screen mode).

LocoScript 3 included the ability to print text at any size using scalable "LX" fonts, and to use multiple fonts in a document. According to the vendor, LocoScript 3 also had the ability to include pictures and draw boxes within documents, a facility to print odd numbered and even numbered pages separately, and a word counter. but (unlike in the earlier LocoScript versions) these utilities were no longer sold separately. It added a wider range of fonts, support for colour printing, a label printing facility, and optional support for hundreds of printers. Version 4 also supported the mail merge program, LocoMail, and the LocoFile database program.