ANTIC WRITER MANUAL - PART 1

(This manual is divided into 2 Antic
Writer files -- ANT1.TXT and
ANT2.TXT.  You can print out these
files immediately by using the C
option from the DOS menu.)

INTRODUCTION

Antic Writer is easy to use, whether
you need to prepare simple letters or
complex documents.  It's simple
enough for the novice, but powerful
enough for the professional.  (A
complete list of the main commands
will be found at the end of this
file.)

The program is written in assembly
language and uses fewer bytes than
most comparable word processors.  The
amount of memory left for your text
is displayed on the bottom (prompt)
line and is updated each time you
switch into a different mode.

SEARCH AND REPLACE

How many times have you typewritten a
letter and thought "I wish I could
just change Mildred's name and send
this to Aunt Mabel in Hoboken without
retyping the whole thing?"

Well, it's a cinch with Antic Writer.
Just use the LOOK mode to find
Mildred every time it occurs and let
the computer change it to Mabel.
Then simply use the PRINT mode to
type a fresh letter to Aunt Mabel.

What if you need to keep a copy of a
letter you send to a company?  Saving
it to disk is one way of preserving
history files of important
correspondences.

Antic Writer can also:

a) Insert and delete characters or
lines;
b) Move sentences or paragraphs;
c) Maintain text history files;
d) Ease filing burdens by using disks
instead of file cabinets;
e) Reformat documents by simply
changing one or two control
characters.


I/O ERRORS

In the course of working with your
computer system you may get error
messages in the prompt line.  If you
were attempting to access your disk
drive or printer it may be an I/O
(Input/Output) error.  I/O refers to
the direction in which information is
moving in respect to the computer.
For example, a computer inputs
information from a keyboard and
outputs it to a printer.

Errors detected during this
information transfer are called I/O
Errors.

Here are the error codes:

128-BREAK KEY ABORT
129-IOCB ALREADY IN USE
130-NON-EXISTENT DEVICE
131-OPENED ONLY FOR WRITE
132-INVALID COMMAND
133-DEVICE OR FILE NOT OPEN
134-INVALID IOCB NUMBER
135-OPENED FOR READ ONLY
136-END OF FILE
137-TRUNCATED RECORD
138-DEVICE TIMEOUT
139-DEVICE NAK
140-INPUT FRAMING ERROR
141-CURSOR OUT OF RANGE
142-DATA FRAME OVERRUN ERROR
143-DATA FRAME CHECKSUM ERROR
144-DEVICE DONE ERROR
145-BAD SCREEN MODE
146-FUNCTION NOT SUPPORTED
147-SCREEN MODE WON'T FIT MEMORY

Of the above errors, the most common
is #138.  Usually it's because you
attempted to print while the printer
was off or not plugged in.  You'll
see Error #144 if you try saving to a
disk with its write-protect notch
covered.

160-DISK DRIVE # ERROR
161-TOO MANY OPEN DISK FILES
162-DISK FULL
163-FATAL DISK I/O ERROR
164-INTERNAL FILE # MISMATCH
165-FILE NAME ERROR
166-POINT DATA LENGTH ERROR
167-FILE LOCKED
168-COMMAND INVALID FOR DISK
169-DIRECTORY FULL
170-FILE NOT FOUND
171-POINT INVALID

After noting the error, push [ESCAPE]
twice to return to EDIT TEXT.

COLD START

To load and run Antic Writer, first
turn on disk drive 1.  When the red
BUSY lite turns off, put Antic Writer
in your drive and turn on your
computer.

WARM START

1. Turn your computer off with either
the switch or by opening the
cartridge loading door on the 800.
2. Insert the Antic Writer disk into
drive 1.
3. Turn your computer on.

The system will load and start by
itself.

NOW THAT YOU'RE TURNED ON

The monitor will display a HELP menu.
The prompt line will say HELP on the
left.  The five-digit number on the
right is amount of memory available
for your text.  Any time you change
modes, the prompt line will be
updated.

HELP MENU

To get the HELP menu press [CONTROL]
[H].

WRITE A LETTER

Press [ESCAPE] to remove the HELP
menu.  The PROMPT line now says EDIT
TEXT.  Type in your letter.  If you
make a mistake press [DELETE] to
remove the previous key stroke.

By now you've noticed that a white
square appears on the TV screen where
the next character goes.  That's
called a CURSOR and it helps you find
your way around your text.  Press
[BREAK], and your cursor blinks.
Press [BREAK] again to turn it off.

Type in a sentence.  The program only
allows lines that fit the screen.  If
you reach the end of a line and
continue entering text, the program
automatically gives you the next
line.  (You may of course end your
line anywhere by pressing [RETURN].)
But for now let the computer do it:
continue typing without pressing
[RETURN].  When you've typed in some
sentences, try your HELP mode again.

PRINT IT

Let's make a printout.  Turn your
printer on and set it online.  Press
[CONTROL] [T] (to go to the start of
your text), then [CONTROL] [P] (for
PRINT mode).  On the prompt line you
will see "PRINT FROM SCREEN TOP
(Y/N)?" and the cursor will be
blinking by the "?".  A blinking
cursor in the prompt line always
indicates that the computer needs a
reply from you.  Press [Y] to print.

The printed document will look
exactly like your screen display.
"Then why have an 80-column printer?"
you might ask.  For now, don't worry
about it.  Later we'll show you how
to use FORMAT statements to make your
printed document look right.

SAVE IT

Remove your master now and insert a
FORMATTED disk.  Press [CONTROL] [S].
The prompt line will display "SAVE
(Y/N)?  D1:TEMP.WPC".  Press [Y].
(If you want to save the file with a
different filename or disk drive,
press [DELETE] till you clear out
D1:TEMP.WPC and type in your
changes.)

The prompt line cursor will stop
blinking, the BUSY light on the disk
drive will turn on, the drive will
spin.  Then the prompt line will
display EDIT TEXT, the BUSY light
will go off and the disk drive will
stop.

1. You have saved your file to disk
drive 1.
2. Its name is "TEMP.WPC".
3. You are back in EDIT mode.
4. Your document is ready to GET.

CURSOR CONTROL

If you hold down [CONTROL] while
pressing an [ARROW] key, the cursor
moves in the direction of the arrow.

When pressing the right arrow at the
end of a line, the cursor will "wrap
around" to the beginning of the next
line.  When pressing the left arrow
at the beginning of a line, the
cursor will wrap around to the end of
the previous line.

The [UP-ARROW] and [DOWN-ARROW] move
the cursor line by line.  If the
cursor is at the top line in your
letter when you press [UP-ARROW], the
bottom line is removed and a new top
line is inserted.  If the cursor is
at the last line of the page and you
press [DOWN-ARROW], the top line
disappears and a new bottom line
appears.

GET IT

To retrieve (Get back) that letter,
press [CONTROL] [G].  The screen
momentarily goes blank and the prompt
line says LOADING; the disk drive
whirrs, the disk directory appears
and the prompt line will read "CURSOR
TO NAME-RETURN".

Move the cursor to the line
containing "TEMP.WPC".  Press
[RETURN] to highlight that line, and
the prompt line will say "GET THIS
FILE (Y/N)?".  Press [Y].

The screen goes blank and the
computer prompts LOADING.  The drive
spins, your document is displayed,
and the computer puts you back in
EDIT mode and puts two copies of your
document in computer memory.

(The reason for TWO copies is that
Antic Writer has an automatic MERGE
when you retrieve a file from disk.
MERGE simply means that you've
combined two or more documents.)

If you don't want to merge files,
press [CONTROL] [X] (Clear all text)
before dooing a [CONTROL] [G].

The number on the right of your
prompt line tells you how much free
memory is left.

SCROLLING

Scrolling (or browsing) is where the
computer rolls text through your
screen as though the text were on a
long strip of paper.

Antic Writer lets you scroll by line
or page.  To scroll by line use
[CONTROL] [UP-ARROW] and [CONTROL]
[DOWN-ARROW].

To scroll by page, use [CONTROL] [U]
(Up) and [CONTROL] [D] (Down), which
let you flip rapidly through the
pages of your text.

Try mixing page and cursor control.
Note that if the cursor is NOT at the
top line of the displayed page when
you press [CONTROL] [U], then it will
go there WITHOUT getting a new page.
The same is true if you press
[CONTROL] [D] if you're not at the
bottom line of the screen.  This is
called homing.  [CONTROL] [U] puts
you at the first character of a page,
and [CONTROL] [D] puts you at the
last character.

A line also has two home positions,
beginning and end, and a
"pseudo-home," the middle.  To go to
the beginning of a line, press either
[CONTROL] [A] or [SHIFT] [TAB]; for
the end of a line, press [CONTROL]
[Z] or [CONTROL] [TAB].  For the
middle, press [TAB].

[CONTROL] [T] puts the cursor at the
top of the text, and [CONTROL] [B]
puts it at the bottom.

Now put the your cursor anywhere and
start typing in new sentences.  The
NEW material types right over the OLD
material.

EDITING TEXT

Antic Writer automatically puts
carriage returns at the end of each
text line.  When the line overflows,
the computer looks for the first
space to the left and moves that word
to the following line.  However, you
MUST press [RETURN] to get empty
lines.

To clear all text, press [CONTROL]
[X].  At the prompt, "CLEAR ALL TEXT
(Y/N)?" press [Y].

Remember that the display is 38
characters per line and the printout
can be more than 80 per printed line.
The default setting for the printer
line length is 64, but these details
are covered later.

SIMPLE EDITING

After you've printed a document,
notice that the sentences line up at
the extreme right.

To make corrections in the document,
place the cursor on the mistake and
type over it.

To insert characters, put the cursor
where you want to insert and press
[CONTROL] [INSERT], which puts in a
space each time you press it.  Now
just type in whatever you want.  Or
you can press [CONTROL] [I] (Insert
text) and simply type in what you
want to add.

If you don't want the computer
rearranging your text as you type,
you press [CONTROL] [J] (Job control)
to turn it off.  You will then have
to press [RETURN] to end your lines.

PARAGRAPHS

To combine paragraphs, remove the
empty lines between them by placing
the cursor on an empty line and
pressing [DELETE].

NOT TO WORRY

If the screen display looks uneven,
press [CONTROL] [O] (Organize text).
When the prompt line says ORGANIZE
TEXT (Y/N)? press [Y].

EDIT TEXT WITH "PARSE OFF"

To update a file, position the cursor
on an empty line.  If the prompt
doesn't say EDIT TEXT, press
[ESCAPE].  Press [RETURN] to give
yourself an empty line and cursor up
to it.  This prevents the computer
from reparsing through the following
line if you are NOT editing with
"PARSE OFF."  This is a good habit to
get into: PARSING WILL NOT CROSS AN
EMPTY LINE WHEN IN EDIT TEXT OR
INSERT MODE.

Press [CONTROL] [J].  Your prompt
should read "EDIT TEXT PARSE OFF".
This mode is important only for
preparing charts that will print
exactly as they appear onscreen.

To split a single paragraph into two,
place the cursor where you want to
split it, and press [RETURN] twice.
Press [DELETE] to get rid of the
space at the beginning of the second
paragraph.

FORMATTING

To indent the beginning of your
paragraphs simply put in a couple of
spaces by putting the cursor there
and pressing [CONTROL] [INSERT].  If
you plan to indent paragraphs and
don't want empty lines between them,
just take one of each pair of blank
lines out.

To format the file (not your disk),
press the [ATARI] key once.  (The
[ATARI] key is at the lower right
corner of your keyboard and gives you
inverse video.) Then press [SHIFT]
[F].  An uppercase F is displayed in
inverse video.  That character is now
flagged in your computer's memory and
every time it is encountered the
computer will know that it requires
special handling.

Following the [ATARI] [F] will be
normal upper case letters and
numbers.  (For instance, "A0" tells
the computer to print things exactly
as they appear on the screen, and M
followed by a number simply sets the
left margin.)

Preceding each FORMAT is [ATARI] [D],
which simply sets FORMAT back to its
normal values.  FORMAT A0 does NOT
allow organizing any text --
[CONTROL] [O] -- that follows it.  It
also turns off right justification of
a printed document.  In other words,
any time you need a "what you see is
what you get" format, FORMAT A0 is
useful.
demonstartion purposes.

One very important thing to remember
and to understand is that you can
change FORMATs anywhere and as often
as you wish in your document.  The
printed document will adjust itself
as it is printed.

ADVANCED EDITING

[CONTROL] [A]: puts the cursor on the
first character of the line you are
on.  This mode exits to EDIT TEXT
mode.

[CONTROL] [B]: puts the cursor at the
end of your text.  This mode exits to
EDIT TEXT mode.

[CONTROL] [C]: This is used with
[CONTROL] [M] (Move text).  This
takes the information in the copy
buffer and inserts it in front of the
cursor.  The data is put into the
COPY buffer by MOVE TEXT mode.  The
copy buffer has no fixed length,
using free memory.  Text put into the
copy buffer remains there until
erased with a [CONTROL] [E] (Erase
copy).

Memory used by the copy buffer is not
available for entering text, but it's
possible to move information into it,
and then enter enough text so that
there won't be enough room to copy it
back.  Erasing the copy buffer
recaptures that memory.  It's useful
to save text to the copy buffer and
then transfer it to a different file
with the following sequence: move
text, clear all text, get file, copy
text, save file.

[CONTROL] [D]: If the cursor is at
the bottom screen line, the next page
down will have show that line as the
top of the next displayed screen.
However, if the cursor is at any line
OTHER than the bottom line of the
displayed page, it will be moved to
the end of the displayed page.

[CONTROL] [E]: removes text in the
copy buffer and restores that memory
for entering text.

[CONTROL] [I] lets you insert text to
the left of the cursor as you type.
If the line overflows, the rightmost
word moves to the next line and the
rest of the paragraph is reparsed.
If you are preparing a document that
you do NOT want Antic Writer to parse
as you type, press [CONTROL] [J] to
turn automatic parsing OFF.

[CONTROL] [J] toggles automatic
parsing on and off when in EDIT TEXT
or INSERT MODE.  It's useful to keep
the system from rearranging your text
if you accidently type in a character
that causes a line to overflow.  When
Job control is active, the prompt
line in INSERT or EDIT will say
"PARSE OFF".  When parsing is off,
displayed lines are ended by pressing
the [RETURN] key with the cursor
where you want the line to stop.

[CONTROL] [L] (Look string): lets you
find a particular word or group of
words words wherever they occur in
your text and, if you choose, change
that string to something else.  The
search begins at the cursor of the
displayed page and continues to the
end of your document.

To search the entire document, press
[CONTROL] [T] (Top text) before
[CONTROL] [L].  The LOOK and CHANGE
strings don't have to be the same
length.  If during CHANGE, the line
overflows, any following text in the
paragraph will be reparsed to make
the change fit.  If [CONTROL] [J] is
set to "no parse" any portion of the
line that overflows will be given its
own line.

[CONTROL] [M]: Find a block of data
to move.  Press [CONTROL] [M].  The
prompt line will read "CURSOR TO
BEGINNING-RETURN".  Put the cursor at
the beginning of the block and press
[RETURN].  The prompt will now say
"CURSOR TO END-RETURN".  Using the
[CONTROL] [ARROW] keys marks your
text by highlighting it in inverse
video.  If you mark more than you
intend simply back up the cursor.

When the block is marked properly
press the [RETURN] key.  Press [Y] at
the "MOVE TEXT (Y/N)?" prompt.  The
marked block is now removed from your
text and saved in computer memory.

To get it back press [CONTROL] [C].
The computer will prompt "CURSOR TO
INSERTION-RETURN".  Position your
cursor where you want your data
inserted and press [RETURN].  The
data you originally "moved" is still
in memory.  You can copy it into your
text as often as you like.

If you mark and move another block of
text it will be merged with any
previous moves.

[CONTROL] [O]: If the right screen
margin becomes ragged, this mode
reparses your entire document.  It
will not reparse blocks of text
protected by a FORMAT A0.

[CONTROL] [R]: works just like MOVE
mode except that it doesn't move
anything into the copy buffer --
deletes the marked text from memory
on command.

[CONTROL] [T]: displays the first
page of your document and puts the
cursor at the first character.  It
exits to EDIT TEXT.

[CONTROL] [U]: displays the previous
page of your document if the cursor
is at the top screen line.  If it
isn't, the cursor will home to the
top left character of the displayed
page.

[CONTROL] [V] (Video color): simply
changes the display screen color.
Pressing [0] gives black printing on
a white background.  Pressing
[DELETE] [BACK SPACE] returns you to
the default setting, and any other
key simply strips the color
information from the key itself to be
used as the background.  To exit this
mode, press [ESCAPE].

[CONTROL] [W]: removes all data from
the beginning of the document to the
point of the cursor.

[CONTROL] [X]: erases the entire
document, but NOT the copy buffer.

[CONTROL] [Y]: removes all data from
the cursor to the end of the
document.

[CONTROL] [Z]: puts the cursor at the
end the current displayed line.  This
mode exits to EDIT TEXT mode.

[CONTROL] [CAPS]: lets you enter
graphic character strings directly
into your text.  However, most
printers treat graphics characters as
control codes, so except for the most
sophisticated user, this is of little
interest.  To exit press the [CAPS]
key.

NOTE: It's very easy to get into this
mode ACCIDENTLY by pressing [CONTROL]
[CAPS] instead of [SHIFT] [CAPS].  If
you see graphics characters, press
[CAPS] by itself to return to normal
text entry.

There are three cursor positions
commanded by the edit utility:

1. [SHIFT] [TAB]: to the start of the
displayed line.
2. [TAB]: to the middle of the
displayed line.
3. [CONTROL] [TAB]: to the end of the
displayed line.

[CONTROL] [INSERT]: inserts a space
to the left of the cursor.  All
characters on that line (including
the cursor) are shifted right.
Characters can't shift off the line.

[CONTROL] [DELETE]: removes the
character under the cursor.  It will
not backspace or remove empty lines.

[SHIFT] [INSERT] moves the entire
line containing the cursor down one
line, leaving an empty line.

[SHIFT] [DELETE]: removes the entire
line containing the cursor, moving
all following lines up, and can also
remove blank lines.

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