Re: AW Six-Point-Zero

[a2mg@aol.comNomail (TEXAS II - AppleWorks)]

It's unlikely that there will be an AW 6.0 since the only person qualified to
write it is busy taking care of his family. The way to add features such as Jay
requested would be for an Assembly language or UltraMacros programmer to write
it as a TimeOut accessory, or as an AppleWorks init. This is the way it has
always been done. I have most of the AW5 source code, which I use for research
purposes. It is in pieces and is not built into the segs. There's no way anyone
could compile a complete program out of it.

About a year and a half ago a major AppleWorks developer authorized me to use
his name in a request to Apple to license the product in order to produce an AW
6.0. Apple never responded. About the same time we discovered illegal uploads
of AppleWorks 5.1 on Asimov, so any financial investment we would have made was
rendered worthless. 

On the other hand, an AW 5.2 is definitely possible, but it would probably only
contain bug fixes, a solution for the IIGS accessories problem, and a Y2K
update. This kind of update would require that the user already own AppleWorks
5.0 or 5.1 (or, by stretching it, AppleWorks 4.0 to 4.3). Frankly it puzzles me
that so many people are still using AppleWorks 3.0 and even 2.x or 1.x, and
never heard of or bought AppleWorks 4/5 while it was available.

Any features beyond the bug fixes to AW 5.1 can be written as TimeOut
accessories, or (better) as inits, by anyone who knows Assembly or UltraMacros.
A wealth of UltraMacros developer information is available from TEXAS II. For
assembly language programmers, the source code for init-writing is freely
available, and some developers have already used it.  So, anything can be done
simply as an add-on, it just needs someone who is qualified to write it. Even
IIGS tool calls can be used, as AW 4/5 already contains a routine to run them.
All you do is plug in the values.

Beverly Cadieux 
Y2K info at http://members.aol.com/A2MG