On Wed Dec 6 21:00:00 2023, 56g.1173 wrote to The Natural Philosopher <=-

On 12/6/23 10:53 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 06/12/2023 14:24, Theo wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Many people I know would be entirely happy with Wordstar on CP/M and a >>> dot matrix printer....Come to think of it a pi Zero with a bit of screen >>> added and Joes Own Editor would do that.

Why use a clone when you can use the original on a Pico :-)
https://kevinboone.me/cpicom.html

No mass storage. No output for an 80x25 style screen. I love my Picos finally, but they cannot even drive a floppy disk.

Whereas a Zero can come with an SSD an HDMI attached screen and
probably drive a parallel port.

In terms of a 'word processing station' I think that is about ideal.

Agreed ... but I don't think anybody is going to put up
with an 80x24 screen anymore.

GUI/WYSIWYG is a lot better. There are a number of medium-power
word processors that run on Linux and the ubiquitous LibreOffice
suite adds even more clout. For dirt simple, use Leafpad and friends.

A Pico is a microCONTROLLER ... it's meant for operating "things"
or being a "thing".

Love microCs but there'd be no point in making a word-processor
using one. Yea, somewhere there IS a SD-Card library, so you can
have yer storage, and there IS a serial library so you can pull
out your beloved serial terminal (or make your own). Even
Ard Uno's have those libs handy. I even found a TCP stack lib
and made a (very slow/simple) web server out of one and hung it
on one of the company's unused domains for a couple of years.
ASCII-Art "graphics". Now a printer ... find an old Oki rs232
matrix printer or something so you won't need much for a 'driver'.

If you want something in between, check out Altairduino. CP/M 2.2 with the authentic look and feel, but you can also transfer your files on and off. I've seriously considered using it as a distraction-free writing environment, I really do like Word-Master.

Also, the Pi 400 is just about the perfect little word processing/email/internet machine. I love mine for lots of reasons, but when it's hooked up to the TV even my mom (64 years old) uses it and finds it very easy to use! So it gets points there too, if you want to share it.

and I'm sure you could do the dot matrix bit with a Pico too:
https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/giant-dot-matrix-printer

all very ingenious, but...I guess a zero running Raspios could drive a modern inkjet or laser printer via USB.

True, but where's the fun in that? :P

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