Speedscript

From: Stephen Judd (judd_at_merle.acns.nwu.edu)
Date: 1999-03-22 17:57:13

Hola,

Going from memory here: to get speedscript going, just load ,8 and run --
it has a basic header.  Load and Save are done using F7/F8.  CTRL-w
gives a list of all commands (CTRL-(w)hat?).

To transfer files to a PC, surely something like Star Commander or PRlink
is the way to go?

Finally, regarding converting the files.  I seem to remember some sort
of conversion utility, but the SpeedScript format is pretty easy: the
text is stored as screen characters, so pretty much all you have to
do is translate characters 0-31 to characters 64-95 (actually 64-95
is for PETSCII; what's ASCII, 96-127?).  Anyways, I wrote a little
conversion program many years back; I could look for it, if you're
interested (it runs on the 64, or maybe 128), but I would think that
things like tr could do the job easily.

Little speedscript load/save anecdote: way way way back in high school
I had my 64 on a card table which had metal legs and a big metal hoop
around the main table.  It was very dry where I lived, and some days
I'd run upstairs to get something and when I got back to the computer,
I'd often get a little static shock, from touching the table.  This had
the curious effect of doing strange things to the computer, in particular
disabling certain keys.  So one winter I wrote a big history paper, and 
after an hour or two went upstairs for a drink, came back down, and -- SNAP!
Uh-oh, thinks I.  Sure enough, some keys were disabled.  After offering
suitable sacrifices to the 8-bit gods, I pressed F8 to pleasepleaseplease 
save all my work -- whhheeeew, that one still worked.  But then SpeedScript 
asks, "(T)ape or (D)isk?"  Guess what one of the disabled keys was?

P still worked, so I think I printed it, and then did something lame like
attach the last few paragraphs with scotch tape.

I haven't used SpeedScript in a long time, but I did steal the charset
for use in the Cool World title screen.

What the heck, here's another SpeedScript anecdote: when I moved way
out to Chicago, for graduate school, a guy from the school posted to 
comp.sys.cbm, offering his boxes of warez and old 64 stuff to anyone
who would convert his old SpeedScript files to a modern format.  So I
wrote him, and said sure, and figured out the file format and wrote the
little conversion program.  It turned out the guy only lived a block or
two away from me, and eventually we met.  We started hauling stuff,
and got to talking; at one point he mentioned where he grew up.  We
stopped, stared at one another for a moment in silence...  "Canton?"
"Steve?"  This was my friend's brother's friend, from a different city,
who I used to trade warez with and talk about lots of 64 stuff with, 
whom I hadn't spoken to since eighth grade.  Some of the warez in the 
box were ones I had given him, and hadn't seen in years.  Small world, eh?

I bet nobody gets these kinds of stories using Word.

-Steve
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