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:1. I believe that you mean a "type ahead" buffer, not "look ahead". In fact, Companion doesn't use such a buffer at all; the enormous speed of the screen display routine makes this unnecessary. As you have noticed, Companion will never miss a keystroke.<be>
:2. Companion also allows you to delete blocks of text. This seems to be important, since you earlier observed that no single command will delete a line.<be>
:3. The numerical comparison of text buff er buffer sizes for programs which operate using different algorithms is sometimes misleading. In addition to the 18,000 character text buffer, Companion uses a separate 1,200 byte line length buff er to keep track of line lengths, and will (in the rare case that a text users more than 1,200 screen lines) logically synthesize additional line lengths. TI-Writer may put the line lengths (and maybe a flag with each one) into the text buffer. Also, Companion's left margin declaration allows the program to avoid storing spaces to represent the left margin of each line separately. For TI-Writer this may amount to at least 4,000 characters in a large (say, 500 line) text. Additionally, TI-Writer may place various extraneous flags in the text buffer; I don't know.<br>:4. An option: I think that it is worth mentioning that "G" is easy to remember since it stands for "graphics," and that "H" stands for "horizontal tab" (not "T," as one might reasonably expect).<br>:5. The space bar should not really be considered a cursor motion key. Also, all of the cursor motion keys (in fact, all keystrokes period) repeat automatically, and the repetition gradually accelerates.
There are a few things in the reviewwhich I think are worthy of expansion. I think that calling Companion a"computerized typewriter" is notdoing the design much justice, particularlyin this age of techno-jargon. Iwould argue that Companion is a true"text processor" or "concept processor,"while TI-Writer is a line editorwith a reformat command. To me, thisis the crucial design difference. (Trydeleting, moving, or copying a singleword to see the difference.) If I were in the word processingmarket, I think that based upon ther e v i ew w o u l d p r o b a b l y b u yreview would probably buy TI-Writer. <small>'''Allan Swett'''</small> '''Ed: ''' Just to make things perfectlyclear, I have been using Companionfor all my correspondence and reviewwriting since receiving it. I continue touse TI-Writer only for form letters.This is a personal choice dn on my partbased essentially on the conclusionsthat are drawn in the review regardingits ease of use as a writing tool.
