#Humor
Well, actually it CAN read and write a number of formats (but not the most
recent ones) and it can indeed imitate both the keystrokes and menu structure
of other word processors, but that's incidental to those who really used it
since, other than as a transition aid, Sprint's real power was/is its infinite
personal customizability.
The two main programs, SP.COM and SPFMT.EXE are not open. All the rest is,
including all the library and driver files, macro files, screen menu and
command files, etc. These are all in ASCI and anybody with any knowledge of how
things work can customize and update to his or her heart's content. Source on
the two closed files isn't the problem, it's the fact that Borland won't permit
playing with them. There is in fact an underground of Sprint programmer types
who are developing a hyper-Sprint clone right now (using Borland's own Sprint
forum as their point of contact) so it's not a dead issue, and since all the
library and driver files are wide open the amount of improvement and
upgradability is quite large and impressive and continues on its own.
I'm afraid Borland hasn't been playing the game all that well of late in any
area, as you might know. QPro win was very late and while it's an excellent
spreadsheet with many unique features it's coming in to compete head to head
with Excel, which has the same relative position in Windows spreadsheets that
WordPerfect does in DOS. Paradox Win is also excellent, and has a crack at
things, but there's fierce competition on that level and it might be some time
before any winner emerges, and programmers have been waiting for dBase for
Windows, which is now not supposed to ship until the end of 1993, which may
well be too late. Ironically, the one area that is mature enough that it should
have a winner but still has none is word processing; Borland chose not to
compete in the one area that's really up for grabs. On the other hand, they
refuse to sell or license Sprint to anyone else. In the meantime, Support
Group, Inc. bought XYWrite and will have DOS and Windows versions ready to go
in a matter of months. Sprint is superior to XYW in a number of areas but it
won't get to compete.
You wonder what goes through their minds….