Ansible Information

Latest AnsibleIndex Plus, our book indexing software for use with Amstrad PCW LocoScript (all versions) is now a free download. No support is available. How to move the programs to a suitable Amstrad PCW disk is your problem! (Christmas 2006) The APE Plus Apricot Emulator and its included Apedrive Apricot Disk Copier are now free downloads. No support is available. About Ansible Ansible Information is a tiny and informally run software company, consisting of David Langford with occasional help from sleeping partner Christopher Priest. We are professional writers, and our programs have mostly been written to help or at least amuse other writers. It all began in the mid-1980s with add-on utilities to extend the power of the SuperWriter word processor that was bundled with the old non-PC-compatible Apricot computers. (This eventually led to a full-fledged Apricot emulator allowing most Apricot software to be moved to the PC platform.) We did the same for LocoScript on the Amstrad PCW series: thousands of people who wrote books in LocoScript prepared the indexes with our AnsibleIndex, and when LocoScript moved to the PC with LocoScript Pro we followed with AnsibleIndex Pro. You can fax Ansible at 0705 080 1534; full contact details (for David Langford) here. At our last "downsizing" we ceased to accept credit cards but have now set up a business account with PayPal. All our PC products can now be ordered via PayPal -- see the Price List and Order Form. We deal by mail order and on-line purchase only, and provide support by post, fax or -- most conveniently -- e-mail. No personal callers at the Ansible address, please. Amstrad PCW Links All David Langford's columns from 8000 Plus/PCW Plus magazine (1986-1996) and PCW Today Cliff Lawson's Famous Amstrad Site LocoScript Software PCW Support Site (Ian MacDonald) The PCW Today magazine site has vanished. Apricot Links All David Langford's columns from the late great Apricot File magazine "ai" was Ansible's old customer newsletter. A sample: issue 5c. A Good Apricot Web Site

Products Ailink ... a Windows 95/98/ME translation utility to rescue documents from the old Amstrad PCW LocoScript format. It can read files prepared in any version of LocoScript for the PCW -- 1, 2, 3 and 4 -- and convert them without losing your underline, italics boldface etc marks to MS Rich Text Format, readable by Word, WordPerfect and other modern word processors. Also included is Ansible's CP/M disk reader for the PC -- if your documents are on 3½" PCW disks, the Ailink package is all you need to move them to usable PC format. • Windows XP does not allow PCW disk copying, but we can still convert your disks for you: see the note on the Ailink page. • If your documents are on the older 3" disks, Ailink may still be helpful provided you can move them to 3½" PCW disks -- e.g. in a friend's PCW that has both types of drive. If not, we have to recommend SD Microsystems' LocoLink, which is a bit expensive but includes hardware to connect your PCW to the PC for transfer, or their 3" disk file transfer service. See the LocoScript web site or e-mail SD Microsystems. • For documents written on the Amstrad PcW16 (which did not use either CP/M disks or LocoScript), we have an alternative solution. AnsibleIndex Plus ... prepares custom book indexes from documents written in all versions of LocoScript: versions 1, 2, 3 and 4 for the Amstrad PCW. All versions come with AnsibleCheck (for multi-document word counts) and the infamous Grease vocabulary analyser, which reveals more than you wished to know about your use of words. AnsibleIndex Pro ... prepares custom book indexes from documents written in LocoScript Pro for the PC, both version 1 and version 2 (though not LocoScript PC Easy). A single PC program provides all the facilities of the several programs in the Amstrad PCW package -- including multi-document word counts and Grease analysis -- plus extras like concordance-based indexing and built-in index merging. A.I.Q. ... a frivolous-seeming "random text generator" program which has its serious uses for writers -- colliding ideas at random (or almost at random) can suggest new plots and developments. But mostly it's for fun. PC DOS, Windows 3.x, and Windows 95/98 (or later) versions. APE Plus Apricot Emulator and Disk Copier. APE Plus the Ansible Apricot emulator which runs old Apricot software (that is, programs from the non-PC-compatible Apricots of the 1980s) on modern PCs. We though its time had passed, since virtually all the old Apricots have long been scrapped, and we are no longer prepared to support or develop APE. Enquiries continue, though, and the package is now available at reduced price with an on-disk manual formatted for web browsers. • Apedrive, which provides only the Apricot disk copying facilities of APE Plus, is available in similar format. Grease for Windows ... the vocabulary analysis program originally included as a light-hearted extra in AnsibleIndex has taken on a life of its own. This Windows version -- with full Help file -- accepts ASCII documents saved from any word processor, and reveals even more about your use of words. Dare you confront listings of your favourite words (after common neutral words like "the" or "and" have been helpfully screened out)? Or of the longest words you use, shown in order of decreasing length? Well may you shudder. SFVIEW ... something a little bit different. The world's leading science fiction reference book, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ed. John Clute and Peter Nicholls, came out in a CD-ROM edition from Grolier in 1995 -- with a truly lousy interface. Ansible Information wrote a much better Windows 95/98/XP etc viewer that transforms, corrects and expands the user-hostile CD-ROM.