I know it is probably strange, but I really do like typing on the C128 keyboard. It is something that I miss, when working on the laptop. I would really like to be using my C128 more for typing documents, for the blog and such. But the problem is getting the text into a format that I can use on-line.

One method of getting my documents from the C128 over to my laptop, for getting onto the Net, is to use VICE. But, that's been a challenge for me, as well, because the word processors I typically use on the C128 do not export “clean” text that I can import into a PC text editor. I really don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling with the ASCII data dumps in order to get it into a readable state. The less clean-up work, the better.

But, recently, I did a video review of some nice C128 software that I found on Loadstar. One of those applications was a word processor, called ArcheType. It is an easy-to-use word processor with some useful features and I liked how it performed and looked on the C128. The icing on the cake, as I have since found out, is that ArcheType also prints out (or exports, in this case) very clean ASCII text. When I print my documents to .txt files in VICE, the document layout even remains in-tact.

So, with just a few steps, to get my ArcheType document off of the physical floppy disk, onto an SD card and into my laptop, I have found a not-so-annoying way of using my C128 to create more of my on-line documents; like this blog post, for example.

To get the file into an ASCII file, which I can cut and paste into the wiki editor on the web browser, I just “print” the document in ArcheType via VICE. VICE then creates a PRINT.DUMP file and I open that up in the web browser. It's a few extra steps, but, I think it is worth it, if it allows me to use my C128 for word processing again, from time to time.

If you'd like to learn more about ArcheType, here's a link to a Review I just did about it (which was also composed in ArcheType).

Additional Note: I also use my Retroswitch Flyer to store my D64 image, which contains my ArcheType text files. It connects to my laptop, which already acts as a disk server for the Flyer. This way, I don't even have to employ the use of an SD Card, or other physical storage device. I just upload the disk image from the Flyer back to the laptop (server) when I'm done composing my document, and then open it up in VICE. It's actually pretty easy.

Composed with Archetype on my C128