Software Reviews : Executive Writer and Executive Filer (formerly "The Idea Processor") Staff review Publisher: Paperback Software International,2612 Eighth St.,Berkeley,CA 94710 (telephone: 415-644-2116) Year of Publication: 1984 Materials: Writer,146-page manual and disk;Filer,198-page manual and disk. Price: Writer,$69.95;Filer,$49.95. Companion graphics product (not reviewed),Draw-It,$29.95. Thirty percent educational discount on orders for twenty or more products (titles may be mixed) Machine Specificity: IBM PC,XT,AT,and Pcjr. System Requirements: 256k memory on Pcjr,192k memory otherwise for Filer,128k for Writer;two double-sided drives for Filer,one for Writer;graphics card for Draw-It module. Effectiveness: Excellent User-Friendliness: Excellent Documentation: Excellent

Summary: This product has been widely hailed as a breakthrough for academic researchers. It contains a powerful word processor integrated with a cardfile database system. Moreover, the "cards" can contain graphics and spreadsheets as well as text. All are retrievable from user-supplied keywords. Thus, the Executive Writer/Filer allows the researcher relatively free-form entry of text, graphics, and spreadsheet information, and allows easy retrieval of this information, and its integration in word-processed reports. The package originally sold for $295 by Idea Ware, but is now available from Adam Osbourne's new publishing company for only $120.