Axword is a text editor for the SAM Coupé, created in 1994 by Aleš Keprt under the Axoft label. It was the first attempt by a then 16-year-old student at a program of this scale written in assembly, and by a twist of fate it was never fully finished and published. Axword was an attempt to answer the unsatisfactory situation in the field of text editors for this computer - a machine that positively cries out to be used for writing text. A disk drive, plenty of RAM, high screen resolution, built-in printer support - and yet not even a passably usable editor was ever created for the SAM Coupé.
Today, from the vantage point of 2026, the need for SAM Coupé text editors is of course small, and this is now purely nostalgia and memories of a 32-year-old past, of the days of youth and of discovering the possibilities of assembly language and the Comet Assembler. I explored and summarised the situation of the time in the field of text editors in a specialist article published at the beginning of 1994 in the then-popular Czech magazine ZX Magazín. You will also find the original text of the article on this disk in the file Proxima (in the original Czech version as well as an English translation).
In short, no other editor for the SAM Coupé ever supported even the few basic functions:
- Large memory for long text
- Support for Czech characters
- Support for the font styles common on period printers (bold, etc.)
Axword fills this gap. Originally it was also planned to support additional languages (Slovak and Polish) and additional printers, but those parts were never finished - and as for printers, they most likely will never be needed anymore.
The only important thing Axword lacks is support for block operations (copy-paste), although at least a simplified solution is available, as you can read further on in this [help file] text.