A Moscow-based software house called Troll has announced the official release of ChiWriter, a word processing package that is popular among the scientific community in the former Soviet Union. Previously, all sales were of pirate copies. Horstmann Software Design of San Jose, California has given Troll a licence to sell a localised version of ChiWriter version 4.02 for a moderate rouble price. Chiwriter enables a user to design mathematical and chemical formulae and to display them in a what you see is what you get format on screen. The package comes complete with Russian language documentation and on-line help, as well Cyrillic fonts libraries for dot matrix and laser-quality printing. Troll and Horstmann Software Design say version 4.1 of ChiWriter will be unveiled simultaneously in Moscow and San Jose early next year. Chiwriter will be sold for 3,000 roubles; a Greek/Hebrew supplement costs 1,400 roubles and annual user group membership is 1,000 roubles. In a bid to combat piracy, Troll says it will register, and so ligitimise, illegal copies for around 600 roubles.
