Scriptware Discontinued
The DOS-era speed demon, gone so quietly nobody noted the year.
At a glance
- Maker
- Cinematrix (Warren Sashen)
- First release
- —
- Discontinued
- —
- Status
- Discontinued — the app is dead
- Platforms
- DOS, Windows
- Pricing
- Was commercial (DOS/Windows era pricing)
- Native formats
- — own binary format (undocumented)
What it is
Scriptware was the fast, keyboard-driven formatter of the DOS and early-Windows era — popular with TV writers for its speed. Development stopped in the early 2000s; the site survives only in web archives.
What people are saying
The good
Its reputation was pure speed and keyboard flow: just type and the formatting appears. Working writers credited it with sold scripts, and the WGA West’s journal rated it four stars in its day.
The bad
It never left the DOS/Windows world as the industry standardized elsewhere, development stopped around 2000, and .scr files were left with no supported path forward. Its fossilized early-2000s website lingers online like a time capsule.
Paraphrased consensus from user reviews, forums and retrospective coverage across the web.
Where it came from
Built by Warren Sashen’s Cinematrix through the late 1980s–90s; its site carried copyrights through 2009. Its Mac customers were famously referred to Final Draft — accidental kingmaking.
Worth knowing
Cinematrix’s answer to Mac users was literally “go buy Final Draft” — and some did.