Lexicon was a text editor

Text editor

A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....

 / word processor

Word processor

A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....

 MS-DOS

MS-DOS

MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...

 program that was extremely popular in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 at the end of 1980s and in 1990s. Some estimate that Lexicon was illegally installed on 95% of all Russian PCs. The last version for MS-DOS was 3.0. Later Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 versions were developed, but they were not popular.

Lexicon was originally developed at the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR by Ye. N. Veselov.

Lexicon could produce and edit plain text

Plain text

In computing, plain text is the contents of an ordinary sequential file readable as textual material without much processing, usually opposed to formatted text....

 files; at the same time, it could enrich them with various formatting codes (which all started with the character 255 (0xFF)). Lexicon also included a spell checker

Spell checker

In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,...

.

Lexicon supported operations with linear and rectangular blocks; it also had convenient means for drawing tables with box drawing characters

Box drawing characters

Box drawing characters, also known as line drawing characters, or pseudographics, are widely used in text user interfaces to draw various frames and boxes...

.

Lexicon could work with both osnovnaya and alternativnaya

Code page 866

Code page 866 is a code page used under MS-DOS to write Cyrillic script. It is based on the "alternative character set" of GOST 19768-87...

character sets. It also included its own screen and printer fonts and keyboard drivers for use with non-russified computers.