From: sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 17 Aug 2001 09:10:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 8 Message-ID: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 38.136.62.191 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 998064635 30041 127.0.0.1 (17 Aug 2001 16:10:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Aug 2001 16:10:35 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87726 I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it, and how it became the predominant word processing software on the market). One particular area of interest is the incremental changes in each release of Word. I have found some messages in the archives about the history of word processing and thought this would be a good place to throw the question out. If you do know any answers, or if you know of any books that discuss the topic, please email me or post a response. Thanks. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> From: Tom Buskey Message-ID: Lines: 21 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0807 (Gnus v5.8.7) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: /KiKeXrmJDYwWa8U6FIs1ymbldxwMjtd7KNuVaU31Z+7GUpsxhLMTpDQDPDeq9hNx2g8qjCM3N8j!q8ts54tppaoNRMShb+w4flqMBrUCjQ7sJLBa8+Z+gRagRobIMVC4wAcKEaaVWmwX/jEwhIsiEA//!/mj6XuM29aHW4g== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:34:04 GMT Distribution: world Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:34:04 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!paloalto-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!paloalto-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87749 sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) writes: > I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it, > and how it became the predominant word processing software on the > market). One particular area of interest is the incremental changes in > each release of Word. I have found some messages in the archives about > the history of word processing and thought this would be a good place > to throw the question out. If you do know any answers, or if you know > of any books that discuss the topic, please email me or post a > response. Thanks. I'd say most of Word's success came from bundling w/ Excel & Powerpoint. The purchaser sees $200 for Word Perfect, $200 for Lotus 123 or $400 for Office which has Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. They get Powerpoint for "free". This occured on Macintosh, certainly. No spreadsheet ever challenged Excel and Word was good enough compared to the other WPs out there. (I'm remembering Office 4.x on System 7). I don't imagine the PC version of office really got going until there was a windows version of word. ###### Message-ID: <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 22:23:32 -0400 From: Tim Shoppa Organization: Trailing Edge Technology X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03Gold (X11; I; OpenVMS V7.2 AlphaServer 1200 5/533 4MB) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 35 NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.73.218.130 X-Trace: reader0.news.uu.net 998101412 25606 63.73.218.130 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!news-reader.ntrnet.net!uunet!ash.uu.net!spool0.news.uu.net!reader0.news.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87692 Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: > > I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it, > and how it became the predominant word processing software on the > market). One particular area of interest is the incremental changes in Just for starters, what platforms/OS's did the first versions of MS Word run on? I first used it around 1987 or so, and at the time it was on Apple Macintosh's and was a "high end" solution for desktop publishing. It wasn't until many years later that I was even aware there was a PC-clone version. If you want to know about pre-Word word processing on micros, you *cannot* start with MS Word. You have to go back at least to Electric Pencil in the late 70's. An interesting subchapter was the "TV Typewriter" construction articles from the 1970's. See, it's a typewriter keyboard! And can I hook it to my TV! And I can put letters up there! (No way to print it out, and no way to save it, but hey, you can't have everything...) And in the minicomputer world, you of course have to start with TECO and talk about markup with Runoff... I'm sure that some IBM mainframers will chime in here about the markup languages used on their machines, which (as I understand it) evolved into SGML and HTML. And before that you have to go to paper-tape based word processing and typesetting. The Smithsonian has a *very* good display on the evolution of American typesetting right now, starting from all- mechanical machines that are over a decade old running up through electro-photo-mechanical ones from the middle of this century and electronic ones from the 1970's and 1980's. Tim. ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 72 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 03:41:53 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.225.103 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 998106113 199.174.225.103 (Fri, 17 Aug 2001 20:41:53 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 20:41:53 PDT X-Received-Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 20:39:15 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87681 Tim Shoppa writes: > And in the minicomputer world, you of course have to start with TECO > and talk about markup with Runoff... I'm sure that some IBM > mainframers will chime in here about the markup languages used on > their machines, which (as I understand it) evolved into SGML and > HTML. stu at cambridge scientific center did "script" in the '60s ... which had a runoff like syntax. Then in the early '70s the people at CSC added "GML" markup syntax to script .... although "script" could still be used in either runoff like syntax or markup syntax. when ibm pc came out ... somebody did a port of the script ... effectively same formating that could be done on the mainframe. and of course "GML" ... which people think stands for generalized markup language ... were actually the first letter of the last names of the three people that worked on it. script wasn't a word-processor itself ... it handled document formating. script/gml documents used some other editor ... typically non-WYSIWYG. CMS had a number of editors ... starting with the standard CMS editor in the mid-60s, and in the 70s the were a whole slew of 3720 full-screen editors, edgar, ned, red, xedit, etc. one of the big fullscreen battles in the early 70s was whether scroll-up & scroll-down commands were a reference point with respect to the document in the window or the human using the window to view the document). The "up" command tended to move the cursor up one line towards the top of the screen ... however "scroll-up" could mean that the document "moved up" (in which case the cursor & window would be moving towards the end of the document) or "scroll-up" could mean that the window (& cursor) moved up with respect to the document (towards the beginning of the document). SGML User's Group history http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/sgmlhist0.html that is in addition to Goldfarb's history at: http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/roots.htm random refs: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#43 Bloat, elegance, simplicity and other irrelevant concepts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#55 How Do the Old Mainframes Compare to Today's Micros? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#24 old manuals http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#9 HELP! Chronology of word-processing http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#26 IA64 Self Virtualizable? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#16 S/360 operating systems geneaology http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#21 Reviving the OS/360 thread (Questions about OS/360) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#42 Enter fonts (was Re: Unix case-sensitivity: how did it originate? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#43 Enter fonts (was Re: Unix case-sensitivity: how did it originate? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#91 Documentation query http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#197 Computing As She Really Is. Was: Re: Life-Advancing Work of Timothy Berners-Lee http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#8 Computer of the century http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#34 IBM 360 Manuals on line ? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#30 internal corporate network, misc. http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#30 Secure Operating Systems http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#0 What good and old text formatter are there ? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#1 What good and old text formatter are there ? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#23 Is Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the web? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#50 IBM 705 computer manual http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#88 Unix hard links http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#42 IBM was/is: Imitation... http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#73 CS instruction, when introducted ? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#54 DSRunoff; was Re: TECO Critique http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#9 VM: checking some myths. http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#34 D http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#46 Whom Do Programmers Admire Now??? -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### From: roggblake@inamme.com (Roger Blake) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> X-No-Archive: Yes Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Lines: 11 Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 03:42:24 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.50.164.178 X-Complaints-To: noc@capu.net X-Trace: news.abs.net 998106144 64.50.164.178 (Fri, 17 Aug 2001 23:42:24 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 23:42:24 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!news.abs.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87662 On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:34:04 GMT, Tom Buskey wrote: >I'd say most of Word's success came from bundling w/ Excel & >Powerpoint. The purchaser sees $200 for Word Perfect, $200 for Lotus A contributing factor may have been the delay in Word Perfect having a decent Windows version. (The Windows-based releases were pretty awful.) By the time WP for Windows caught up the game was already lost. -- Roger Blake (remove second "g" and second "m" from address for email) ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Michael Black Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Forwarded: by - (DeleGate/7.3.0) Lines: 75 Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 00:36:02 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.168.100.62 X-Trace: nnrp1.uunet.ca 998112512 198.168.100.62 (Sat, 18 Aug 2001 01:28:32 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 01:28:32 EDT Organization: UUNET Canada News Reader Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cyclone.bc.net!news.uunet.ca!nnrp1.uunet.ca.POSTED!gloria.cam.org!blackm00 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87733 On Fri, 17 Aug 2001, Tim Shoppa wrote: > Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: > > > > I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it, > > and how it became the predominant word processing software on the > > market). One particular area of interest is the incremental changes in > > Just for starters, what platforms/OS's did the first versions > of MS Word run on? I first used it around 1987 or so, and at the > time it was on Apple Macintosh's and was a "high end" solution > for desktop publishing. It wasn't until many years later that > I was even aware there was a PC-clone version. > > If you want to know about pre-Word word processing on micros, you > *cannot* start with MS Word. You have to go back at least to Electric > Pencil in the late 70's. > [stuff deleted] I am certainly puzzled over the question, whether he is doing a history of MS Word, or word processors (and thinks it started with Word). I just dug out my copy of The "Whole Earth Software Catalog" (the book that went with the short-lived Whole Earth Software Review), which happens to be handy, and I remembered it had something about MS Word. The copyright is 1984. It has a review of Microsoft Word, but to my surprise, it seems to have started on the IBM (it doesn't say MS-DOS, but "IBM PC/XT compatibles" amd the PCjr). In a box about details, it lists version 1.1 for the IBM first, at a price of $375; $475 with mouse. Says it needs a whopping 128K, "works best with a color graphics card, better with a Hercules graphics card". The Mac version was $195. And it was apparently copy protected. Most of the review seems to be specifically about the MSDOS version, with a bit about the Mac version at the end. Apparently, the Mac version was not as extensive as the MSDOS one; no style sheets until the Mac 512K, and only four windows. One could easily find the beginnings of Word by looking through old issues of Byte, now that we have an idea of when Word came on the market. Probably an article on the Electric Pencil, or an interview with Michael Shrayer, would give insite on it's forerunners. Either he figured out the idea by himself (and that does not mean he originated the concept of word processors), or had come in contact with something before, and decided he wanted it for himself. Come to think of it, wasn't a word processor part of Doug Englebart's work? I was reading a book just recently that covered that period, but I can't place what book it was. I remember, it would have been Steven Levy's "Insanely Great" that I found at a clearance. When it came out in 1994, it did not seem worth spending the money for a hardcover book of such a slim book. It's about the birth of the Mac, but it goes off onto tangents before getting to that point, and is worth reading. And certainly, wordprocessing (as opposed to text editing followed by a text processor) must have been part of the work done at Xerox Parc, as embodied in the Altos. Michael ###### From: Eric Fischer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 18 Aug 2001 05:14:10 GMT Lines: 24 Message-ID: <9lktj2$sag$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVY5xfrHd7Glw7FLaO6ArwB+1sBShI8bTD+snJsg8FWLosXpLPLfCvg0 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 18 Aug 2001 05:14:10 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Originator: enf@enteract.com (Eric Fischer) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87684 Tim Shoppa wrote: > Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: > > > I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it, > > and how it became the predominant word processing software on the > > market). One particular area of interest is the incremental changes in > > Just for starters, what platforms/OS's did the first versions > of MS Word run on? I'm pretty sure the first version was for the IBM PC. I first used it on an IBM PC in, I think, 1984. I have the manual for version 3.0, which is dated 1985, so versions 1 and 2 must have been at least a bit earlier than that. A Macintosh version was introduced at the same time as the Mac at the beginning of 1984. > And in the minicomputer world, you of course have to start with TECO > and talk about markup with Runoff... And on the IBM 7090 before that, under CTSS, the MEMO/MODIFY editor and the DITTO formatter. eric ###### Message-ID: <3B7E1F68.F1A58669@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 05:57:29 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998114249 24.179.111.125 (Fri, 17 Aug 2001 22:57:29 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 22:57:29 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87735 Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: > > I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it, > and how it became the predominant word processing software on the > market). One particular area of interest is the incremental changes in > each release of Word. I have found some messages in the archives about > the history of word processing and thought this would be a good place > to throw the question out. If you do know any answers, or if you know > of any books that discuss the topic, please email me or post a > response. Thanks. > One very popular word processor, especially in the day of CP/M popularity, was WordStar. IMHO *no* history of word processing would be complete without a chapter or two on WordStar. -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> Organization: UC Santa Cruz CIS/CE From: eugene@cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) NNTP-Posting-Host: sundance.cse.ucsc.edu Message-ID: <3b7e0f00$1@news.ucsc.edu> Date: 17 Aug 2001 23:45:20 -0800 X-Trace: 17 Aug 2001 23:45:20 -0800, sundance.cse.ucsc.edu Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!171.64.14.106!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!news.ucsc.edu!eugene Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87656 In article , Michael Black wrote: >Come to think of it, wasn't a word processor part of Doug >Englebart's work? NLS, but it was merely ASCII on the screens. It also had irksome properties of DEC-10 (I/O) typeahead. >And certainly, wordprocessing (as opposed to text editing >followed by a text processor) must have been part of >the work done at Xerox Parc, as embodied in the Altos. Word came from the Alto editor Bravo. Gates hired Chuck Symoni (sp) (as he hires more and more ex-PARC people). This should be on the MS research web site. My earliest editors were Wylbur on IBM mainframes and a little later INed from ISC. [I gloss over working with TECO, COL, and a few others.] I grew to like how Wylbur and INed used the unused white space on the right for formatting columns of data. I have always found the way Bravo, NLS, and Word (and emacs and vi) always treat the text as a stream. ###### From: Bernie Cosell Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 07:29:44 -0400 Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 21 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87765 Tim Shoppa wrote: } Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: } > } > I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it, } > and how it became the predominant word processing software on the } > market). One particular area of interest is the incremental changes in [...] } If you want to know about pre-Word word processing on micros, you } *cannot* start with MS Word. You have to go back at least to Electric } Pencil in the late 70's. Or there's always "Expensive Typewriter" from about 1961 on the PDP-1. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- ###### Message-ID: <3B7E9D1B.3E69@despam.autobahn.mb.ca> From: Harvey Taylor X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 24 Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 14:55:09 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.161.67.90 X-Complaints-To: admin@mts.net X-Trace: news2.mts.net 998146509 207.161.67.90 (Sat, 18 Aug 2001 09:55:09 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 09:55:09 CDT Organization: MTS Internet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!news-in.mts.net!news2.mts.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87766 In article <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com>, Tim Shoppa wrote: > >[...] > An interesting subchapter was the "TV Typewriter" construction articles > from the 1970's. See, it's a typewriter keyboard! And can I hook it > to my TV! And I can put letters up there! (No way to print it out, > and no way to save it, but hey, you can't have everything...) > Indeed. The famous Radio Electronics articles that inspired many. Don Lancaster is still around, still as acerbically opinionated as ever. See: http://www.tinaja.com/ -het -- No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. UDHR:Article 5: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/udhr.html H.E. Taylor http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/ ###### From: Charles Eicher Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 18 Aug 2001 17:43:49 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 19 Message-ID: <9ln2450qf8@drn.newsguy.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-564.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: Direct Read News v2.80 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.lotsanews.com.MISMATCH!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!drn Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87792 In article <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com>, Tim says... > >And before that you have to go to paper-tape based word processing and >typesetting. The Smithsonian has a *very* good display on >the evolution of American typesetting right now, starting from all- >mechanical machines that are over a decade old Wowee, mechanical machines a whole DECADE old! I guess I belong in a museum, I was doing typesetting 35 years ago. Anyone want to buy my vintage 5x7" letterpress and about 800 lbs of lead type? >running up through >electro-photo-mechanical ones from the middle of this century >and electronic ones from the 1970's and 1980's. > >Tim. ###### From: Charles Eicher Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 18 Aug 2001 17:49:34 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 23 Message-ID: <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-612.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: Direct Read News v2.80 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!cyclone-sjo1.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!newsfeed.telusplanet.net!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!drn Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87801 In article , roggblake@inamme.com says... > >On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:34:04 GMT, Tom Buskey >wrote: >>I'd say most of Word's success came from bundling w/ Excel & >>Powerpoint. The purchaser sees $200 for Word Perfect, $200 for Lotus > >A contributing factor may have been the delay in Word Perfect having >a decent Windows version. (The Windows-based releases were pretty awful.) >By the time WP for Windows caught up the game was already lost. Negatory. I was intimately involved in the sales front in the WordPerfect vs. Word war, long before Windows shipped. The battle raged on, long after Windows shipped, many users preferred the straight clean text interface of WP, it was particularly popular amongst professional typists and legal offices. Windows was just considered useless interface clutter to most pros. Of course, Word became popular with amateurs like the hollywood screenwriters that were a big chunk of my clients. The user interface of Word was basically garbage for several years beyond the release of Windows 1.0. I don't think they really got it straightened out until about Win 3.0. Until then, it was strictly a matter of preferences as to what kind of crap UI you preferred. ###### From: roggblake@inamme.com (Roger Blake) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> X-No-Archive: Yes Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Lines: 14 Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 04:17:28 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.50.164.178 X-Complaints-To: noc@capu.net X-Trace: news.abs.net 998194648 64.50.164.178 (Sun, 19 Aug 2001 00:17:28 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 00:17:28 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!news.abs.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87785 On 18 Aug 2001 17:49:34 -0700, Charles Eicher wrote: >Negatory. I was intimately involved in the sales front in the WordPerfect vs. >Word war, long before Windows shipped. The battle raged on, long after Windows The main problem I saw with the early WP for Windows releases was very poor integration into the Windows environment, particularly with regard to printers and fonts. My own preference is for plain ASCII documents prepared in console-based text editors such as vi and edt. -- Roger Blake (remove second "g" and second "m" from address for email) ###### From: Shez Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 05:23:30 +0100 Organization: Last Stop Cafe Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7E1F68.F1A58669@ev1.net> Reply-To: Shez NNTP-Posting-Host: xerez.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: xerez.demon.co.uk:193.237.22.174 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 998195646 nnrp-10:24787 NO-IDENT xerez.demon.co.uk:193.237.22.174 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Turnpike/6.00-Beta-6-S () Lines: 26 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!bullseye.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!xerez.demon.co.uk!news Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87829 Charles Richmond wrote: >Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: >One very popular word processor, especially in the day of CP/M popularity, >was WordStar. IMHO *no* history of word processing would be complete >without a chapter or two on WordStar. Yes, Wordstar was the de facto standard WP for a long time. Everyone else felt obliged to use the Wordstar control keystrokes in their own offerings, or at least offer them as an alternate set for those who were accustomed to Wordstar. Everything on the was done by CTRL-keys, usually it was a two keystroke combination, the first being a control key which determined the type of operation (e.g. block manipulation) and the second, non-control, keystroke determined which one it was. If you delayed pressing the second key, a menu appeared (menus were full-screen affairs in those days, so you didn't want them popping up unless you couldn't remember the required keystroke. The fact that Wordstar *had* a menu system for accessing its wp commands was probably one of main selling points of it, and was something that everyone else soon copied.) -Shez. -- ______________________________________________________ When all other means of communication fail, try words. ______________________________________________________ Take a break at the Last Stop Cafe: http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/ ###### Message-ID: <3B7F5F1D.577B4B3D@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> <9ln2450qf8@drn.newsguy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 28 Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 04:41:33 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998196093 24.179.111.125 (Sat, 18 Aug 2001 21:41:33 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 21:41:33 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87847 Charles Eicher wrote: > > In article <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com>, Tim says... > > > > >And before that you have to go to paper-tape based word processing and > >typesetting. The Smithsonian has a *very* good display on > >the evolution of American typesetting right now, starting from all- > >mechanical machines that are over a decade old > > Wowee, mechanical machines a whole DECADE old! I guess I belong in a museum, I > was doing typesetting 35 years ago. > That is *right*, Mr. Eicher. Go immediately to the Smithsonian and turn yourself in before it is too late... Don't make them come and *get* you!!! (;-)) > > Anyone want to buy my vintage 5x7" > letterpress and about 800 lbs of lead type? > Maybe you can get the EPA to buy it just to do away with all that poisonous *lead*!!! Failing that, *donate* it to the Smithsonian and then take a hefty tax write-off for it... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (lwin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 19 Aug 2001 05:32:51 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS Lines: 15 Message-ID: <9lnj23$s72@netaxs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bbs.cpcn.com Originator: root@bbs.cpcn.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.stealth.net!yellow.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!netaxs.newsread.com!bbs.cpcn.com!root Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87857 x-no-archive: yes Word Processing by machine was established before the PC came into Before the PC, were standalone word processors, such as the IBM Displaywriter and machines by independent makers. And of course before that were the popular IBM MagCard and MagTape typewriters, which used magnetic cards or magnetic tape cartridges to store documents. Before that punched card tabulating machines were used on a line-by-line basis. One documented usage was in WW II to generate a sorted directory of defense contractors and sub-contractors by component. ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 19 Aug 2001 06:13:29 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 9 Message-ID: <9lnle9$l9o$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> References: <9lnj23$s72@netaxs.com> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet10 X-Trace: freenet9.carleton.ca 998201609 21816 134.117.136.30 (19 Aug 2001 06:13:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: complaints@ncf.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Aug 2001 06:13:29 GMT X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet10.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!xcski.com!freenet-news!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87820 lwin (lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com) writes: > ... > Before that punched card tabulating machines were used on a line-by-line > basis. One documented usage was in WW II to generate a sorted directory > of defense contractors and sub-contractors by component. So that's how the DoD found out about $600 hammers. ###### From: j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 08:40:35 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 138 Message-ID: <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-346.newsdawg.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cambridge1-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!bos-service1.ext.raytheon.com!cyclone.swbell.net!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews2 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87818 On 18 Aug 2001 17:49:34 -0700, Charles Eicher wrote: >In article , roggblake@inamme.com >says... >> >>On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:34:04 GMT, Tom Buskey >>wrote: >>>I'd say most of Word's success came from bundling w/ Excel & >>>Powerpoint. The purchaser sees $200 for Word Perfect, $200 for Lotus >> >>A contributing factor may have been the delay in Word Perfect having >>a decent Windows version. (The Windows-based releases were pretty awful.) >>By the time WP for Windows caught up the game was already lost. > >Negatory. I was intimately involved in the sales front in the WordPerfect vs. >Word war, long before Windows shipped. The battle raged on, long after Windows >shipped, many users preferred the straight clean text interface of WP, it was >particularly popular amongst professional typists and legal offices. Windows was >just considered useless interface clutter to most pros. Of course, Word became >popular with amateurs like the hollywood screenwriters that were a big chunk of >my clients. The user interface of Word was basically garbage for several years >beyond the release of Windows 1.0. I don't think they really got it straightened >out until about Win 3.0. Until then, it was strictly a matter of preferences as >to what kind of crap UI you preferred. Well, I have a somewhat different take on the situation. I'm a little fuzzy on the origins of WordPerfect, but I think it was designed to be compatible with one of the dedicated word processors. (Wang possibly? And no history of word processing can really afford to ignore those dedicated machines.) Sorry, but WP's "clean" interface was clunky, function-key-centric, brain-damaged, and based on antiquated ideas of usability. It wasn't too bad with the early PC keyboards, which put the function keys in a twin row next to the main keyboard, but turned into a mess when the function keys moved up top. It WAS however the industry standard. Knowing WP was a virtual requirement for many office jobs, and that ugly interface became as natural as breathing for countless members of the work-force. In any case, WP >owned< the personal computer word processing market for a long time, despite MS's best efforts. Several key factors there. It was the corporate standard in a day when learning a new piece of software as a daunting task. The program was VERY powerful by then standards. If you could remember the right CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-F4 voodoo, it could do most anything. WP's tech support was legendary. They supported countless printers (and supported them well) in a days when printer standardization and universal print drivers were pretty much science fiction. It also had powerful mail-merge functions that important in the office environment. And even when Windows started coming on strong, WP, being DOS-based (until near the end) ran on older PCs just fine, thank-you. But the typist's friend? I think not. WordStar, for all its faults and limitations, was a MUCH better program for typists. It kept your fingers on the keyboard, and not searching around for function keys. Even MacWord and MacWrite had pretty good keyboard shortcuts for common functions that allowed the typist to keep their fingers where they needed to be. But on the DOS front, MS didn't have much to fight them with. "Word" is really a brand name that describes a number of different programs, in the way that "Ford" describes a lot of different vehicles. I'm a bit dim on the early history of Word, but I know that initially MS supported a number of different hardware platforms besides DOS. I never really tried DOS Word until maybe version 3 or 4. It was -- well -- an interesting exercise, but not much to talk about as a program. Word developed such features as limited text windowing, pop-ups, on-screen menus, context sensitive menus, enhanced on-screen text, cut-and-paste, context-sensitive help functions, and mouse support. But while it was interesting from a technical standpoint, it just was kind of a mess, less powerful than it should have been, harder to use, and it cluttered the screen. Worse, MS technical support was inferior, and their selection of printer drivers limited and often buggy. Conversions to and from WP and other formats often worked poorly, if at all. Word just didn't play well with others. Early on, MacWord was a COMPLETELY different program sharing nothing but the name with its DOS cousin. While the DOS version was ugly, MacWord was an elegant tool, relatively friendly to typists, easy to learn, fun to play with, opening vistas of annoying creativity to the masses. ("Did you have to use EVERY font you own in your cover letter?") Initially it lagged in some power-user areas, but improvement was rapid, and from the very beginning it excelled in areas that no text-based word-processor could hope to compete with. Perhaps fortunately for WP though, it would take many years for printer technology to come along that would take advantage of that power, with sufficient speed, and at a low enough price point. Word for Windows 1.0 wasn't a bad program, but it suffered greatly in comparison to the Mac version. It also was a hog on most systems of the day, requiring more processor speed, disk space, and especially memory than was commonly available. Version 2.0 was a huge improvement, and by then, hardware standards were starting to catch up. It suffered some annoying bugs, but it was a nice balance of power and usability, and featured a powerful macro-language that the Mac version couldn't really touch. That was really about the time that WP started to fade. DOS was clearly on the way out, the easier-to-lean Mac and Windows programs made the program standard less of an issue, Windows made printer support a non-issue, and WP's own reputation for support was becoming tarnished. MS really focused a lot of effort on marketing easy conversion from WP (both file conversion, which they never REALLY got right, and skills conversion through special training, help-files, and compatibility options for WP users). WP, on the other hand, was in a VERY bad position. Being the standard is Good, except when the standard is a clunky hold-over from another era that really doesn't fit into a GUI world. The jump to Windows and Mac was just too much for them. They could either write a terrible GUI port that didn't respect OS standards or really take advantage of OS features, or they could write a good port that would disenfranchise their legacy users. It was a no-win. WP held on through corporate clients that were slow to change, a huge base of older hardware that didn't run Windows or Word well (if at all), and a loyal user-base, but there was blood in the water. It was only a matter of time. WP and MS engaged in a huge feature-war that bloated both programs, often not for the better, but marketing was all about feature-charts in those days. Word for Windows suffered through creeping featuritus and some ill-advised interface changes, but ultimately, they'd already won the war. The Windows version of Word (quite intentionally I think) crept ahead of the Mac version, and MS delivered the ultimate insult to Mac users when they released a long-needed upgrade that was a TERRIBLE port of the Word for Windows code, rather than native Mac code as with previous version. This is all high-points, taken from memory. The actual war between WP and Microsoft is about as long and complicated as WWII and the Cold War combined, fought on many front simultaneously. You could write a thick book about it alone. J. Steven York - www.sff.net/people/j-steven-york - Writer Generation X Novels: Crossroads, Genogoths Bolo, Old Guard (Now in stores, from Baen Books) ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 13:02:02 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998226122snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998245837 mail2news:9105 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 34 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87850 In article <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> ceicher@inav.net "Charles Eicher" writes: > Negatory. I was intimately involved in the sales front in the WordPerfect vs. > Word war, long before Windows shipped. The battle raged on, long after Windows > shipped, many users preferred the straight clean text interface of WP, it was > particularly popular amongst professional typists and legal offices. Windows was> just considered useless interface clutter to most pros. Of course, Word became > popular with amateurs like the hollywood screenwriters that were a big chunk of > my clients. The user interface of Word was basically garbage for several years > beyond the release of Windows 1.0. I don't think they really got it straightened> out until about Win 3.0. Until then, it was strictly a matter of preferences as > to what kind of crap UI you preferred. One of the big reasons why people, IMHO, became exasperated with WordPerfect was their traitorous let-down of those who had decided to standardize on WP as a cross-platform system. My partner was an accredited trainer for WP, and she and all her clients much preferred it to Word, not least because there was WP for DOS (not to mention "for OS/2", "for VMS", etc.) as well as "for Windows". She recalls attending a big sales conference, whereat the delegates were assured that WordPerfect would continue to be developed and sold as a multi-platform word processor. When, only about a year later, they reneged on this deal and said that henceforth WP for Windows would be the only supported version, I think a lot of people decided "well, if I've got to use Windows for word processing, I might as well use the word processor that comes 'cheap' from M$". Result: the virtual demise of WP. -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 13:13:22 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998226802snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998245838 mail2news:9109 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 21 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87853 In article <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> j-steven-york@sff.net "J. Steven York" writes: > WP, on the other hand, was in a VERY bad position. Being the standard > is Good, except when the standard is a clunky hold-over from another > era that really doesn't fit into a GUI world. The jump to Windows and > Mac was just too much for them. They could either write a terrible > GUI port that didn't respect OS standards or really take advantage of > OS features, or they could write a good port that would disenfranchise > their legacy users. It was a no-win. s/win/Win/ HTH -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: Formatted Meowbot Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 19 Aug 2001 14:43:18 -0400 Organization: a tyranny of meowing fascist censor cabalists Message-ID: <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> Mail-Copies-To: nobody X-Meow: Wouf X-Face: #!n`o'kqzEiF(\CL4IR$H.F-||!S*5wv~g8~prn}Z<+F/-^?oJ:#_V#QP?G}!!yayV0]i\' GTb6:]Tic*!vjH}wm>ILhZBn8U0XEjh'l~yrjB?4Iiph5N9:kwqd/}86UTr9i|LCu]Bd)~G1R9U(qJ KOyEQK8*? User-Agent: Gnus/5.090003 (Oort Gnus v0.03) XEmacs/21.1 (Channel Islands) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 11 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87830 j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote: > Well, I have a somewhat different take on the situation. I'm a little > fuzzy on the origins of WordPerfect, but I think it was designed to be > compatible with one of the dedicated word processors. (Wang possibly? There was a Wang lookalike for PCs called Multimate. It didn't really resemble WordPerfect at all. AFAIK, SSI originally wrote WordPerfect for DG systems, and the DOS version came a bit later. ###### From: j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 20:31:45 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 25 Message-ID: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-116.newsdawg.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer1.tiac.net!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews3 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87815 On 19 Aug 2001 14:43:18 -0400, Formatted Meowbot wrote: >j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote: > >> Well, I have a somewhat different take on the situation. I'm a little >> fuzzy on the origins of WordPerfect, but I think it was designed to be >> compatible with one of the dedicated word processors. (Wang possibly? > >There was a Wang lookalike for PCs called Multimate. It didn't really >resemble WordPerfect at all. > >AFAIK, SSI originally wrote WordPerfect for DG systems, and the DOS >version came a bit later. Ah, I'd forgotten Multimate, and yes, that may have been the source of my confusion. Multimate is another program that once had a sizable following, and has now lapsed into obscurity. But it deserves its place in the history. J. Steven York - www.sff.net/people/j-steven-york - Writer Generation X Novels: Crossroads, Genogoths Bolo, Old Guard (Now in stores, from Baen Books) ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: WTS@mb.sympatico.ca Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Reply-To: wtshyman@mb.sympatico.ca Organization: No Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail, Please ! References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 Lines: 19 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 22:05:02 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.200.55.130 X-Complaints-To: admin@mts.net X-Trace: news1.mts.net 998258702 205.200.55.130 (Sun, 19 Aug 2001 17:05:02 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 17:05:02 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!cyclone.bc.net!news-in.mts.net!news1.mts.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87799 In <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com>, j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) writes: > >Worse, MS technical support was inferior, and their selection of >printer drivers limited and often buggy. Conversions to and from WP >and other formats often worked poorly, if at all. Word just didn't >play well with others. > A problem still much with us...where I work, people prefer to re-type things rather than rely on the eccentric way that things get translated between "Word" and "WordPerfect". I could see Buck Rogers stunts like tables or footnotes or bulleted lists getting smashed in the importation, but I got really despondant at the fact that TABS don't translate at all well. Bill ###### From: jimbo@radiks.net (Jim Lawless) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Message-ID: <3b807c33.29550335@news.radiks.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Lines: 16 Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 02:57:06 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.232.69.23 X-Complaints-To: abuse@onemain.com X-Trace: nntp3.onemain.com 998276049 207.232.69.23 (Sun, 19 Aug 2001 22:54:09 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 22:54:09 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news.stealth.net!63.208.208.143.MISMATCH!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!nntp3.onemain.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87803 On 17 Aug 2001 09:10:35 -0700, sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) wrote: >I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it, >and how it became the predominant word processing software on the >market). If you're looking for historical info on word-processing, the following story may interest you: http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/play/ibmstory/ Jim Lawless jimbo@radiks.net http://www.radiks.net/~jimbo ###### Message-ID: <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 35 Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 04:38:33 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.90.170.182 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998282313 12.90.170.182 (Mon, 20 Aug 2001 04:38:33 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 04:38:33 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87782 "J. Steven York" wrote: > > On 19 Aug 2001 14:43:18 -0400, Formatted Meowbot > wrote: > > >j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote: > > > >> Well, I have a somewhat different take on the situation. I'm a little > >> fuzzy on the origins of WordPerfect, but I think it was designed to be > >> compatible with one of the dedicated word processors. (Wang possibly? > > > >There was a Wang lookalike for PCs called Multimate. It didn't really > >resemble WordPerfect at all. > > > >AFAIK, SSI originally wrote WordPerfect for DG systems, and the DOS > >version came a bit later. > > Ah, I'd forgotten Multimate, and yes, that may have been the source of > my confusion. Multimate is another program that once had a sizable > following, and has now lapsed into obscurity. But it deserves its > place in the history. Years ago I had an interview with Multimate, after they had been acquired by somebody (I think it was Lotus) and were operating in the Hartford CT. area. They seemed to have something like 100 "programmers" working on it, all clustered into little bitty cubicles, and totally disorganized (by definition). I am not surprised they disappeared. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@XXXXworldnet.att.net) (Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified) mailto:uce@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest) ###### Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Organization: I do not speak for anyone but myself, and barely that. References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> From: dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: Lines: 29 Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 15:25:21 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.255.240.131 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news6-win.server.ntlworld.com 998326494 62.255.240.131 (Mon, 20 Aug 2001 17:54:54 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 17:54:54 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!algonet!newspeer.highwayone.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news6-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!127.0.0.1!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87837 In article , roggblake@inamme.com (Roger Blake) writes: > On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:34:04 GMT, Tom Buskey wrote: >>I'd say most of Word's success came from bundling w/ Excel & >>Powerpoint. The purchaser sees $200 for Word Perfect, $200 for Lotus > > A contributing factor may have been the delay in Word Perfect having > a decent Windows version. (The Windows-based releases were pretty awful.) > By the time WP for Windows caught up the game was already lost. I've still got a copy of Word 5 for DOS stashed away somewhere; one of the very few genuinely good programs Microsoft's application division every wrote. It's small, fast, simple and works extremely well. It's a basic character-cell text mode word processor with ruler-based formatting. No fonts, no DTP, just simple text layout, done well. It was lightning fast --- on modern machines it's uncanny. If you were prepared to put up with a speed hit, you could put it into graphics mode and get genuine underline, bold and italics; in text mode it was much faster, but made do with colours. Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. -- +- David Given --------McQ-+ "Why should we put ourselves out of our way to | Work: dg@tao-group.com | serve posterity? For what has posterity ever done | Play: dg@cowlark.com | for us?" --- Sir Boyle Roche +- http://www.cowlark.com -+ ###### From: genew@shuswap.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 16:17:58 GMT Reply-To: genew@shuswap.net Message-ID: <3b80cd8c.372898255@news.shuswap.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 NNTP-Posting-Host: salmonarm3-14.shuswap.net X-Trace: 20 Aug 2001 09:34:31 -0700, salmonarm3-14.shuswap.net Lines: 29 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!news.bnb-lp.com!nubby2.!salmonarm3-14.shuswap.net Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87816 WTS@mb.sympatico.ca wrote: >In <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com>, j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) writes: >>Worse, MS technical support was inferior, and their selection of >>printer drivers limited and often buggy. Conversions to and from WP >>and other formats often worked poorly, if at all. Word just didn't >>play well with others. >A problem still much with us...where I work, people prefer to re-type things >rather than rely on the eccentric way that things get translated between >"Word" and "WordPerfect". I could see Buck Rogers stunts like tables or footnotes >or bulleted lists getting smashed in the importation, but I got really despondant >at the fact that TABS don't translate at all well. My biggest complaint about Word is how it adjusts the margins for me on noting my tab usage. When I paste such text to another program, I lose the tabbing because the margin adjustments aren't tabs. This makes totally unneeded work for me, and I can't figure out how to turn it off. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### From: sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: History of Microsoft Word (and word processing in general) Date: 20 Aug 2001 12:23:37 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 7 Message-ID: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 38.136.62.191 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 998335418 6524 127.0.0.1 (20 Aug 2001 19:23:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 20 Aug 2001 19:23:38 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87874 Does anyone here know about the history and evolution of MS Word-- or do you know where I could find this out? If so, please respond or email me. Thanks. Shari ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Michael Black Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and word processing in general) In-Reply-To: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Forwarded: by - (DeleGate/7.3.0) Lines: 21 Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 16:10:16 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.168.100.62 X-Trace: nnrp1.uunet.ca 998341380 198.168.100.62 (Mon, 20 Aug 2001 17:03:00 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 17:03:00 EDT Organization: UUNET Canada News Reader Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uunet.ca!nnrp1.uunet.ca.POSTED!gloria.cam.org!blackm00 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87879 On 20 Aug 2001, Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: > Does anyone here know about the history and evolution of MS Word-- or > do you know where I could find this out? If so, please respond or > email me. > > Thanks. > > Shari > > Huh? Have you been reading the newsgroup after posting, or just assuming people will email you answers. There's been quite a good thread from you previous similar question. It won't give you the full details, but there are enough hints to give you a start. Michael ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 21:03:01 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 26 Message-ID: <20010820210301.4691a759.steveo@eircom.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p1004.vcu.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 998338645 98712 194.134.202.241 (20 Aug 2001 20:17:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 20:17:25 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.5.3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--freebsd4.4) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!unlisys!news.snafu.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!news2.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87869 On Sun, 19 Aug 2001 08:40:35 GMT j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote: JY> piece of software as a daunting task. The program was VERY powerful JY> by then standards. If you could remember the right CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-F4 I frequently introduced people to WordPerfect with no more than a 5 minute demo, 10 minutes hands on and a parting "Remember F3 for Help, press it twice for the function key layout". This was usually enough to start them on the way to taming it with minimal help. I recall cursing loudly the brainless idiot who moved the function keys from where they could be reached to where they become almost useless decorations. JY> much science fiction. It also had powerful mail-merge functions that JY> important in the office environment. And even when Windows started Those functions did interestingly strange things on 1500 page documents though :) Sqtroff (pronounced squirtoff BTW) on Xenix was the cure for me. I still write documents in troff :) -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 21:07:38 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 19 Message-ID: <20010820210738.77b04437.steveo@eircom.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p1004.vcu.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 998338646 98712 194.134.202.241 (20 Aug 2001 20:17:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 20:17:26 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.5.3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--freebsd4.4) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!news2.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87870 On Mon, 20 Aug 2001 15:25:21 +0100 dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) wrote: DG> I've still got a copy of Word 5 for DOS stashed away somewhere; one of the DG> very few genuinely good programs Microsoft's application division every DG> wrote. It's small, fast, simple and works extremely well. It's a basic DG> character-cell text mode word processor with ruler-based formatting. No DG> fonts, no DTP, just simple text layout, done well. It was lightning fast DG> --- on modern machines it's uncanny. If you were prepared to put up with a DG> speed hit, you could put it into graphics mode and get genuine underline, DG> bold and italics; in text mode it was much faster, but made do with DG> colours. Hmm, I wonder if it would run well in BSD doscmd. -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 39 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 15:21:12 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-I0quJXssjWy865h19MFNxcXQHYKoeg5XSFz4gI8H6FVcnSLvUWFbTIB408fAMOQKHpNdhhZ2TrnIb6g!tCDLohSZA+37tT7MvCj2APel5APQmdYNGri6G5PPPGofnzKy9SIH3GwGNmlhFi/t31Vx7RZo8XBQ!69cXTV92U8tWGUOpqLPUuBNG X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 15:21:10 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!bermuda.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87877 Word 5.5 for DOS is still available, for free, on Microsoft's web site. Do a search, and it should come up pretty easily. -Mike On Mon, 20 Aug 2001, David Given wrote: > In article , > roggblake@inamme.com (Roger Blake) writes: > > On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:34:04 GMT, Tom Buskey wrote: > >>I'd say most of Word's success came from bundling w/ Excel & > >>Powerpoint. The purchaser sees $200 for Word Perfect, $200 for Lotus > > > > A contributing factor may have been the delay in Word Perfect having > > a decent Windows version. (The Windows-based releases were pretty awful.) > > By the time WP for Windows caught up the game was already lost. > > I've still got a copy of Word 5 for DOS stashed away somewhere; one of the > very few genuinely good programs Microsoft's application division every > wrote. It's small, fast, simple and works extremely well. It's a basic > character-cell text mode word processor with ruler-based formatting. No > fonts, no DTP, just simple text layout, done well. It was lightning fast > --- on modern machines it's uncanny. If you were prepared to put up with a > speed hit, you could put it into graphics mode and get genuine underline, > bold and italics; in text mode it was much faster, but made do with > colours. > > Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't > Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are > talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. > > -- http://www.mschaef.com ###### From: sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 20 Aug 2001 14:15:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 8 Message-ID: <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 38.136.62.191 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 998342154 10157 127.0.0.1 (20 Aug 2001 21:15:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 20 Aug 2001 21:15:54 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87875 Thanks so much for all this information (overload!) This is really terrific. I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS haters use nowadays? ssc ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and word processing in general) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 20:47:37 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998340457snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998376876 mail2news:24514 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 32 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88060 In article <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> sharirs@yahoo.com "Shari Sommer Chernack" writes: > Does anyone here know about the history and evolution of MS Word-- or > do you know where I could find this out? If so, please respond or > email me. Huh? Do you have ANY conception of how to use a newsgroup? You asked this question a few days ago, in this very newsgroup, in your article , which has to date garnered 31 responses. If you post a question in a newsgroup, that's where you should be looking for the answer: only in VERY exceptional circumstances can you validly request, and GET, e-mail responses. (I *am* e-mailing this response, just in case you haven't bothered to look at the group at all since asking your question.) I would strongly advise you to come back and read those replies, because some of them ask for explanatory input from yourself. You might find this task easir if you used a real newsreader and newsserver, rather than Google's klunky interface. If you need advice on that, I suggest a visit to -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 01 09:16:50 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 27 Message-ID: <9m070g$b4i$2@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVYiYBt+TmXG6DnhOtv4zUjOPbekLjhrfxio9t0OK2vRKMP00DzWE+j+ X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2001 12:02:24 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-255-218 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87912 In article <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org>, jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) wrote: >dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) writes: > >>I've still got a copy of Word 5 for DOS stashed away somewhere; one of the >>very few genuinely good programs Microsoft's application division every >>wrote. It's small, fast, simple and works extremely well. It's a basic >>character-cell text mode word processor with ruler-based formatting. No >>fonts, no DTP, just simple text layout, done well. It was lightning fast >>--- on modern machines it's uncanny. If you were prepared to put up with a >>speed hit, you could put it into graphics mode and get genuine underline, >>bold and italics; in text mode it was much faster, but made do with >>colours. > >....and a couple of years ago I was digging through my box of scrap floppies >and ran across a 720KB disk with the *complete, uncompressed* Microsoft >Word executable on it. It ran successfully when I opened a DOS box >under WIN9x... Nice test. :-) You should report it so they can fix that bug. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 01 09:14:45 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 22 Message-ID: <9m06sl$b4i$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9lthdl$oi9$1@bob.news.rcn.net> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVaOq9aQE+mdwxzXfNbD5rhxVqNZDBtQE1v4A/bwlmgBXS1LGb34oRwM X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2001 12:00:21 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-255-218 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87919 In article , Pete Fenelon wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >> In article , >> dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) wrote: >> >> >>>Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't >>>Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are >>>talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. >> >> I was told that they're all in the games division and have been >> there for a while. > >don't they stick around just long enough for stock options to vest, then >go and get a proper job? I hear it's just the ones that moved to the managing track. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 01 09:47:55 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 23 Message-ID: <9ltkeg$742$2@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbhvrxCfFyDVEJ2fp9T8mC1xXb92PtNZoVcrsRGgYcD3mJBmiWe8jQ0 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2001 12:33:20 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-245-251 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87920 In article , roggblake@inamme.com (Roger Blake) wrote: >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 02:56:38 GMT, The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com wrote: >>I really loved spending 20 minutes figuring out how to turn off automatic >>paragraph numbering when I put a number at the start of a paragraph. What good > >To be fair, MS Word is not alone in this regard. StarOffice also has a lot >of automatic "features" that are a pain in the ass to turn off. (I never >did figure out how to turn off the damned paragraph numbering.) > There's nothing wrong with automatic defaults established at runtime. There is everything wrong with not being able to set them before runtime and during runtime...all in one place. This business of having multiple paths leading to multiple screens of default settings sucks. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 01 08:58:08 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 14 Message-ID: <9lthh5$oi9$2@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZdlRNgi1+GLP3d2ux9hCWH9nuV02wxXRhdq9+FJMNVmWF8gqKZXBU0 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2001 11:43:33 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-245-251 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87930 In article <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com>, sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) wrote: >Thanks so much for all this information (overload!) This is really >terrific. > >I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the >topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS >haters use nowadays? Are you a spammer? /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 01 08:56:17 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 15 Message-ID: <9lthdl$oi9$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVY0UIDlmga1i9Q+dpqLus1P7tXT9TkhilgveP/B5ldUKLxiF3FF5p58 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2001 11:41:41 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-245-251 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87932 In article , dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) wrote: >Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't >Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are >talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. I was told that they're all in the games division and have been there for a while. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 21 Aug 01 10:09:02 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 32 Message-ID: <1331.633T107T6093124@nowhere.in.particular> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B81FF22.BA0063F1@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-236.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88010 In article <3B81FF22.BA0063F1@ev1.net> richmond@ev1.net (Charles Richmond) writes: >David Given wrote: > >> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...] >> >> Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't >> Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are >> talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. >> >You mean there *used* to be some talented programmers and software >designers in there...IMHO Bill fired them all and replaced them >with new college grads. It's *cheaper*, you know... (;-)) But even more important than being cheaper (M$ has money to burn), new grads have bright shiny new minds that are blank slates on which Bill can write. They haven't yet been polluted by the experience which would let them question what's going on. Nor is this unique to Microsoft. It's much easier to raise an army of hot-blooded youngsters who have no idea what they are in for. I was part of a mass exodus from a PPOE several years ago, when a new management team walked in and turned everything upside-down. (I call this "management by invasion".) Getting "intransigents" to leave, um, voluntarily is so much easier - and sounds so much nicer - than conducting a purge. -- cgibbs@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs) I'm switching ISPs - watch this space. ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 17:58:43 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 14 Message-ID: <4f53ot8rq2fj2t50ucjr1todepofb8r0q0@4ax.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVaS8jckylUew5S878ptptENQQSr0LOr/rIfAaiwMjkPEdxVjn4X3lBl X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 20 Aug 2001 22:58:46 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88042 On Mon, 20 Aug 2001 15:21:10 -0500, Mike Schaeffer wrote: > > >Word 5.5 for DOS is still available, for free, on Microsoft's web site. > >Do a search, and it should come up pretty easily. Where? A google search didn't find it, and it's not on MS's MS-DOS download area. -- Arargh (at enteract dot com) http://www.arargh.com ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 21:05:47 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-258.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88035 In article <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com>, sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) wrote: > I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the > topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS > haters use nowadays? It doesn't require that a user be an MS hater to use something else. Sometimes another product just makes more sense. There are a bunch of other word processors available for the Mac, for instance. Some of them are quite small and fast, compared to Word. If that's among a person's major criteria, they might just get used, rather than Words "kitchen sink" approach. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### From: "Don Chiasson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Lines: 30 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: <6rkg7.589$de6.168442@news3.rdc1.on.home.com> Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 03:19:30 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.42.241.65 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news3.rdc1.on.home.com 998363970 24.42.241.65 (Mon, 20 Aug 2001 20:19:30 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 20:19:30 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news3.rdc1.on.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88015 "Howard S Shubs" wrote in message news:howard-4C6ABD.21054720082001@enews.newsguy.com... > In article <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com>, > sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) wrote: > > > I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the > > topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS > > haters use nowadays? > > It doesn't require that a user be an MS hater to use something else. > Sometimes another product just makes more sense. There are a bunch of other > word processors available for the Mac, for instance. Some of them are quite > small and fast, compared to Word. If that's among a person's major criteria, > they might just get used, rather than Words "kitchen sink" approach. A few years ago, Word Perfect put a new product on the market, a word processor called Letter Perfect. It was like Word Perfect, but lower in price than WP, and had fewer features. It was a failure for the company, no one bought Letter Perfect. People seem to want all the features even if they don't use them. Sigh. Don e-mail: it's not not, it's hot. ###### From: Tony Lima Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Organization: Tony Lima Associates Reply-To: TonyLima2@att.net Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/16.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 20 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 04:25:38 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.81.114.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998367938 12.81.114.74 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 04:25:38 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 04:25:38 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88067 On Sun, 19 Aug 2001 08:40:35 GMT, j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote: >Well, I have a somewhat different take on the situation. I'm a little >fuzzy on the origins of WordPerfect, but I think it was designed to be >compatible with one of the dedicated word processors. (Wang possibly? [bf snip] I've been using word processing software since about Wordstar 2.x. I worked in an office where management decided to make WordPerfect the office standard. The professional staff rebelled; no one liked WP for the reasons cited by Steven. Even today I use a version of Qedit mapped with the WS key commands. But Word (about version 2.x) was the first word processor I saw that persuaded me to give up WS. I suspect it was because you could type first, then easily go back and do the formatting later. In any case, I agree with about every point made by Mr. York. - Tony Lima ###### From: Tony Lima Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Organization: Tony Lima Associates Reply-To: TonyLima2@att.net Message-ID: <9in3ot47dooak7hmbicg98epttpbkcaiq8@4ax.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/16.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 8 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 04:27:05 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.81.114.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998368025 12.81.114.74 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 04:27:05 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 04:27:05 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.72!wnfilter2!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88075 On Mon, 20 Aug 2001 04:38:33 GMT, CBFalconer wrote: >Years ago I had an interview with Multimate, after they had been >acquired by somebody (I think it was Lotus) and were operating in >the Hartford CT. area. They seemed to have something like 100 YM "Ashton-Tate." HTH. - Tony ###### Message-ID: <3B81FF22.BA0063F1@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 16 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 04:28:52 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998368132 24.179.111.125 (Mon, 20 Aug 2001 21:28:52 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 21:28:52 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!surfnet.nl!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88044 David Given wrote: > > [snip...] [snip...] [snip...] > > Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't > Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are > talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. > You mean there *used* to be some talented programmers and software designers in there...IMHO Bill fired them all and replaced them with new college grads. It's *cheaper*, you know... (;-)) -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 07:01:35 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998377295snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998385726 mail2news:25529 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 25 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88063 In article <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> sharirs@yahoo.com "Shari Sommer Chernack" writes: > Thanks so much for all this information (overload!) This is really > terrific. Aha! You found it! > I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the > topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS > haters use nowadays? Personally, I have never "got into" the WYSIWYG ethos, and so continue to produce all documents (personal letters, research reports, notes for students, overhead transparencies, etc.) with a text processor. This ensures that I am thinking about the *logical* context of each piece of text, and not about its physical appearance. So I edit with an ordinary text editor (on the x86, my EoC is SEDT), and process with LaTeX. -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: roggblake@inamme.com (Roger Blake) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> X-No-Archive: Yes Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Lines: 11 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 12:25:18 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.50.164.178 X-Complaints-To: noc@capu.net X-Trace: news.abs.net 998396718 64.50.164.178 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 08:25:18 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 08:25:18 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!news.abs.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87896 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 02:56:38 GMT, The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com wrote: >I really loved spending 20 minutes figuring out how to turn off automatic >paragraph numbering when I put a number at the start of a paragraph. What good To be fair, MS Word is not alone in this regard. StarOffice also has a lot of automatic "features" that are a pain in the ass to turn off. (I never did figure out how to turn off the damned paragraph numbering.) -- Roger Blake (remove second "g" and second "m" from address for email) ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 08:41:01 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <6rkg7.589$de6.168442@news3.rdc1.on.home.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-191.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.stealth.net!news-east.rr.com!wn2feed!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!209.155.233.17!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88032 In article <6rkg7.589$de6.168442@news3.rdc1.on.home.com>, "Don Chiasson" wrote: > A few years ago, Word Perfect put a new product on the market, a > word processor called Letter Perfect. It was like Word Perfect, but lower in > price than WP, and had fewer features. It was a failure for the company, no > one bought Letter Perfect. People seem to want all the features even if they > don't use them. Sigh. Some people do, yes. I wonder if LP was compatible with WordPerfect in the sense of key combinations and file format. If not, there's a pretty obvious reason why it failed. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 08:43:50 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 13 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-308.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88036 In article , The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com () wrote: > They should have quit in '95 and spent the rest of their time making it take > less than 50K for every 1K of text or making it crash less than once every 16 > hours of use. You'll get NO argument from me on this. Make it -better-, not just -fatter-. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Organization: I do not speak for anyone but myself, and barely that. References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <20010820210738.77b04437.steveo@eircom.net> From: dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: Lines: 26 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:07:27 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.255.240.131 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news6-win.server.ntlworld.com 998409689 62.255.240.131 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 17:01:29 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 17:01:29 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!212.74.64.35!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news6-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!127.0.0.1!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88051 In article <20010820210738.77b04437.steveo@eircom.net>, Steve O'Hara-Smith writes: > DG> I've still got a copy of Word 5 for DOS stashed away somewhere; one of the > DG> very few genuinely good programs Microsoft's application division every > DG> wrote. It's small, fast, simple and works extremely well. It's a basic > DG> character-cell text mode word processor with ruler-based formatting. No > DG> fonts, no DTP, just simple text layout, done well. It was lightning fast > DG> --- on modern machines it's uncanny. If you were prepared to put up with a > DG> speed hit, you could put it into graphics mode and get genuine underline, > DG> bold and italics; in text mode it was much faster, but made do with > DG> colours. > > Hmm, I wonder if it would run well in BSD doscmd. It runs very nicely in pcemu (http://pcemu.sourceforge.net), which is a software-only 186 emulator with VGA text mode only, and if it runs on that it'll almost certainly run on something more fully-featured. Aren't there any character-cell word processors (as opposed to text processors) for Unixoids? -- +- David Given --------McQ-+ | Work: dg@tao-group.com | There is no spoon. | Play: dg@cowlark.com | +- http://www.cowlark.com -+ ###### From: Joe Pfeiffer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 21 Aug 2001 08:28:19 -0600 Organization: NMSU Computer Science Lines: 18 Message-ID: <1b66bhtrlo.fsf@cs.nmsu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <998377295snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: viper.cs.nmsu.edu X-Trace: bubba.NMSU.Edu 998404095 1084 128.123.64.113 (21 Aug 2001 14:28:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@bubba.NMSU.Edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2001 14:28:15 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.5 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!lax2-feed1.news.digex.net!intermedia!lynx.unm.edu!news.NMSU.Edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87913 bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) writes: > > Personally, I have never "got into" the WYSIWYG ethos, and so continue to > produce all documents (personal letters, research reports, notes for > students, overhead transparencies, etc.) with a text processor. This > ensures that I am thinking about the *logical* context of each piece of > text, and not about its physical appearance. So I edit with an ordinary > text editor (on the x86, my EoC is SEDT), and process with LaTeX. Have you tried LyX? It's a quasi-WYWIWYG (they call it What You See Is What You Mean) editor that's based on logical formatting, and produces LaTeX code as output. It's what finally got me to put troff to rest once and for all... -- Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605 Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002 New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer SWNMRSEF: http://www.nmsu.edu/~scifair ###### From: jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 21 Aug 2001 14:32:47 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 21 Message-ID: <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> Reply-To: jcmorris@mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Host: jmorris-pc.mitre.org X-Trace: top.mitre.org 998404367 3575 128.29.251.13 (21 Aug 2001 14:32:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2001 14:32:47 GMT X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!canoe.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!jcmorris Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87909 dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) writes: >I've still got a copy of Word 5 for DOS stashed away somewhere; one of the >very few genuinely good programs Microsoft's application division every >wrote. It's small, fast, simple and works extremely well. It's a basic >character-cell text mode word processor with ruler-based formatting. No >fonts, no DTP, just simple text layout, done well. It was lightning fast >--- on modern machines it's uncanny. If you were prepared to put up with a >speed hit, you could put it into graphics mode and get genuine underline, >bold and italics; in text mode it was much faster, but made do with >colours. ...and a couple of years ago I was digging through my box of scrap floppies and ran across a 720KB disk with the *complete, uncompressed* Microsoft Word executable on it. It ran successfully when I opened a DOS box under WIN9x... I suspect that the HELP -> ABOUT box in WinWord wouldn't fit on a 720KB diskette today... Joe Morris ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 29 NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 10:35:18 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-s1REJo+rxwqRznWPT7wCzUP8nPUDm//8NpE/hs+QxCOBxm+27XD8baT1aSM5Au1ms9ygt2yjEcd8vWK!u0VbcSalvABDzIUpCGmRuzC7oZAZwf6P7FQm2oCJtgTY/no7VNChSVM1jqwjssgT6OxIuLEMWQsz!ij7ysglRdQw6qYiEZ1IL X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 10:35:17 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news.voicenet.com!nntp2.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!eris.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88018 On 21 Aug 2001, Joe Morris wrote: > dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) writes: > > >I've still got a copy of Word 5 for DOS stashed away somewhere; one of the > >very few genuinely good programs Microsoft's application division every > >wrote. It's small, fast, simple and works extremely well. It's a basic > >character-cell text mode word processor with ruler-based formatting. No > >fonts, no DTP, just simple text layout, done well. It was lightning fast > >--- on modern machines it's uncanny. If you were prepared to put up with a > >speed hit, you could put it into graphics mode and get genuine underline, > >bold and italics; in text mode it was much faster, but made do with > >colours. > > ...and a couple of years ago I was digging through my box of scrap floppies > and ran across a 720KB disk with the *complete, uncompressed* Microsoft > Word executable on it. It ran successfully when I opened a DOS box > under WIN9x... > > I suspect that the HELP -> ABOUT box in WinWord wouldn't fit on a > 720KB diskette today... My WinWord 1.1 upgrade fit on three 1.4MB diskettes... I remember it as clearely as yesterday since WinWord 1.0 came on about 12 720K, uncompressed disks... By the time WinWord 2.0 came around, it was a different story. -Mike ###### From: shannon@daydream.shannon.net (Charles Shannon Hendrix) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 21 Aug 2001 14:11:30 -0400 Organization: 32-bit Message-ID: <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> Reply-To: shannon@widomaker.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 32 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87974 In article , Tony Lima wrote: > But Word (about version 2.x) was the first word processor I > saw that persuaded me to give up WS. I suspect it was > because you could type first, then easily go back and do the > formatting later. In any case, I agree with about every > point made by Mr. York. - Tony Lima The older versions of Word were actually not too bad in many ways. Most word processes in those days had a mode of operation for just banging out words, leaving formatting for later. The problem now is that the focus is on layout, which is ridiculous. Very few people know even the most basic elements of page layout and typography, and even if you do it's not something you should be focusing on most of the time. I have watched people at work put over an hour into a single memo, and have watched hundreds of man hours lost when trying to manage anything over 100 pages with Word. It's just a mess. Word Perfect at least could manage large documents, though I prefer to do really big things with TeX/LaTeX or something nroff-like. -- shannon@widomaker.com _________________________________________________ ______________________/ armchairrocketscientistgraffitiexenstentialist "And in billows of might swell the Saxons before her,-- Unite, oh unite! Or the billows burst o'er her!" -- Downfall of the Gael ###### From: mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Lines: 17 X-Newsreader: VSoup v1.2.9.37Beta [95/NT] Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:12:36 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.206.39.157 X-Trace: nnrp1.uunet.ca 998418374 205.206.39.157 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:26:14 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:26:14 EDT Organization: UUNET Canada News Reader Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed.cgocable.net!localhost.localdomain!feed.nntp.primus.ca!news.uunet.ca!nnrp1.uunet.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87949 In article <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com>, sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) wrote: >I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the >topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS >haters use nowadays? I'm typing this through KEDIT. YARN will save it in my email folder and in a while, vsoup will put it on the Internet. Other times I use Personal File Editor. If I want stuff to look word-processed, I write it in HTML. I'm not actually a M$ hater, more an avoider. Sometimes you just gotta use WordPad. Regards. Mel. ###### From: Pete Fenelon Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:19:38 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: Sender: Pete Fenelon References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9lthdl$oi9$1@bob.news.rcn.net> User-Agent: tin/1.5.8-20010221 ("Blue Water") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.3-STABLE (i386)) X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 16 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87998 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > In article , > dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) wrote: > > >>Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't >>Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are >>talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. > > I was told that they're all in the games division and have been > there for a while. don't they stick around just long enough for stock options to vest, then go and get a proper job? pete ###### From: Paul Guertin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:30:53 -0400 Organization: Amalgamated Karma Lines: 12 Message-ID: <3f95otgk22e0p1pv67dgmj99focug4efiu@news.newsguy.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <4f53ot8rq2fj2t50ucjr1todepofb8r0q0@4ax.com> Reply-To: pg@sff.net NNTP-Posting-Host: p-349.newsdawg.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!209.155.233.16!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87941 Arargh! wrote: > >Word 5.5 for DOS is still available, for free, on Microsoft's web site. > > Where? A google search didn't find it, and it's not on MS's MS-DOS > download area. Found it (after a couple of 404s) at http://download.microsoft.com/download/word50/Wd55_eng/5.5/WIN98/EN-US/Wd55_eng.exe Paul Guertin pg@sff.net ###### From: rsteiner@isis.visi.com (Richard C. Steiner) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Organization: Vector Internet Services, Inc. Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.4 (UNIX) Lines: 30 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:40:12 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.98.98.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ruti.visi.com 998419212 209.98.98.8 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:40:12 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:40:12 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!news-xfer.siscom.net!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!ruti.visi.com!rsteiner Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88028 In article <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com>, Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: >I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the >topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS >haters use nowadays? As a multiplatform (OS/2, Linux, and Windows) user, I tend to use Sun's StarOffice (a crossplatform and *free* [as in "no cost"] monolithic office suite which has a fairly nice word processor) most of the time: http://www.sun.com/products/staroffice For specialized projects, I'll also occasionally use DeScribe (a now-dead word processor for OS/2 and Windows) and New Deal Office's NewWrite: http://www.newdealinc.com My new copy of eComStation (essentially a new OS/2 client) comes with the above office suite as well as a copy of Lotus Smartsuite (including Lotus Wordpro, formally known as Ami Pro). http://www.ecomstation.com http://www.lotus.com/products/smartsuiteos2.nsf -- -Rich Steiner >>>---> rsteiner@visi.com >>>---> Eden Prairie, MN Written online using slrn 0.9.5.4! The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then. ###### From: rsteiner@isis.visi.com (Richard C. Steiner) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B81FF22.BA0063F1@ev1.net> Organization: Vector Internet Services, Inc. Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.4 (UNIX) Lines: 21 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:42:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.98.98.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ruti.visi.com 998419374 209.98.98.8 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:42:54 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:42:54 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!ruti.visi.com!rsteiner Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88030 In article <3B81FF22.BA0063F1@ev1.net>, Charles Richmond wrote: >David Given wrote: >> >> Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't >> Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are >> talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. >> >You mean there *used* to be some talented programmers and software >designers in there...IMHO Bill fired them all and replaced them >with new college grads. It's *cheaper*, you know... (;-)) Nah -- they've all been shuffled off to the research areas of the company where they can't adversely (from marketing's perspective) impact the cash cows... -- -Rich Steiner >>>---> rsteiner@visi.com >>>---> Eden Prairie, MN Written online using slrn 0.9.5.4! The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then. ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 32 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:46:22 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.231.33 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 998419582 199.174.231.33 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 11:46:22 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 11:46:22 PDT X-Received-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 11:43:03 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87944 mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) writes: > > I'm typing this through KEDIT. YARN will save it in my > email folder and in a while, vsoup will put it on the > Internet. as an aside, KEDIT is a XEDIT knock-off ... I have a KEDIT V1 manual in box someplace. from prior posting (in this thread) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#1 stu at cambridge scientific center did "script" in the '60s ... which had a runoff like syntax. Then in the early '70s the people at CSC added "GML" markup syntax to script .... although "script" could still be used in either runoff like syntax or markup syntax. when ibm pc came out ... somebody did a port of the script ... effectively same formating that could be done on the mainframe. and of course "GML" ... which people think stands for generalized markup language ... were actually the first letter of the last names of the three people that worked on it. script wasn't a word-processor itself ... it handled document formating. script/gml documents used some other editor ... typically non-WYSIWYG. CMS had a number of editors ... starting with the standard CMS editor in the mid-60s, and in the 70s the were a whole slew of 3720 full-screen editors, edgar, ned, red, xedit, etc. -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 20:53:52 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 16 Message-ID: <20010821205352.39b1a43b.steveo@eircom.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <20010820210738.77b04437.steveo@eircom.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p440.vcu.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 998423710 38884 194.134.201.40 (21 Aug 2001 19:55:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:55:10 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.5.3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--freebsd4.4) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!newsfeed.Austria.EU.net!newsfeed.kpnqwest.at!nslave.kpnqwest.net!nmaster.kpnqwest.net!blackbush.xlink.net!blackbush.de.kpnqwest.net!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!news-x2.support.nl!news-x.support.nl!news.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87995 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:07:27 +0100 dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) wrote: DG> Aren't there any character-cell word processors (as opposed to text DG> processors) for Unixoids? Nothing much really, most have gone GUI or text markup with little in between (OK there's simple GUI like Ted and big GUI like StarOffice). It is very unlikely to move me off troff, but I thought I might play with it :) -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 20:55:29 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 14 Message-ID: <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: p440.vcu.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 998423711 38884 194.134.201.40 (21 Aug 2001 19:55:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:55:11 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.5.3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--freebsd4.4) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!195.64.68.27!newsgate.cistron.nl!news2.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87988 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 10:35:17 -0500 Mike Schaeffer wrote: MS> My WinWord 1.1 upgrade fit on three 1.4MB diskettes... I remember it as MS> clearely as yesterday since WinWord 1.0 came on about 12 720K, MS> uncompressed disks... By the time WinWord 2.0 came around, it was a MS> different story. Give them time and they'll ship on a box of DVD ROMS. -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara ###### From: Alexandre Pechtchanski Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: References: <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 15 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:26:29 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 998422055 129.85.24.56 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:27:35 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:27:35 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer1.sprintlink.net!news-in-central.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88059 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 12:25:18 GMT, roggblake@inamme.com (Roger Blake) wrote: >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 02:56:38 GMT, The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com wrote: >>I really loved spending 20 minutes figuring out how to turn off automatic >>paragraph numbering when I put a number at the start of a paragraph. What good > >To be fair, MS Word is not alone in this regard. StarOffice also has a lot >of automatic "features" that are a pain in the ass to turn off. (I never >did figure out how to turn off the damned paragraph numbering.) Isn't StarOffice _supposed_ to be bug-by-bug copy of MS Office? -- [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY ###### From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:23:30 -0400 Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 21 Message-ID: <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: tardis.east.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!eastnews1.East.Sun.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88061 Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote: > > Word Perfect at least could manage large documents, though I prefer to > do really big things with TeX/LaTeX or something nroff-like. In a former life I worked for a company which made a word processing and document management system whose strengths lay in handling large documents, where by "large" I mean something rather different than it seems you do. Our sales people used to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 "Stealth" bomber would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals in printed form. Pharmaceutical companies' applications to the Food and Drug Administration for approval to market a new drug averaged about half a million pages, with three-quarters of a million not unheard of. I don't even want to *think* about handling documents of such sizes in Word or WordPerfect. Me, I use Emacs ... -- Eric.Sosman@sun.com ###### From: roggblake@inamme.com (Roger Blake) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> X-No-Archive: Yes Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Lines: 12 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 20:52:58 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.50.164.178 X-Complaints-To: noc@capu.net X-Trace: news.abs.net 998427178 64.50.164.178 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:52:58 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:52:58 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!news.abs.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87893 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:26:29 -0400, Alexandre Pechtchanski wrote: >Isn't StarOffice _supposed_ to be bug-by-bug copy of MS Office? No -- For example, to give the devil his due printing envelopes in Word is a pretty trivial operation. As far as I have been able to determine, there is no easy and/or reliable way to do this in Star Office. (Although an "envelope" selection appears in the drop-down menus, this appears to have been placed there as some kind of cruel joke.) -- Roger Blake (remove second "g" and second "m" from address for email) ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:24:44 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <4f53ot8rq2fj2t50ucjr1todepofb8r0q0@4ax.com> <3f95otgk22e0p1pv67dgmj99focug4efiu@news.newsguy.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVa45qjoA8As8U+JyoVryKTeKDsREWkj1w3n9bIRIamYAY9xXdjCpISp X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2001 21:24:48 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87890 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:30:53 -0400, Paul Guertin wrote: >Arargh! wrote: > >> >Word 5.5 for DOS is still available, for free, on Microsoft's web site. >> >> Where? A google search didn't find it, and it's not on MS's MS-DOS >> download area. > >Found it (after a couple of 404s) at >http://download.microsoft.com/download/word50/Wd55_eng/5.5/WIN98/EN-US/Wd55_eng.exe Thanks. I guess it was not an obvious link or I just didn't look hard enough. -- Arargh (at enteract dot com) http://www.arargh.com ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:29:23 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 17 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZJk93Nuc2Q3F8F2OiTgtt2dOgJ9a9Z35sbijghTgRVdEnrvsHnpfGc X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2001 21:29:28 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88074 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 20:55:29 +0200, Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote: >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 10:35:17 -0500 >Mike Schaeffer wrote: > >MS> My WinWord 1.1 upgrade fit on three 1.4MB diskettes... I remember it as >MS> clearely as yesterday since WinWord 1.0 came on about 12 720K, >MS> uncompressed disks... By the time WinWord 2.0 came around, it was a >MS> different story. > > Give them time and they'll ship on a box of DVD ROMS. You can get that now (CD's anyway) -- just get a MSDN subscription :-) -- Arargh (at enteract dot com) http://www.arargh.com ###### From: Shez Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:38:03 +0100 Organization: Last Stop Cafe Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Reply-To: Shez NNTP-Posting-Host: xerez.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: xerez.demon.co.uk:193.237.22.174 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 998430028 nnrp-01:6855 NO-IDENT xerez.demon.co.uk:193.237.22.174 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Turnpike/6.00-Beta-6-S () Lines: 51 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!xerez.demon.co.uk!news Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88005 Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: >. What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS >haters use nowadays? Well there's Word Pro (formerly Ami Pro), which is part of Lotus Smartsuite. It used to get reviews almost on par with Word, but personally I found it a royal pain. (Whether this means Word is also a pain I don't know - I've never used it.) Star Office has a reasonable word processor though -- is this a clone of Word or just file compatible? For general letter & report writing I use the old MS Works, which contrary to popular perception is not (or rather, back when it was any good, *was* not) a cut-down MS Office but an entirely separate suite (e.g. the spreadsheet was compatible with Lotus 1-2-3, not Excel. Anyway it has a nice little WP that lets you get on with writing without all the stupid bells and whistles of the big products, and is also immune to macros viruses etc, since it doesn't have any macros! For more fancy page layouts I'm still using an old shareware Win3.1 wp called WordExpress, which apart from lacking long file name support is an extremely nice frame-oriented wp, probably the easiest and yet most flexible wp I've ever used (similar to the recent Linux wp, K-Write from what I hear). WordExpress has a disk footprint of only 2 MB, yet it does pretty much everything I could want apart from not having smart quotes, and an unfortunate tendency to crash when faced with Win98 printer drivers. There is a Win95 version of WordExpress but I was too much of a skinflint to shell out the registration fee and it expired. It also lacked the compressed tif support of its Win3.1 predecessor: one of the many casualties of the LZW patent fiasco. Finally I'll just mention in passing that I've always hated vi. OK it's not a wp, but I just thought I'd mention it anyway as I'm feeling vindictive today. (I do wish there were some Windows wp's or text editors with proper regular expression support though, that's the one thing I really miss from my Unix days.) -Shez. -- ______________________________________________________ LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22) You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal disease. ______________________________________________________ Take a break at the Last Stop Cafe: http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/ Use PGP: my key is at http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/p/Shez.asc ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 35 NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:42:41 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-dTWj5qXTVJ2sECReJON/5KSpknQOgLp51B8j1zgUi8rpmxyANJkBVs1Z9tKO4XGpPLJ29KcRyLFBf0N!+GmFnpW5QMTWhpXhiwHY090fslsmhjAY2ELQ0WZNa9iRbM+robwYmQo00XniNo2XGhZJeIjrSiuz!VY6KxtzNEBRbEj2Fyts7eMW/ X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:42:36 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!newsfeed2.skycache.com!Cidera!dca6-feed2.news.digex.net!ord2-feed1.news.digex.net!intermedia!nntp2.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!hagbard.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88038 I want to say MSDN is available on DVD's too... Related: MSDN volume 3 was the reason I bought a CD-ROM drive. I got the $200 MSDN offer about the same time I got Gateway 2000's $199.95 deal on a propriatary interface (actually a Sanyo) CD-ROM. $400 got me the whole ball of wax wrt Windows developer docs... I still have MSDN volume 4... anyone remember the souped up version of WinHelp it uses for a multimedia browser? -Mike On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Arargh! wrote: > On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 20:55:29 +0200, Steve O'Hara-Smith > wrote: > > >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 10:35:17 -0500 > >Mike Schaeffer wrote: > > > >MS> My WinWord 1.1 upgrade fit on three 1.4MB diskettes... I remember it as > >MS> clearely as yesterday since WinWord 1.0 came on about 12 720K, > >MS> uncompressed disks... By the time WinWord 2.0 came around, it was a > >MS> different story. > > > > Give them time and they'll ship on a box of DVD ROMS. > > You can get that now (CD's anyway) -- just get a MSDN subscription :-) > > -- http://www.mschaef.com ###### From: Shez Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:47:48 +0100 Organization: Last Stop Cafe Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Reply-To: Shez NNTP-Posting-Host: xerez.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: xerez.demon.co.uk:193.237.22.174 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 998430623 nnrp-10:26469 NO-IDENT xerez.demon.co.uk:193.237.22.174 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Turnpike/6.00-Beta-6-S () Lines: 37 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!xerez.demon.co.uk!news Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88006 Roger Blake wrote: >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 02:56:38 GMT, The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@inva >lid.pobox.com >wrote: >>I really loved spending 20 minutes figuring out how to turn off automatic >>paragraph numbering when I put a number at the start of a paragraph. >>What good > >To be fair, MS Word is not alone in this regard. StarOffice also has a lot >of automatic "features" that are a pain in the ass to turn off. (I never >did figure out how to turn off the damned paragraph numbering.) I assumed that the reason I couldn't figure out how to alter the settings in Star Office was because the project to translate the Help files into English had been abandoned half way through. Or did it merely seem that way? The best way I found of working out how to do something in Star Office was to forget about the contents page, index, and search facility, and simply start reading the full help file from the beginning. After about 20 pages I would usually stumble across a relevant nugget of information which the contents page and index had failed to reveal the existence of. This usually worked for the spreadsheet anyway. -Shez. -- ______________________________________________________ LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22) You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal disease. ______________________________________________________ Take a break at the Last Stop Cafe: http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/ Address any email replies to Shez (email to "news" is rejected). ###### Message-ID: <3B82F826.74F57813@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 25 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:11:21 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998431881 24.179.111.125 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:11:21 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:11:21 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88041 Mel Wilson wrote: > > In article <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com>, > sharirs@yahoo.com (Shari Sommer Chernack) wrote: > >I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the > >topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS > >haters use nowadays? > > I'm typing this through KEDIT. YARN will save it in my > email folder and in a while, vsoup will put it on the > Internet. > > Other times I use Personal File Editor. If I want stuff to > look word-processed, I write it in HTML. > > I'm not actually a M$ hater, more an avoider. Sometimes > you just gotta use WordPad. > I get by quite well thank you on my Macintosh...without *ever* using WordPad... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Message-ID: <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 25 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:14:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998432077 24.179.111.125 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:14:37 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:14:37 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88052 Eric Sosman wrote: > > Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote: > > > > Word Perfect at least could manage large documents, though I prefer to > > do really big things with TeX/LaTeX or something nroff-like. > > In a former life I worked for a company which made a word > processing and document management system whose strengths lay > in handling large documents, where by "large" I mean something > rather different than it seems you do. Our sales people used > to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 "Stealth" bomber > would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals in printed > form. Pharmaceutical companies' applications to the Food and > Drug Administration for approval to market a new drug averaged > about half a million pages, with three-quarters of a million > not unheard of. I don't even want to *think* about handling > documents of such sizes in Word or WordPerfect. > Errmmm...the "Stealth" bomber is the B-2... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:57:39 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998434659snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998438041 mail2news:1832 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 32 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88062 In article newsreply@xerez.demon.co.uk "Shez" writes: > The best way I found of working out how to do something in Star Office > was to forget about the contents page, index, and search facility, and > simply start reading the full help file from the beginning. After about > 20 pages I would usually stumble across a relevant nugget of information > which the contents page and index had failed to reveal the existence of. > This usually worked for the spreadsheet anyway. Office Suites (whether StarOffice, M$Office, or anything comparable) are simply too large to use either intuitively or through the help files. So one needs a book. In the case of SO, this is "Using StarOffice" by Micahel Koch and Sarah Murray, published by Que, Sept 1999, ISBN 0-7897-1993-2. I don't know whether it's been revised for SO v5.2, and whether the emphasis towards Linux rather than any of the other 5--6 platforms has been moderated. Oh, it's circa 1500 pages. I've just had a dip into it, and it covers both the problem of having non-numbered paragraphs intermingled with (what it thinks are) numbered ones, and also how to print envelopes, bot of which have been mentioned in this thread. -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 21 Aug 2001 23:33:17 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 22 Message-ID: <9lur3t$hpd$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet10 X-Trace: freenet9.carleton.ca 998436797 18221 134.117.136.30 (21 Aug 2001 23:33:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: complaints@ncf.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2001 23:33:17 GMT X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet10.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!fu-berlin.de!feeder.qis.net!nntp1.roc.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!xcski.com!freenet-news!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87983 Anne & Lynn Wheeler (lynn@garlic.com) writes: > mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) writes: >> >> I'm typing this through KEDIT. YARN will save it in my >> email folder and in a while, vsoup will put it on the >> Internet. > > as an aside, KEDIT is a XEDIT knock-off ... I have a KEDIT V1 manual > in box someplace. Knock-off?? After using XEDIT on a 3270 hooked to VM/CMS, KEDIT just blew me away! Every key was programable, and was acted upon immediately - not at screen refresh time. For light duty macros, the KML (Kedit Macro Language) sufficed, but serious macro programming involved REXX. Speaking of old PC editors, does anyone know if the PC Wylbur version is still available? I got the manual but not the executable. The macro facility for it was pretty powerful stuff in its day. I once programmed it to produce models of Alcan's smelter pots in the early 70's - before TSO was available at the local service bureau. ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:19:58 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 21 Message-ID: <6dm5otgmhko2i9aac2irbotoesda50qat2@4ax.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVYwdpmgkTrK8Qs7Key/J9V65SkUJfZ75emKX3xEegv15/2XIGMcOTF5 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2001 00:20:02 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88072 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:42:36 -0500, Mike Schaeffer wrote: >I want to say MSDN is available on DVD's too... I figured it might be, but I was not sure... >Related: MSDN volume 3 was the reason I bought a CD-ROM drive. I got the >$200 MSDN offer about the same time I got Gateway 2000's $199.95 deal on a >propriatary interface (actually a Sanyo) CD-ROM. $400 got me the whole >ball of wax wrt Windows developer docs... Volume 3 - Disc Three? April 1993? Blue and magenta? With a pic of some kind of a helocopter? Still have that one in the shrink wrap. >I still have MSDN volume 4... anyone remember the souped up version of >WinHelp it uses for a multimedia browser? Disc Four - Summer 1993 - Red & gray? The only viewer I see is 'Mviewer2.exe' is that it? -- Arargh (at enteract dot com) http://www.arargh.com ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9lur3t$hpd$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 12 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 02:06:40 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.229.70 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 998446000 199.174.229.70 (Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:06:40 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:06:40 PDT X-Received-Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:03:59 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87936 ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) writes: > Knock-off?? After using XEDIT on a 3270 hooked to VM/CMS, KEDIT > just blew me away! Every key was programable, and was acted upon > immediately - not at screen refresh time. which is something that can't be done on 3270 ... having an intelligent processor monitoring keys was a significant improvement. -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### From: lysse Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Organization: http://lysse.co.uk Reply-To: lysse.news@blueyonder.co.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980226 (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.39 (i486)) Message-ID: <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> Lines: 13 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 05:31:42 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.9.47 X-Complaints-To: http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/abuse X-Trace: news1.cableinet.net 998458302 62.31.9.47 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 06:31:42 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 06:31:42 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.online.be!62.232.80.34.MISMATCH!newspeer.highwayone.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!internal-news-hub.cableinet.net!news1.cableinet.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87968 The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com wrote: : At least SO allows the user to undo automatic corrections. I get extremely : annoyed when MS office decides a word should be capitalized, I undo it, and : it immediately redoes it. I get extremely annoyed with anything that decides it knows better than I did what I was intending to type. I don't even use an automatic spellchecker (or usually any, come to that). -- lysse at lysse dot co dot uk "Why are your problems always so much bigger than everyone else's?" "Because they're mine." -- Ally McBeal ###### From: "Roger Johnstone" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:13:32 +1200 Organization: ihug ( New Zealand ) Lines: 34 Message-ID: <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p36-max2.inv.ihug.co.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: lust.ihug.co.nz 998475235 9938 203.173.222.228 (22 Aug 2001 10:13:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@ihug.co.nz NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 10:13:55 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.online.be!nntp-relay.ihug.net!lust.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87908 In article <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk>, lysse wrote: > The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com wrote: > > : At least SO allows the user to undo automatic corrections. I get extremely > : annoyed when MS office decides a word should be capitalized, I undo it, and > : it immediately redoes it. > > I get extremely annoyed with anything that decides it knows better than > I did what I was intending to type. I don't even use an automatic > spellchecker (or usually any, come to that). Someone at Microsoft likes doing that. #1. Under Windows 95 I tried to rename a file as BHM, an acronym. Windows decided I must have accidentally typed it all in capitals and kindly changed it to Bhm. Arghhh! This "smart feature" must have been thought up by an idiot. Obviously, most of the time it would incorrectly "corrrect" your capatilisation. #2. Under QBasic, type a fraction e.g. 'let x=0.5' and it will kindly change it to 'let x=.5'. Hello, where did my zero go? The smart thing would be to put the leading zero IN if it was left out. This is not a ZX81, I am not trying to save one more byte of RAM, I want to be able to read my program. -- Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand Apple II - Future Cop:LAPD - iMac Voodoo2 - Warcraft II http://homepage.mac.com/rojaws ______________________________________________________________________ As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing ###### From: mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> Reply-To: mwmiller@columbus.rr.com Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Lines: 26 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:59:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.210.227.104 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: typhoon.columbus.rr.com 998488777 204.210.227.104 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 09:59:37 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 09:59:37 EDT Organization: Road Runner Columbus Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!dca6-feed2.news.digex.net!intermedia!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone1.gnilink.net!news-east.rr.com!cyclone.columbus.rr.com!typhoon.columbus.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87951 On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:19:08 GMT, The.Central.Scrutinizer wrote: >Roger Johnstone wrote: >>#2. Under QBasic, type a fraction e.g. 'let x=0.5' and it will kindly >>change it to 'let x=.5'. Hello, where did my zero go? The smart thing >>would be to put the leading zero IN if it was left out. This is not a >>ZX81, I am not trying to save one more byte of RAM, I want to be able to >>read my program. It balances out all of the excess spacing qbasic (and quickbasic) insists on plopping in, I suppose. Then again, the qbasic -> qb -> vb progression has managed to make progressively suckier versions of Basic with each iteration-- an extraordinary feat. >IIRC, qbasic, like the basic used by the ZX81 tokenized the program. It doesn't. qbasic (and qb) save Basic code as uncompressed plaintext. Yes, Virginia, even DOS programs are subject to Microsoft Bloat (tm). >The '0.5' got converted to binary, and the reason the zero disappeared >was a function of how it was displayed. qbasic uses floating point unless you tell it not to. (And if it's like most versions of Microsoft Basic, even then it uses floating point for calculations and integers only for storage.) -- Matthew W. Miller -- mwmiller@columbus.rr.com ###### From: jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:02:22 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 16 Message-ID: <9m0e1e$8n$1@top.mitre.org> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Reply-To: jcmorris@mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Host: jmorris-pc.mitre.org X-Trace: top.mitre.org 998488942 279 128.29.251.13 (22 Aug 2001 14:02:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:02:22 GMT X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!jcmorris Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87894 mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) writes: > I'm typing this through KEDIT. YARN will save it in my >email folder and in a while, vsoup will put it on the >Internet. Ah, another satisfied KEDIT customer! Even though Kevin no longer markets it, I still use the DOS version for most of my raw text editing on MS systems (no, I'm not typing this with KEDIT; I'm using vi since this is a Linux system...). I have the Windows version of KEDIT but still find the old DOS version to be better suited for much of what I do. Joe Morris ###### From: mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <20010820210738.77b04437.steveo@eircom.net> Reply-To: mwmiller@columbus.rr.com Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Lines: 9 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 14:08:49 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.210.227.104 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: typhoon.columbus.rr.com 998489329 204.210.227.104 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 10:08:49 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 10:08:49 EDT Organization: Road Runner Columbus Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone.columbus.rr.com!typhoon.columbus.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87955 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:07:27 +0100, David Given wrote: >Aren't there any character-cell word processors (as opposed to text >processors) for Unixoids? Used to be Word Perfect, but of course, nowadays it's just a semi-working emulator running the semi-working MS-Windows version. Thanks a lot, Corel. -- Matthew W. Miller -- mwmiller@columbus.rr.com ###### From: jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:12:28 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 41 Message-ID: <9m0ekc$e2$1@top.mitre.org> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Reply-To: jcmorris@mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Host: jmorris-pc.mitre.org X-Trace: top.mitre.org 998489548 450 128.29.251.13 (22 Aug 2001 14:12:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:12:28 GMT X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!jcmorris Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87897 Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes: >mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) writes: >> I'm typing this through KEDIT. YARN will save it in my >> email folder and in a while, vsoup will put it on the >> Internet. >as an aside, KEDIT is a XEDIT knock-off ... I have a KEDIT V1 manual >in box someplace. I would call it more of a port than a knock-off; "knock-off" sounds more like it was swiped. (I was happy to see it appear; I had been looking at writing an XEDIT-like editor for the PC but never got around to doing anything about it.) >stu at cambridge scientific center did "script" in the '60s ... which >had a runoff like syntax. Then in the early '70s the people at CSC >added "GML" markup syntax to script .... although "script" could still >be used in either runoff like syntax or markup syntax. >when ibm pc came out ... somebody did a port of the script >... effectively same formating that could be done on the mainframe. That was ReadiWriter. The author was one of the SHARE folk, but I'm drawing a total blank on trying to recall his name. IIRC there was a later IBM product that provided GML on the PC, but I never had a need for it. ReadiWriter turned the script/GML design upside-down. In the IBM product (DCF) script was the native language and GML was created by writing macros in script. In ReadiWriter, GML was the native tongue and script was implemented as GML macros. I've not touched it in years, but somewhere in my house I've still got the ReadiWriter disks and manuals. .bd Joe Morris .eb ###### From: mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <4f53ot8rq2fj2t50ucjr1todepofb8r0q0@4ax.com> <3f95otgk22e0p1pv67dgmj99focug4efiu@news.newsguy.com> Reply-To: mwmiller@columbus.rr.com Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Lines: 14 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 14:12:32 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.210.227.104 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: typhoon.columbus.rr.com 998489552 204.210.227.104 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 10:12:32 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 10:12:32 EDT Organization: Road Runner Columbus Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone1.gnilink.net!news-east.rr.com!cyclone.columbus.rr.com!typhoon.columbus.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87956 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:24:44 -0500, Arargh! wrote: >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:30:53 -0400, Paul Guertin wrote: >>> >Word 5.5 for DOS is still available, for free, on Microsoft's web site. >>Found it (after a couple of 404s) at >>http://download.microsoft.com/download/word50/Wd55_eng/5.5/WIN98/EN-US/Wd55_eng.exe >I guess it was not an obvious link or I just didn't look hard enough. Nothing on Microsoft's web site is an obvious link, at least in my experience. I have to use a web searcher such as google just to have more than a snowball's chance in Hell of finding whatever I happen to be looking for. It's monolithic, disorganized, overfeatured and underplanned... hmmmm... remind you of anything? -- Matthew W. Miller -- mwmiller@columbus.rr.com ###### From: jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:14:43 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 12 Message-ID: <9m0eoj$eb$1@top.mitre.org> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> Reply-To: jcmorris@mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Host: jmorris-pc.mitre.org X-Trace: top.mitre.org 998489683 459 128.29.251.13 (22 Aug 2001 14:14:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:14:43 GMT X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!jcmorris Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87901 Eric Sosman writes: > Our sales people used >to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 "Stealth" bomber >would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals in printed >form. A *very* long-standing joke in the aviation world is that no airplane is ever issued an airworthiness certificate until the weight of the documentation equals that of the airplane. Joe Morris ###### From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (lwin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:33:34 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS Lines: 7 Message-ID: <9m0fru$nmo@netaxs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bbs.cpcn.com Originator: root@bbs.cpcn.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!yellow.newsread.com!bad-news.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!netaxs.newsread.com!bbs.cpcn.com!root Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87889 x-no-archive: yes I still like using my typewriter for quick and simple things. It's amazing how much time you waste playing with options of a modern word processor, such as italic and bold and different fonts and font sizes. ###### From: jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:34:05 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 50 Message-ID: <9m0fst$pd$1@top.mitre.org> References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln Reply-To: jcmorris@mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Host: jmorris-pc.mitre.org X-Trace: top.mitre.org 998490845 813 128.29.251.13 (22 Aug 2001 14:34:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:34:05 GMT X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!jcmorris Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87903 "Roger Johnstone" writes: > wrote: >#1. Under Windows 95 I tried to rename a file as BHM, an acronym. Windows >decided I must have accidentally typed it all in capitals and kindly changed >it to Bhm. Arghhh! This "smart feature" must have been thought up by an >idiot. Obviously, most of the time it would incorrectly "corrrect" your >capatilisation. There's a Registry change (which I never bothered with, and don't recall the details of) that turns off automatic capitalization of short filename entries in Explorer windows. Note that if you create a filename that cannot be exactly represented as an SFN (for example, "BHM files") the LFN will be displayed with capitalization as entered. Files saved with only an SFN entry (i.e., ones that would be valid 8.3 filenames under MSDOS) are stored in uppercase, and are displayed by default in Explorer with initial caps. >#2. Under QBasic, type a fraction e.g. 'let x=0.5' and it will kindly change >it to 'let x=.5'. Hello, where did my zero go? The smart thing would be to >put the leading zero IN if it was left out. This is not a ZX81, I am not >trying to save one more byte of RAM, I want to be able to read my program. The issue here is that in many implementations of BASIC (including BASICA and apparently QBASIC) the program you type in is not saved as a text file. It is instead tokenized and saved as what amounts to a partially predigested program; when you ask for it to be displayed or printed the tokenized string is translated back into text. This can be seen by entering excessive nonsignificant blanks on a line; when the line is typed out later all but one blank will disappear. Your line LET X=0.5 might be stored as: "X" which would also be the stored string for LET X=.5 LET X=00000.5 LET X=1/2 and all might be printed as "LET X=.5". Joe Morris ###### From: ewd_tang@ece.concordia.ca Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 14:47:34 GMT Organization: Concordia University, Montreal, Canada Lines: 13 Message-ID: <9m0gm6$361$1@newsflash.concordia.ca> References: <9m0fru$nmo@netaxs.com> Reply-To: ewd_tang@ewdtangstrudelcsperiodconcordiaperiodca.ece.concordia.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: ieeecs.concordia.ca NNTP-Posting-User: ewdt User-Agent: tin/1.5.1-20000103 ("Sumerland") (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.34 (i486)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsflash.concordia.ca!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87984 lwin wrote: : x-no-archive: yes : I still like using my typewriter for quick and simple things. : It's amazing how much time you waste playing with options of : a modern word processor, such as italic and bold and different fonts : and font sizes. Er... that's not a modern word processor... that'd be ancient word processors... like the stand alone units that used dot matrix printers... ###### From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:19:59 -0400 Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 19 Message-ID: <3B83CD9F.683ED150@sun.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: tardis.east.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!eastnews1.East.Sun.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88064 Charles Richmond wrote: > > Eric Sosman wrote: > > > > [...] Our sales people used > > to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 "Stealth" bomber > > would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals in printed > > form. [...] > > > Errmmm...the "Stealth" bomber is the B-2... No doubt you're right, but it brings up the interesting question: If the number can actually be observed, how stealthy can the bomber really be? I guess the B-1 must be the "Schrödinger" bomber ... -- Eric.Sosman@sun.com ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m0ekc$e2$1@top.mitre.org> Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 13 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 15:43:45 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.228.46 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 998495025 199.174.228.46 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 08:43:45 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 08:43:45 PDT X-Received-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 08:40:24 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!128.230.129.106!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87934 jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes: > > I would call it more of a port than a knock-off; "knock-off" sounds > more like it was swiped. (I was happy to see it appear; I had been > looking at writing an XEDIT-like editor for the PC but never got > around to doing anything about it.) of course you are correct, I should have used "port" instead of "knock-off" -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 30 NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:01:51 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-LtPnlertxtS4V/PIF4CYg4nwybzr2MSQwDjw0522+pHBBRFSxLyxGxVSlZS+PKhMlzDK9LItM93ZfRj!aRIzzDLETrqK8A2c0siSihKSQzEn4Lb2pye5MrmDUZ+dg9bFT7h7EVQVyUDrYiTOJsGy2mKceAxy!irFf8hp8kAq89PijmN/3 X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:01:51 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!cyclone-sjo1.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!eris.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88017 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Charles Richmond wrote: > Eric Sosman wrote: > > > > Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote: > > > > > > Word Perfect at least could manage large documents, though I prefer to > > > do really big things with TeX/LaTeX or something nroff-like. > > > > In a former life I worked for a company which made a word > > processing and document management system whose strengths lay > > in handling large documents, where by "large" I mean something > > rather different than it seems you do. Our sales people used > > to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 "Stealth" bomber > > would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals in printed > > form. Pharmaceutical companies' applications to the Food and > > Drug Administration for approval to market a new drug averaged > > about half a million pages, with three-quarters of a million > > not unheard of. I don't even want to *think* about handling > > documents of such sizes in Word or WordPerfect. > > > Errmmm...the "Stealth" bomber is the B-2... But a 500K page drug application? What exactly can be said in that many pages? A complete history of development? Details on every individual tested? Perhaps most of it's a liability disclaimer or some sort? :-) -Mike ###### Message-ID: <3B83D5D6.B24E0635@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m0e1e$8n$1@top.mitre.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 26 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:29:19 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.90.173.120 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998497759 12.90.173.120 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:29:19 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:29:19 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88079 Joe Morris wrote: > > mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) writes: > > > I'm typing this through KEDIT. YARN will save it in my > >email folder and in a while, vsoup will put it on the > >Internet. > > Ah, another satisfied KEDIT customer! > > Even though Kevin no longer markets it, I still use the DOS version > for most of my raw text editing on MS systems (no, I'm not typing > this with KEDIT; I'm using vi since this is a Linux system...). > > I have the Windows version of KEDIT but still find the old DOS > version to be better suited for much of what I do. I still have NE (Norton Editor) eating up about 32k of storage. It has a 1986 date on the code file. I use it now and then. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@XXXXworldnet.att.net) (Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified) mailto:uce@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest) ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <6dm5otgmhko2i9aac2irbotoesda50qat2@4ax.com> Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> <6dm5otgmhko2i9aac2irbotoesda50qat2@4ax.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 68 NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:37:09 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-ReahxYqcE7zo5XRvFDTE9cYxjTlfK4PtQySOPXstc9fays0iYqym5DxBhDK4SZrfbiZNf5zN1/6a7PT!4YhBT+LGKGdPCacOPOptBB6EOOw32zws9FsINSoWiH4GDZWtj/H3uyl9AF7cXhR0LlWcolf7N7y7!xDjLsijxh3mNolV2Qpjy X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:37:06 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.flash.net!easynews!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!eris.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88021 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Arargh! wrote: > On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:42:36 -0500, Mike Schaeffer > wrote: > > >I want to say MSDN is available on DVD's too... > I figured it might be, but I was not sure... The only reason I know this is that I remember thinking that MSDN was ahead of the game adapting CD-ROMs in '93, and then again adapting DVD-ROM's. It makes total sense in both cases. > >Related: MSDN volume 3 was the reason I bought a CD-ROM drive. I got the > >$200 MSDN offer about the same time I got Gateway 2000's $199.95 deal on a > >propriatary interface (actually a Sanyo) CD-ROM. $400 got me the whole > >ball of wax wrt Windows developer docs... > Volume 3 - Disc Three? April 1993? Blue and magenta? With a pic of > some kind of a helocopter? Still have that one in the shrink wrap. > > >I still have MSDN volume 4... anyone remember the souped up version of > >WinHelp it uses for a multimedia browser? > Disc Four - Summer 1993 - Red & gray? Yeah, that's it. I can't find my Volume 3 right now, but I loaded up the Volume 4 stuff up a few days ago trying to answer a question about OS/2 and the Software Migration Kit. Volume 4 is before Microsoft managed to purge all worthwhile content relating to OS/2 off MSDN, etc. If you're interested, the OS/2 SMK is a toolset that allowed Windows 3.0 API applications to be easily recompiled for OS/2 1.2. I've seen a couple internet sites that imply that the OS/2 versions of Word and Excel were basically the Windows versions recompiled against this library. An interesting idea that leads me to a question for this group, that's actually appropiate for this thread. (!) One of the things that was really noteworthy about the transition to Windows is how Microsoft caught everybody flatfooted with the Windows 3.0 release. My thesis is that by pushing OS/2 in the late '80s they severely reduced the incentive for 3rd party developers (Lotus, WordPerfect, etc.) to develop for Windows. After all, Windows was the lame duck real-mode DOS extender, and OS/2 with Presentation Manager was the next generation wave of the future. Microsoft was developing their own Windows variants, b/c with the then-internal SMK, any improvements spilled over to the OS/2 versions automatically. Since the SMK wasn't then released, this choice wasn't available to outside developers, who were stuck with either maintaining two code bases or developing their own SMK. Thus Microsoft manipulated the OS landscape to their application group's advantage... yadda yadda. I know it's a lot of conspiricy theory, and based largely on speculation, but does anybody around here have any thoughts on the matter? The theory certainly explains why early versions of WP/Win and 123/Win were as bad as they were. I'd just be really curious to know what the OS/2 development landscape was like in the late 80's: How people perceived Windows' future; When the SMK was released; How were people dealing with developing for the two Microsoft Windowing platforms; Would a protected-mode Windows have suprised developers in the 1987-89 timeframe? I certainly know that it was something of a suprise to Microsoft, as the skunkworks project of one lone engineer. > The only viewer I see is 'Mviewer2.exe' is that it? Yeah... the deluxe version of WinHelp that nobody else, that I'm aware of, actually used. -Mike ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 26 NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:39:17 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-S3JrqtlY8lCP/+PNKeR7mkNfa1Q+9NqZ+4L+sr7AkDM8CeMY3iRcyh2UvvIFlznXZh+UseZEkooP1O7!U7YCpwTqV3niL3BpwKgF7brpJlhifOYQipTZ/OZHFsnCrGwkVl/hSKFXETQqKPqwoiGvOr14DMNp!dhyz8GL7RMpI/umhY3Sa X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:39:16 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!news-peer-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!eris.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88022 On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Matthew W. Miller wrote: > On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:19:08 GMT, The.Central.Scrutinizer wrote: > >Roger Johnstone wrote: > >>#2. Under QBasic, type a fraction e.g. 'let x=0.5' and it will kindly > >>change it to 'let x=.5'. Hello, where did my zero go? The smart thing > >>would be to put the leading zero IN if it was left out. This is not a > >>ZX81, I am not trying to save one more byte of RAM, I want to be able to > >>read my program. > > It balances out all of the excess spacing qbasic (and quickbasic) insists > on plopping in, I suppose. Then again, the qbasic -> qb -> vb progression > has managed to make progressively suckier versions of Basic with each > iteration-- an extraordinary feat. > > >IIRC, qbasic, like the basic used by the ZX81 tokenized the program. > > It doesn't. qbasic (and qb) save Basic code as uncompressed plaintext. > Yes, Virginia, even DOS programs are subject to Microsoft Bloat (tm). Are you complaining about saving source code as an ASCII file? That seems a lot more useful than the binary files that GWBASIC defaulted to. -Mike ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 22 NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:41:07 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-YmZTfzmNPEaLY1YTc/u6lvB2SW3q2RQRSxFM8bnGmCnAU3Npzxh2iPb9FJGeWPhPhPuZWLFwv2+uar+!xr0D0PHHc7/z9xiMTUxY1R9Pe9PyfNBTV5Kc+NMp69X2EJF2vRTDVXRzB1qKBzE94Sb2vr87SNSF!V8vMxli5gDvpBw4TIDIw X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:41:06 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!eris.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88020 On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com wrote: > On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:13:32 +1200, Roger Johnstone wrote: > >#2. Under QBasic, type a fraction e.g. 'let x=0.5' and it will kindly change > >it to 'let x=.5'. Hello, where did my zero go? The smart thing would be to > >put the leading zero IN if it was left out. This is not a ZX81, I am not > >trying to save one more byte of RAM, I want to be able to read my program. > > > > IIRC, qbasic, like the basic used by the ZX81 tokenized the program. The '0.5' > got converted to binary, and the reason the zero disappeared was a function of > how it was displayed. It was a threaded language. The editor would rearrange things (add spaces, whatever) as you hit ended the line and the threading system rethreaded the line of code. If I remember right, if you changed the capitailzation of a variable (BASIC wasn't case-sensitive) it would also change the capitalization of every other instance of the variable in the program. -Mike ###### From: Alexandre Pechtchanski Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: References: <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> <6dm5otgmhko2i9aac2irbotoesda50qat2@4ax.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 27 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:07:18 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 998500102 129.85.24.56 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:08:22 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:08:22 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.nyu.edu!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88031 On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:37:06 -0500, Mike Schaeffer wrote: [ snip ] >One of the things that was really noteworthy about the transition to >Windows is how Microsoft caught everybody flatfooted with the Windows 3.0 >release. My thesis is that by pushing OS/2 in the late '80s they severely >reduced the incentive for 3rd party developers (Lotus, WordPerfect, etc.) >to develop for Windows. After all, Windows was the lame duck real-mode >DOS extender, and OS/2 with Presentation Manager was the next generation >wave of the future. Microsoft was developing their own Windows variants, >b/c with the then-internal SMK, any improvements spilled over to the OS/2 >versions automatically. Since the SMK wasn't then released, this choice >wasn't available to outside developers, who were stuck with either >maintaining two code bases or developing their own SMK. Thus Microsoft >manipulated the OS landscape to their application group's advantage... >yadda yadda. > >I know it's a lot of conspiracy theory, and based largely on speculation, >but does anybody around here have any thoughts on the matter? I thought this was established fact, at least the part of Microsoft promoting OS/2 as _the_ future platform. Someone even had the (in)famous quote from Chairman Bill to this effect in his .sig. -- [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <9m0fru$nmo@netaxs.com> Organization: University of Michigan, College of Engineering From: ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) Lines: 19 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 17:07:53 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 141.213.74.25 X-Trace: srvr1.engin.umich.edu 998500073 141.213.74.25 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:07:53 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:07:53 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!srvr1.engin.umich.edu!ftit Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88000 In article <9m0fru$nmo@netaxs.com>, lwin wrote: >x-no-archive: yes > >I still like using my typewriter for quick and simple things. > >It's amazing how much time you waste playing with options of >a modern word processor, such as italic and bold and different fonts >and font sizes. Huh? When I have somethig simple to do I go over to my laptop, which is running Linux, pull up a shell, type, "vi /tmp/foo", and away I go. If it's something more complicated, or it has to look good, I fire up LaTeX. If it's a M$-Nerd form that I have to fill in, I curse under my breath and use StarOffice. Nuthin tuit. -- Sergej Roytman ###### From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:26:04 -0400 Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 42 Message-ID: <3B83EB2C.8CAF5C2@sun.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: tardis.east.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!eastnews1.East.Sun.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88053 Mike Schaeffer wrote: > > Eric Sosman wrote: > > > > [...] Pharmaceutical companies' applications to the Food and > > Drug Administration for approval to market a new drug averaged > > about half a million pages, with three-quarters of a million > > not unheard of. [...] > > But a 500K page drug application? What exactly can be said in that many > pages? A complete history of development? Details on every individual > tested? Perhaps most of it's a liability disclaimer or some sort? :-) We're getting a little outside my area of expertise, as I've never written or read any part of an NDA. I've been told, though, that the application amounts to pretty much a complete history of the entire development and testing effort for a drug: chemical and biological analyses of the drug itself and of the alternative formulations that were tried and rejected along the way, details of all the different manufacturing methods that were tried, studies of the drug's lifetime under various storage and handling regimes, in vitro studies, animal studies, early clinical trials, advanced clinical trials, comparisons with other drugs' efficacies, potencies, side-effects, and interactions, and every lab worker's mother's maiden name. Basically, the entire paper trail of everything having to do with the drug. The challenge (for our software) was that the resulting document was considered a single huge document and not just a collection of separate booklets. In order to give anyone a hope of finding anything in such a vast collection, the whole business had to be indexed and organized in just about every conceivable way, and these indices cut right across all the different bits prepared by all those thousands of different contributors. The cynic in me imagines that this immense and burdensome application process is bureaucracy gone mad. And then I remember thalidomide ... -- Eric.Sosman@sun.com ###### From: Pete Fenelon Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 17:40:25 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: Sender: Pete Fenelon References: <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> User-Agent: tin/1.5.8-20010221 ("Blue Water") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.3-STABLE (i386)) X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 22 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:87992 Alexandre Pechtchanski wrote: >> >>To be fair, MS Word is not alone in this regard. StarOffice also has a lot >>of automatic "features" that are a pain in the ass to turn off. (I never >>did figure out how to turn off the damned paragraph numbering.) > > Isn't StarOffice _supposed_ to be bug-by-bug copy of MS Office? > Alas, it's worse than that. It appears to have been "designed" by a marketroid who watched a few MS demos of all the funky features in Office 97, and then implemented by someone who thought we had 2GHz cpus instead of 200MHz ones. The look and feel that's not quite Windows, not quite Motif and not quite attractive is also rather quaint. This isn't to say that I like MS Office - but when I find myself firing up VMWare to run it rather than using StarOffice, I figure that the fault tends to lie in StarDivision/Sun's design :) pete ###### From: john@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au (John "West" McKenna) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 23 Aug 2001 02:16:24 +0800 Organization: University Computer Club Lines: 14 Message-ID: <9m0sto$a88$1@mermaid.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <9m0eoj$eb$1@top.mitre.org> X-Trace: enyo.uwa.edu.au 998504185 1952 130.95.13.17 (22 Aug 2001 18:16:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.uwa.edu.au Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!gatel-ffm!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!203.50.2.79!intgwlon.nntp.telstra.net!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news.uwa.edu.au!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88013 jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes: >A *very* long-standing joke in the aviation world is that no airplane >is ever issued an airworthiness certificate until the weight of the >documentation equals that of the airplane. I was on a flight earlier in the year that was delayed a bit in taking off. The pilot explained that they were still doing paperwork, and once the weight of the paper exceeded the weight of the place, we could take off. Was that a pilot who knew the joke and invented his own twist to it, or one who didn't understand the original? John ###### From: "Vaughn" <2mosrite@home.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and word processing in general) Lines: 18 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 02:42:51 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.3.184.135 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.rdc1.nj.home.com 998534571 24.3.184.135 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:42:51 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:42:51 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.bme.hu!andromeda.datanet.hu!newsfeed.gamma.ru!Gamma.RU!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.rdc1.nj.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88164 Microsoft word descends from the Bravo family of visual editor/typesetter software pioneered at Xerox PARC in the mid nineteen-seventies. Bravo was the editor used on the Alto computer; many of Bravo's ideas were later reimplemented in BravoX for the Xerox D-machines (Dorado, Dandelion, Dolphin, etc). So if you wish to reseach Word's lineage, look up these editors, or a site devoted to Xerox workstations (Al Kossow's page might be a helpful starting point). As the ultimate origin of Word lies in the development of screen-oriented text editors, perhaps a look into the beginnings of these would be appropriate (UNIX vi is a prominent visual editor, but certainly _not_ the first). I'm not sure what the first visual editor was, but I think it might have come out of Stanford in the the early seventies (WAITS anyone?). I could be wrong... ###### From: Eric Fischer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and word processing in general) Date: 23 Aug 2001 03:59:03 GMT Lines: 12 Message-ID: <9m1v27$qqq$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbnig65P13IZMxp9McoR/Baq6fmLdGWVA4SQ+m+e/BmdO34hHNVRYoM X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 03:59:03 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Originator: enf@enteract.com (Eric Fischer) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88109 Vaughn <2mosrite@home.com> wrote: > I'm not sure what the first visual editor was, but I think it might > have come out of Stanford in the the early seventies (WAITS anyone?). > I could be wrong... There was a program called "Editing Text for Immediate Display" under development by Martin E. Somin at MIT for the IBM 709 in 1959. Whether it ever actually ran I don't know; but TECO definitely had display support by 1964. eric ###### From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and word processing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 07:09:15 -0700 Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. Lines: 17 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: il0502a-dhcp38.apple.com X-Trace: news.apple.com 998575751 10652 17.205.24.38 (23 Aug 2001 14:09:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.apple.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 14:09:11 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!schlund.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!fu-berlin.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!forum.apple.com!news.apple.com!il0502a-dhcp38.apple.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88150 In article , "Vaughn" <2mosrite@home.com> wrote: > Microsoft word descends from the Bravo family of visual editor/typesetter > software pioneered at Xerox PARC in the mid nineteen-seventies. > Bravo was the editor used on the Alto computer; many of Bravo's ideas were > later reimplemented in BravoX for the Xerox D-machines (Dorado, Dandelion, > Dolphin, etc). > BravoX (Also known as the Xerox Document System Editor) ran on the Alto. I've not seen any documentation that shows it was ported to later computers. It was written in a bytecode interpreted language called Butte, which I have been told was still used for the first few versions of Word on Macintosh. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 01 08:46:21 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 46 Message-ID: <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVb+SwWJKBQ9KP8DE6gPz5rX9S8QCDgF6BvoUHrkOcnpoKPTWKwkhxKb X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 11:32:04 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-216-164 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88114 In article <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: 'ey, Hawk ;-) >In article , > wrote: > > >>Yeah, but do they automatically make unwanted >>changes and refuse to allow the >>the user to override them? That's the beauty of >>microsoft word. That and the >>dancing paperclip if you attemp to activate the online help. > >Oh, come on. Word would never read a file from another computer, changed >it so that it's incompativle with the machine that wrote it, and >overwrite the original on disk with no hope of recovery, all before >coming up. > >[*stagehand mumbles in hawk's ear*] > >Err, never mind :) May I borrow that stagehand? >>less than 50K for every 1K of text or making it >>crash less than once every 16 >>hours of use. > >You get that long between crashes??? > >hawk, who remembers using 1.0 on his undergraduate dissertation, and >having to break into multiple files for editing, and having a crash at >least every 7 or 8 pages while printing . . . At least they've maintained backwards compatibility. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 01 08:35:10 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 13 Message-ID: <9m2oul$gbf$2@bob.news.rcn.net> References: me.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVaKYzNPcpkEaJpvWjz9YsxiOKggajAuO86w93zTwNh0EDekCdEWmYg0 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 11:20:53 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-216-164 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88117 In article , mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) wrote: >qbasic uses floating point unless you tell it not to. (And if it's like >most versions of Microsoft Basic, even then it uses floating point for >calculations and integers only for storage.) You have got to be shitting me. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 01 10:08:52 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 28 Message-ID: <931.634T2643T6086108@nowhere.in.particular> References: <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m0e1e$8n$1@top.mitre.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-314.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!RRZ.Uni-Koeln.DE!news.netcologne.de!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!24.226.1.12!feed.cgocable.net!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!msc1.onvoy!ply1.onvoy!upp1.onvoy!onvoy.com!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news3 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88154 In article <9m0e1e$8n$1@top.mitre.org> jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes: >mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) writes: > >> I'm typing this through KEDIT. YARN will save it in my >>email folder and in a while, vsoup will put it on the >>Internet. > >Ah, another satisfied KEDIT customer! > >Even though Kevin no longer markets it, I still use the DOS version >for most of my raw text editing on MS systems (no, I'm not typing >this with KEDIT; I'm using vi since this is a Linux system...). > >I have the Windows version of KEDIT but still find the old DOS >version to be better suited for much of what I do. Me too. I still use it regularly. I was quite familiar with KEDIT long before I first sat down at a 3270 and fired up XEDIT. The ancestry was immediately obvious, and I had little trouble quickly learning how to use XEDIT. -- cgibbs@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs) I'm switching ISPs - watch this space. ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 01 14:37:45 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 31 Message-ID: <1272.634T2251T8776056@nowhere.in.particular> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-646.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news2 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88157 In article <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) writes: >In article <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com>, >J. Steven York wrote: > >>Early on, MacWord was a COMPLETELY different program sharing nothing >>but the name with its DOS cousin. While the DOS version was ugly, >>MacWord was an elegant tool, relatively friendly to typists, easy to >>learn, fun to play with, opening vistas of annoying creativity to the >>masses. ("Did you have to use EVERY font you own in your cover >>letter?") > >The technical name for that is "Macintosh fever," and it dates to >macwrite. The mercifully brief craze for adding a "Mac-" prefix to everything led to the term "macdinking", referring to the way people would spend far more time messing with their document to make it look pretty than they spent on content. A study at the time showed that on average, documents produced on a Mac were prettier, but documents produced on an MS-DOS box had better content. Windows leveled this one out at the lowest common denominator. The advent of desktop publishing led to what has been referred to as "ransom-note typography". -- cgibbs@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs) I'm switching ISPs - watch this space. ###### From: mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Lines: 60 X-Newsreader: VSoup v1.2.9.37Beta [95/NT] Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:17:07 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.206.39.134 X-Trace: nnrp1.uunet.ca 998585593 205.206.39.134 (Thu, 23 Aug 2001 12:53:13 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 12:53:13 EDT Organization: UUNET Canada News Reader Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uunet.ca!nnrp1.uunet.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88120 In article , mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) wrote: > Other times I use Personal File Editor. If I want stuff to ^^^^^^^^ >look word-processed, I write it in HTML. Oy! Programmer's File Editor. Well, I am a person, and a programmer... For envelopes, Ghostscript: %!PS-Adobe-3.0 %%DocumentFonts: URWBookmanL-Ligh %%Title: Envelope %%Creator: Mel Wilson %%CreationDate: April 4, 2001 %%Pages: 1 %%EndComments /inch { 72 mul } def /Height 4.125 inch def % height of an envelope /Width 9.375 inch def % width of an envelope /SenderAddress { /URWBookmanL-Ligh findfont 10 scalefont setfont .5 inch 3.75 inch moveto (My Name) show .5 inch 3.625 inch moveto (My Address Line 1) show .5 inch 3.50 inch moveto (My Address Line 2) show } def /ShowLine { 3 inch Line moveto show /Line Line .25 inch sub def } def %%EndProlog %----------------------------------------------- %%Page: (1) 1 newpath SenderAddress /URWBookmanL-Ligh findfont 12 scalefont setfont /Line 2.25 inch def (Their Name) ShowLine (Their Address Line 1) ShowLine (Their Address Line 2) ShowLine (Their Address Line 3) ShowLine showpage quit %%Trailer Regards. Mel. ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> <3B83EB2C.8CAF5C2@sun.com> Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 20 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 18:28:06 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.226.72 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 998504886 199.174.226.72 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:28:06 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:28:06 PDT X-Received-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:24:45 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88122 Eric Sosman writes: > The challenge (for our software) was that the resulting > document was considered a single huge document and not just a > collection of separate booklets. In order to give anyone a > hope of finding anything in such a vast collection, the whole > business had to be indexed and organized in just about every > conceivable way, and these indices cut right across all the > different bits prepared by all those thousands of different > contributors. a similar ... but different indexing challenge is capture & representation of UMLS used by the national library of medicine. some old postings http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#26 Misc. more on bidirectional links http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#67 What ever happened to WAIS? -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### Message-ID: <3B841727.9A787658@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> <3B83CD9F.683ED150@sun.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 35 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 18:35:55 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998505355 24.179.111.125 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:35:55 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:35:55 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88178 Eric Sosman wrote: > > Charles Richmond wrote: > > > > Eric Sosman wrote: > > > > > > [...] Our sales people used > > > to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 "Stealth" bomber > > > would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals in printed > > > form. [...] > > > > > Errmmm...the "Stealth" bomber is the B-2... > > No doubt you're right, but it brings up the interesting > question: If the number can actually be observed, how stealthy > can the bomber really be? > > I guess the B-1 must be the "Schrödinger" bomber ... > IIRC, the B-1 was finally built by the Regan administration...it was made sub-sonic to save money. The B-2 *might* have been called the B-2 because each one costs *two* billion dollars. (;-)) You can see a picture of the B-1 bomber at: < http://www.af.mil/photos/Apr2000/20000402-f-1467b-001.html> and a picture of the B-2 bomber at: -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> <3B83CD9F.683ED150@sun.com> <3B841727.9A787658@ev1.net> Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 Message-ID: Lines: 16 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 18:52:52 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.226.72 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 998506372 199.174.226.72 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:52:52 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:52:52 PDT X-Received-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:50:10 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88118 Charles Richmond writes: > IIRC, the B-1 was finally built by the Regan administration...it > was made sub-sonic to save money. The B-2 *might* have been called > the B-2 because each one costs *two* billion dollars. (;-)) rockwell? I seem to remember going to some conference and getting a coffee cup that had a B1 on a radar screen ... and when you poured hot coffee into it, the B1 disappeared (and possibly appeared on the other side of the cup). you couldn't put it in the microwave since it destroyed whatever heat sensitive material was involved. -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:21:08 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 19 Message-ID: <20010822212108.62ba116e.steveo@eircom.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p600.vcu.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 998511536 86755 194.134.201.128 (22 Aug 2001 20:18:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 20:18:56 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.5.3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--freebsd4.4) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!kanja.arnes.si!news-hub.siol.net!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!news2.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88142 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:23:30 -0400 Eric Sosman wrote: ES> about half a million pages, with three-quarters of a million ES> not unheard of. I don't even want to *think* about handling ES> documents of such sizes in Word or WordPerfect. So what percentage of this pile would you estimate was actually read ? I make that about a year of eight hour days in fast reading by which time you will have no clue what the first page was about. I thought SSADM produced too much paper - I remember a four foot high stack of paper called a "User Acceptance Document", clearly this was just a lame attempt at catch-up to the drug industry. -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara ###### Message-ID: <3B84290E.275A4416@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <9m0eoj$eb$1@top.mitre.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 22 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:52:18 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998509938 24.179.111.125 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 12:52:18 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 12:52:18 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88177 Joe Morris wrote: > > Eric Sosman writes: > > > Our sales people used > >to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 "Stealth" bomber > >would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals in printed > >form. > > A *very* long-standing joke in the aviation world is that no airplane > is ever issued an airworthiness certificate until the weight of the > documentation equals that of the airplane. > I have heard this quote attributed to Mr. Douglas of the McDonald- Douglas Aircraft company. Supposedly he said: "When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the airplane, the airplane will fly." -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 20:42:45 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 106 Message-ID: <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88103 In article <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com>, J. Steven York wrote: >On 18 Aug 2001 17:49:34 -0700, Charles Eicher >wrote: > >>In article , roggblake@inamme.com >>says... >>> >>>On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:34:04 GMT, Tom Buskey >>>wrote: >>>>I'd say most of Word's success came from bundling w/ Excel & >>>>Powerpoint. The purchaser sees $200 for Word Perfect, $200 for Lotus Yikes! Word's dominance starts on the mac, and the donminance predates the *existence* of powerpoint by several years . . . > It [Word Perfect] also had powerful mail-merge functions that >important in the office environment. And even when Windows started >coming on strong, WP, being DOS-based (until near the end) ran on >older PCs just fine, thank-you. Hey, the mac version of Word (v1.0-v5.1) had excellent mail-merge. Large portions of my law office were automated with it--bankruptcies and divorces used a hypercard front end to prepare the feeder file. When I wrote the mailmerge patch for LyX, the syntax was largely based on the old word commands [The current version, however, is *so* bad and awkward, that when I had to send out hundreds of semi-customized cover letters for the job market, I realized that it would be easier to write mail-merge into LyX . . . what worse can you say about someone's software than that it's easier to write your own than to use it???] >But the typist's friend? I think not. WordStar, for all its faults >and limitations, was a MUCH better program for typists. It kept your >fingers on the keyboard, and not searching around for function keys. Ahh, Word Star (didn't it predate MidWordCapitalization?). A wonderful prorgram. I think I could still use it, and it took several years to get those beautiful and consistent keystrokes out of my fingers while using word . . . ) >But on the DOS front, MS didn't have much to fight them with. "Word" >is really a brand name that describes a number of different programs, >in the way that "Ford" describes a lot of different vehicles. I'm a >bit dim on the early history of Word, but I know that initially MSj >supported a number of different hardware platforms besides DOS. I believe the Mac version predates the dos version. The mac version was available shortly after the 1984 release of the machine. The dos/windows versions were separate at first, until Word For Windows 2.0, which was a (partial) port of the mac version. Through 5.1, the mac version was a good program (Word 5.1 and Excel 4.0 were the last good programs ms shipped, and I bought them both). At version 6, though, they went to common code, and the mac version became almost as bad as the windows version. (And then I found LyX, gave up my macs, and went full-time *nix). As far as the dominance goes, at the Mac introduction, MacWrite couldn't do much. It was limited to 512 paragraphs (2048 on the later 512k machines). Word 1.0 introduced, as far as I can tell, the usable footnote (one of thyee innovations ever to come out of redmond). For any vaguely long or complicated document, it was far superior, and remained superior to all later entrants (until word 6 rolled around, but I've already mentioned that). Similarly, Excel was solid (but it seems to me there was an ms spreadsheet that preceeded excel that was a pain in the tail to use), and had the market locked up before facing any serious competition. On the Mac side, word and excel became dominant by being superior programs (I sometimes point out to my students that I'm old enough to remember when MS wrote good software. That awes them more than remembering records . . .). On the dark side, however, the dominance and usage was an extension of the windows/dos monopoly. Manufacturors already had to deal with ms for the os license, and ms, having failed in the market against wp and lotus, offered office cheap when shipped with the computer. This eventually reached critical mass, and became the standard by default (hey, should I give you this file in a format for the program you already have, or something else?) >Early on, MacWord was a COMPLETELY different program sharing nothing >but the name with its DOS cousin. While the DOS version was ugly, >MacWord was an elegant tool, relatively friendly to typists, easy to >learn, fun to play with, opening vistas of annoying creativity to the >masses. ("Did you have to use EVERY font you own in your cover >letter?") The technical name for that is "Macintosh fever," and it dates to macwrite. >Initially it lagged in some power-user areas, but >improvement was rapid, When first introduced for the mac, there were only one or two obscure features it was missing. hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Supersedes: <9m15o5$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> Date: 22 Aug 2001 20:51:05 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 46 Message-ID: <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88104 In article , wrote: >Yeah, but do they automatically make unwanted changes and refuse to allow the >the user to override them? That's the beauty of microsoft word. That and the >dancing paperclip if you attemp to activate the online help. Oh, come on. Word would never read a file from another computer, changed it so that it's incompativle with the machine that wrote it, and overwrite the original on disk with no hope of recovery, all before coming up. [*stagehand mumbles in hawk's ear*] Err, never mind :) >They should have quit in '95 ack! no! That's 6.0. They should have quit at 5.1, and done a full port as Word for Windows 2.5 . . . and spent the rest of their time making it take >less than 50K for every 1K of text or making it crash less than once every 16 >hours of use. You get that long between crashes??? hawk, who remembers using 1.0 on his undergraduate dissertation, and having to break into multiple files for editing, and having a crash at least every 7 or 8 pages while printing . . . -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 20:53:58 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 26 Message-ID: <9m1656$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <998377295snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88088 In article <998377295snz@dsl.co.uk>, Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: >Personally, I have never "got into" the WYSIWYG ethos, and so continue to >produce all documents (personal letters, research reports, notes for >students, overhead transparencies, etc.) with a text processor. This >ensures that I am thinking about the *logical* context of each piece of >text, and not about its physical appearance. So I edit with an ordinary >text editor (on the x86, my EoC is SEDT), and process with LaTeX. The intermediate step, of course, is WYSIWYM (what you *mean*), as used by LyX. In general, LaTeX would be more my thing, but a) I need to see my equations to edit them (that's the killer feature that got me to buy a new computer instead of staying with macs and word 5.1), and b) there tend to be a lot less keystrokes in LyX than LaTeX. [however, a few weeks ago, the ERT [Evil Red Text; raw LaTeX in LyX] got changed from a text style to an inset, and things got rougher :( hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 21:03:43 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 22 Message-ID: <9m16nf$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!comnets.rwth-aachen.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88101 In article <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net>, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote: >I have watched people at work put over an hour into a single memo, and >have watched hundreds of man hours lost when trying to manage anything >over 100 pages with Word. It's just a mess. >Word Perfect at least could manage large documents, though I prefer to >do really big things with TeX/LaTeX or something nroff-like. It was typical to see grad students spending a couple of weeks, full-time, after their defense to bring their work into the style standards of the university using word. I used a LaTeX package (through LyX). It took less than ten minutes . . . hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: Tony Lima Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Organization: Tony Lima Associates Reply-To: TonyLima2@att.net Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/16.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 27 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:26 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.81.65.101 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998514626 12.81.65.101 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:26 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:26 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!comnets.rwth-aachen.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88081 On 21 Aug 2001 14:11:30 -0400, shannon@daydream.shannon.net (Charles Shannon Hendrix) wrote: >In article , >Tony Lima wrote: > >> But Word (about version 2.x) was the first word processor I >> saw that persuaded me to give up WS. I suspect it was >> because you could type first, then easily go back and do the >> formatting later. In any case, I agree with about every >> point made by Mr. York. - Tony Lima > >The older versions of Word were actually not too bad in many ways. >Most word processes in those days had a mode of operation for just >banging out words, leaving formatting for later. > >The problem now is that the focus is on layout, which is ridiculous. >Very few people know even the most basic elements of page layout and >typography, and even if you do it's not something you should be >focusing on most of the time. [snip] I agree with everything you've said, but there's one thing about Word that was far superior to early versions of WS. When Word started, it opened a blank document. Those of us who just want to start pounding the keyboard could do so immediately. - Tony ###### From: Tony Lima Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Organization: Tony Lima Associates Reply-To: TonyLima2@att.net Message-ID: <9b58otkfvlo6kg8vmgedfobqksktl99bgk@4ax.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/16.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 26 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:31 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.81.65.101 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998514631 12.81.65.101 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:31 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:31 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!comnets.rwth-aachen.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88080 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:23:30 -0400, Eric Sosman wrote: >Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote: >> >> Word Perfect at least could manage large documents, though I prefer to >> do really big things with TeX/LaTeX or something nroff-like. > > In a former life I worked for a company which made a word >processing and document management system whose strengths lay >in handling large documents, where by "large" I mean something >rather different than it seems you do. Our sales people used >to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 "Stealth" bomber >would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals in printed >form. Pharmaceutical companies' applications to the Food and >Drug Administration for approval to market a new drug averaged >about half a million pages, with three-quarters of a million >not unheard of. I don't even want to *think* about handling >documents of such sizes in Word or WordPerfect. > > Me, I use Emacs ... I spent summer, 2000 writing a somewhat large user guide with Word (using the "master document" feature no less). Never again. When the project was over, I started to learn Framemaker. - Tony ###### From: Tony Lima Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Organization: Tony Lima Associates Reply-To: TonyLima2@att.net Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> <9ln2450qf8@drn.newsguy.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/16.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 18 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:35 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.81.65.101 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998514635 12.81.65.101 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:35 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:10:35 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88191 On 18 Aug 2001 17:43:49 -0700, Charles Eicher wrote: >In article <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com>, Tim says... >> >>And before that you have to go to paper-tape based word processing and >>typesetting. The Smithsonian has a *very* good display on >>the evolution of American typesetting right now, starting from all- >>mechanical machines that are over a decade old > >Wowee, mechanical machines a whole DECADE old! I guess I belong in a museum, I >was doing typesetting 35 years ago. Anyone want to buy my vintage 5x7" >letterpress and about 800 lbs of lead type? Hey, with hot type you develop an important skill: reading upside down and backwards. When my college newspaper switched to a state-of-the-art IBM MTST (you really don't want to know), the next generation lost this ability. - Tony ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 21:10:49 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 19 Message-ID: <9m174p$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88098 In article <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org>, Joe Morris wrote: >dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) writes: >...and a couple of years ago I was digging through my box of scrap floppies >and ran across a 720KB disk with the *complete, uncompressed* Microsoft >Word executable on it. It ran successfully when I opened a DOS box >under WIN9x... 720kb?? just for the program? 1.05, the system, and the finder all fit on a 400k disk, with some room left for documents (but, having the second drive, I generally put documents there). hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 21:19:15 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 31 Message-ID: <9m17kj$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7E1F68.F1A58669@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88102 In article , Shez wrote: >Charles Richmond wrote: >>Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: >>One very popular word processor, especially in the day of CP/M popularity, >>was WordStar. IMHO *no* history of word processing would be complete >>without a chapter or two on WordStar. >Yes, Wordstar was the de facto standard WP for a long time. Everyone >else felt obliged to use the Wordstar control keystrokes in their own >offerings, or at least offer them as an alternate set for those who were >accustomed to Wordstar. Everything on the was done by CTRL-keys, usually >it was a two keystroke combination, the first being a control key which >determined the type of operation (e.g. block manipulation) and the >second, non-control, keystroke determined which one it was. If you >delayed pressing the second key, a menu appeared That depended upon your help setting. You could set it with ^Jh. 3 was the default setting, which had a menu in ordinary use. 2 got rid of this menu, so that only the onesyou refer to appeared. 0 stopped them from appearing. I forget what 1 was . . . I think it's joe on *nix that still uses the commands. hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 00:00:22 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998524822snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998530920 mail2news:13221 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 32 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88185 In article dg@pearl.tao.co.uk "David Given" writes: > I've still got a copy of Word 5 for DOS stashed away somewhere; one of the > very few genuinely good programs Microsoft's application division every > wrote. It's small, fast, simple and works extremely well. It's a basic > character-cell text mode word processor with ruler-based formatting. No > fonts, no DTP, just simple text layout, done well. It was lightning fast > --- on modern machines it's uncanny. If you were prepared to put up with a > speed hit, you could put it into graphics mode and get genuine underline, > bold and italics; in text mode it was much faster, but made do with ^^^^^^^ > colours. I missed the above the first time I read this: it's only because Barb is quoting someone else (whose post has not reached me) quoting you that I spooted it. I doubt very much if that word processor, or indeed the vast majority of word processors, DOES produce "italics". What most of the software, and the associated printer fonts, do, is to produced "slanted Roman" (what TeX calls \sl). True italic fonts, even those belonging to families such as Times, will have strikingly different appearances for many of the glyphs. For instance, compare an upright (or slanted:-) letter 'a' with the italic form, in the same font family. Ditto lower-case 'g'; etc., etc. -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> From: Ric Werme X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 CURRENT #119 Lines: 16 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 00:18:51 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.168.185.9 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mediaone.net X-Trace: typhoon.ne.mediaone.net 998525931 24.168.185.9 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 20:18:51 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 20:18:51 EDT Organization: Road Runner Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!chnws02.mediaone.net!chnws06.ne.mediaone.net!24.128.8.70!typhoon.ne.mediaone.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88170 hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) writes: >Oh, come on. Word would never read a file from another computer, changed >it so that it's incompativle with the machine that wrote it, and >overwrite the original on disk with no hope of recovery, all before >coming up. >[*stagehand mumbles in hawk's ear*] >Err, never mind :) And send the new document to 100 other lucky users? -- Ric Werme | werme@nospam.mediaone.net http://people.ne.mediaone.net/werme | ^^^^^^^ delete ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:31:11 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 29 Message-ID: References: <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVYHVm+RsRrH+ASw1SvVhZfFzjxsfcKhJaTmhjehJBPpSHvz35EIkvnw X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 00:31:16 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88182 On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:59:37 GMT, mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) wrote: >>IIRC, qbasic, like the basic used by the ZX81 tokenized the program. > >It doesn't. qbasic (and qb) save Basic code as uncompressed plaintext. >Yes, Virginia, even DOS programs are subject to Microsoft Bloat (tm). Both QBasic and QuickBasic store the program internally tokenized. This is also why lines are reformatted (usually) without extra spaces. QuickBasic also allows loads and saves of tokenized programs directly. > >>The '0.5' got converted to binary, and the reason the zero disappeared >>was a function of how it was displayed. Floating point binary. Correct. > >qbasic uses floating point unless you tell it not to. (And if it's like >most versions of Microsoft Basic, even then it uses floating point for >calculations and integers only for storage.) All versions of QBasic & QuickBasic default to using SINGLE for all numbers, unless you tell them otherwise, either with a suffix character or a DEF??? statement. Expressions using integer only numbers are done with integer instructions. -- Arargh (at enteract dot com) http://www.arargh.com ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:36:55 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 19 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <4f53ot8rq2fj2t50ucjr1todepofb8r0q0@4ax.com> <3f95otgk22e0p1pv67dgmj99focug4efiu@news.newsguy.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbrTEEvcseSy90mmypY8JntgRkPxri8UuRLlrc5xZBtUXeQ/CEXwBzm X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 00:37:01 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88167 On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 14:12:32 GMT, mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) wrote: >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:24:44 -0500, Arargh! wrote: >>On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:30:53 -0400, Paul Guertin wrote: >>>> >Word 5.5 for DOS is still available, for free, on Microsoft's web site. >>>Found it (after a couple of 404s) at >>>http://download.microsoft.com/download/word50/Wd55_eng/5.5/WIN98/EN-US/Wd55_eng.exe >>I guess it was not an obvious link or I just didn't look hard enough. > >Nothing on Microsoft's web site is an obvious link, at least in my >experience. I have to use a web searcher such as google just to have more >than a snowball's chance in Hell of finding whatever I happen to be >looking for. It's monolithic, disorganized, overfeatured and >underplanned... hmmmm... remind you of anything? Windows? -- Arargh (at enteract dot com) http://www.arargh.com ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 20:36:55 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 11 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-948.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!upp1.onvoy!onvoy.com!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88172 In article <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: > Similarly, Excel was solid (but it seems to me there was an ms > spreadsheet that preceeded excel that was a pain in the tail to use), > and had the market locked up before facing any serious competition. Yes, and Lotus raped it. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:45:56 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 37 Message-ID: References: <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> <6dm5otgmhko2i9aac2irbotoesda50qat2@4ax.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZLzgWVWhv0ImXOPk8WMs5Ww8s7e5glxTBT787H8y0WlIizJqiKIzyy X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 00:46:02 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88174 On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:37:06 -0500, Mike Schaeffer wrote: >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Arargh! wrote: > >> On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:42:36 -0500, Mike Schaeffer >> wrote: >> >> >I want to say MSDN is available on DVD's too... >> I figured it might be, but I was not sure... > >The only reason I know this is that I remember thinking that MSDN was >ahead of the game adapting CD-ROMs in '93, and then again adapting >DVD-ROM's. It makes total sense in both cases. I wonder how that happened? :-) >If you're interested, the OS/2 SMK is a toolset that allowed Windows 3.0 >API applications to be easily recompiled for OS/2 1.2. I've seen a couple >internet sites that imply that the OS/2 versions of Word and Excel were >basically the Windows versions recompiled against this library. An >interesting idea that leads me to a question for this group, that's >actually appropiate for this thread. (!) Not Really. :-) At one time, I would have liked to get a copy of OS/2 1.? - the last 16-bit version. It would have been interesting for a 286-20 some years back. >> The only viewer I see is 'Mviewer2.exe' is that it? > >Yeah... the deluxe version of WinHelp that nobody else, that I'm aware of, >actually used. It actually runs under Win98. Not real swift, tho. -- Arargh (at enteract dot com) http://www.arargh.com ###### From: shannon@daydream.shannon.net (Charles Shannon Hendrix) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 22 Aug 2001 22:00:40 -0400 Organization: 32-bit Message-ID: <9m1o48$iaf$1@daydream.shannon.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> Reply-To: shannon@widomaker.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 54 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!comnets.rwth-aachen.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!tethys.csu.net!nntp.csufresno.edu!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88131 In article <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com>, Eric Sosman wrote: > Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote: > > > > Word Perfect at least could manage large documents, though I prefer to > > do really big things with TeX/LaTeX or something nroff-like. > > In a former life I worked for a company which made a word > processing and document management system whose strengths lay > in handling large documents, where by "large" I mean something > rather different than it seems you do. No, you just assumed that because I used a low number as the cutoff where I have trouble with Word. While I think it might be possible to create documents of thousands of pages with Word, it would require breaking them up into small subsets. Given that my 450MHz/256MB NT machine at one job ran out of steam with well under 500 pages, that's a lot of splitting and subsequent pain. I have heard horror stories of very large documents being converted to Word because some government agency has converted to Word and some bureaucrat has dicated conversion without regard to capability. > Our sales people used to claim (and it may be true) that the B-1 > "Stealth" bomber would be unable to lift its own maintenance manuals > in printed form. I remember seeing a picture of the manuals for an F-15 and it was basically an entire room. I used to have a single manual from the set for the M1 tank. It was just an engine test manual, and it was about 4" thick, 8.5x11 or close. > Pharmaceutical companies' applications to the Food and Drug > Administration for approval to market a new drug averaged about half > a million pages, with three-quarters of a million not unheard of. I > don't even want to *think* about handling documents of such sizes in > Word or WordPerfect. Most of the time, when your document is very large, it's because it isn't well written... :) But still, sometimes you do need a lot of documentation, and Word is a horrible choice for that. I've seen the pain of using it for large documents, and I want nothing to do with it. ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:29:03 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-492.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88168 In article <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk>, Elliott Roper wrote: > In article , Howard S > Shubs wrote: > > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. > > Was that Multiplan? No. I haven't been able to bring up the name in memory, but that's not it. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> Organization: George Washington University X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: jeffreyb@gwu.edu (Jeffrey Boulier) Lines: 19 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 03:13:45 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.164.127.203 X-Complaints-To: sagadmin@gwu.edu X-Trace: grover.nit.gwu.edu 998536425 128.164.127.203 (Wed, 22 Aug 2001 23:13:45 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 23:13:45 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snf1!news.gtei.net!grover.nit.gwu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88143 In article , Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote: >stu at cambridge scientific center did "script" in the '60s ... which >had a runoff like syntax. Then in the early '70s the people at CSC >added "GML" markup syntax to script .... although "script" could still >be used in either runoff like syntax or markup syntax. Was Waterloo SCRIPT a clone of IBM SCRIPT? I spent some time mucking with a pretty big document. Had a terrible time printing it, though; about half the time the printout would come out completely corrupted from the bowels of the machine room. It finally turned out that there were two printers, a Xerox 4090 (?) and 9790, and only the 4090 had enough memory to correctly interpret the document. Yours Truly, Jeffrey Boulier -- Community Source & Support ------=>Prometheus<=------ ###### Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Organization: I do not speak for anyone but myself, and barely that. References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m0e1e$8n$1@top.mitre.org> <3B83D5D6.B24E0635@yahoo.com> From: dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: <7um2m9.k0u.ln@127.0.0.1> Lines: 22 Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:46:31 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.255.240.131 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news6-win.server.ntlworld.com 998572084 62.255.240.131 (Thu, 23 Aug 2001 14:08:04 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 14:08:04 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news6-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!127.0.0.1!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88171 In article <3B83D5D6.B24E0635@yahoo.com>, CBFalconer writes: [...] > I still have NE (Norton Editor) eating up about 32k of storage. > It has a 1986 date on the code file. I use it now and then. Ah, NE. My favourite DOS editor. It's got all the basic editor features --- it's got word wrap for writing plain text; it's got autoindentation for writing code; it can handle unprintable characters; it can handle big files (but not *too* big, it is DOS, after all); it's nicely ergonomic in that you can do everything with two keystrokes but it's also got good menus... Have you noticed that when you ask it to save preferences, what it actually does is save a copy of itself patched so if you run the copy, all the preferences default to what you asked for? -- +- David Given --------McQ-+ "I am a Dilk and know nothing of fear. Still, when | Work: dg@tao-group.com | Death enters the room by the door, I leave through | Play: dg@cowlark.com | the window." --- Jack Vance +- http://www.cowlark.com -+ ###### Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Organization: I do not speak for anyone but myself, and barely that. References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <998524822snz@dsl.co.uk> From: dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: Lines: 25 Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:55:12 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.255.240.131 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news6-win.server.ntlworld.com 998572085 62.255.240.131 (Thu, 23 Aug 2001 14:08:05 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 14:08:05 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news6-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!127.0.0.1!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88175 In article <998524822snz@dsl.co.uk>, bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) writes: [...] > I doubt very much if that word processor, or indeed the vast majority of > word processors, DOES produce "italics". What most of the software, and > the associated printer fonts, do, is to produced "slanted Roman" (what > TeX calls \sl). True italic fonts, even those belonging to families such > as Times, will have strikingly different appearances for many of the > glyphs. For instance, compare an upright (or slanted:-) letter 'a' with > the italic form, in the same font family. Ditto lower-case 'g'; etc., > etc. True. OTOH, when all you have to play with is an 8x16 character cell, sl and italic are pretty much equivalent. (Wasn't it _The Joy of TeX_ that had a little code snippet that would unslant italics for you? The result looked very, very weird...) -- +- David Given --------McQ-+ "I am a Dilk and know nothing of fear. Still, when | Work: dg@tao-group.com | Death enters the room by the door, I leave through | Play: dg@cowlark.com | the window." --- Jack Vance +- http://www.cowlark.com -+ ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com> Organization: University of Michigan, College of Engineering From: ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) Lines: 10 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 13:19:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 141.213.74.25 X-Trace: srvr1.engin.umich.edu 998572743 141.213.74.25 (Thu, 23 Aug 2001 09:19:03 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 09:19:03 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!srvr1.engin.umich.edu!ftit Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88147 In article <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com>, Neil Barnes wrote: >Neil, who remembers *last night* having to chop a latex file in half to stop >page four and page three being printed on the same bit of paper... But if it's a latex file, shouldn't it be stretchy enough so that you could extend it and avoid having to use such a solution? -- Sergej Roytman ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> <6dm5otgmhko2i9aac2irbotoesda50qat2@4ax.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 48 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 09:32:59 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-QPynAhQ+G3Pi73okvyEZTXXZoG28j+H3+YzS8XhwY3t9mANLPJkIi+2Ma62ZcaUrLCN2D0q9YMNVjqM!TU5NVe56VsjeEBNtg/Uq9lm0bVAijMRZaydbv0TrpKuWLLDdplcYPsYShlz04rr8xw3k+fl2d0OL!tquMXiaqp36l6JxJoIN4lGMz X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 09:32:58 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!news.stealth.net!novia!novia!nntp2.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!bermuda.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88180 On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Arargh! wrote: > On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:37:06 -0500, Mike Schaeffer > wrote: > > >On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Arargh! wrote: > > > >> On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:42:36 -0500, Mike Schaeffer > >> wrote: > >> > >> >I want to say MSDN is available on DVD's too... > >> I figured it might be, but I was not sure... > > > >The only reason I know this is that I remember thinking that MSDN was > >ahead of the game adapting CD-ROMs in '93, and then again adapting > >DVD-ROM's. It makes total sense in both cases. > I wonder how that happened? :-) I don't know... the suprise factor is one of the reasons I remembered. :-) > > >If you're interested, the OS/2 SMK is a toolset that allowed Windows 3.0 > >API applications to be easily recompiled for OS/2 1.2. I've seen a couple > >internet sites that imply that the OS/2 versions of Word and Excel were > >basically the Windows versions recompiled against this library. An > >interesting idea that leads me to a question for this group, that's > >actually appropiate for this thread. (!) > Not Really. :-) Ah well... a.f.c. I guess... :-) > At one time, I would have liked to get a copy of OS/2 > 1.? - the last 16-bit version. It would have been interesting for a > 286-20 some years back. Me too... I have an old 386sx/16 (an ALR Powerflex, if that name rings a bell) that would be perfect for a copy of OS/2 1.3. Add Word and Excel, and a copy of MSC 6(?), and the set would be relativelty complete. You might be interested in these URL's, BTW: http://www.os2voice.org/VNL/past_issues/VNL0801H/vnewsf4.htm http://pla-netx.com/linebackn/guis/index.html Interesting sites, with some OS/2 and early Windows information. -Mike ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <9m2716$mik$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> Message-ID: References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <9m2716$mik$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 71 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 10:04:31 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-7T7wtG6j3e9FWtwSTa8vr9dv88vmJE6mXXq+ZOQlbdip2SIAooiic6rPS21fQ5kUhzclnIyHND6DNYk!bolX/qM8ncItElSOxpPjjgLwYlQH8QNBkptRIOddxyMg+qFUpoThIuFRddiZrIXyULaQ0cGw+tdG!+4ZBCY5qdWTr/aTNNMtPhpGu X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 10:04:30 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!bermuda.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88179 On 23 Aug 2001, Neil Barnes wrote: > Mike Schaeffer wrote in > : > > > On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Matthew W. Miller wrote: > > > > >> It doesn't. qbasic (and qb) save Basic code as uncompressed > >> plaintext. Yes, Virginia, even DOS programs are subject to Microsoft > >> Bloat (tm). > > > > Are you complaining about saving source code as an ASCII file? That > > seems a lot more useful than the binary files that GWBASIC defaulted > > to. > > > > Using MS basic on a 6502 Tangerine system, I remember writing utilities like > 'renumbering' software (which tidied up the mess you got when you had to add > lots of lines that you didn't leave space for) I guess you could reneumber a given range of lines with your tools? I personally liked to number fairly non-linearly (code starts at 10, I/O calls at 10000, maybe display at 20000, etc.). and renumbering the whole program would have destroyed that. > which were very simple > because the internal representation tokenised the statements (which made > them easy to find without having to parse things) and the line numbers and > jump targets, which were in 16-bit hex form. The effect was that the size of > the image didn't change as I changed the details, which made life a lot > easier. I can see that... Your reneumbering post actually reminded me of my old high school physics teacher's system for developing and grading tests. This was back in 1991-1992, and the Apple //e's viability as a educational computer was severely on the wane; My school was in the process of switching over to Macintosh and PC clones, and there were only a few of the //e's left around. One of the more interesting legacy applications was my physics class' real-time test grading system. He had a little scantron machine attached to his Apple, and during the test, you'd go up and run your card through the machine. It'd then give you a list of the questions you got wrong, and you could go back, sit down, and reattempt those questions for 1/2 credit. If you missed again, you could attempt a third, and final, time for 1/4 credit. (Since it was a dot matrix printer, it was somewhat intimidating to run the scantron through on difficult tests... if you missed a bunch, it would echo through the classroom... :-) ) Now, the part that you reminded me of is the other half of the system. In addition to grading tests, they had an automatic test generation system. My teacher would develop a library of questions, each with a little Applesoft BASIC 'script' and optionally a graphic from Apple's paint program, and produce a separate test form for every student. To print out one of these forms, the (Applesoft BASIC) test generation program would iterate over the questions to be included and generate the test. For each question, the primary test generation program would load in the script for the question and modify Applesoft's internal datastructures so that the new subroutine was patched in dynamically, as the program was running. It would then call the program to calculate the valid, random answers for the question... Cool stuff... A sidenote to this is that the way they picked the multiple choice answers made it difficult to fake your way through. If K=1/2mv^2, you can bet that they'd have the correct answer, the correct answer with v, rather than v^2, the correct answer times and divided by 2... You had to know your stuff... -Mike ###### Message-ID: <3B8524E7.79DC2F9@optonline.net> From: Matthew Krause X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 25 Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 15:49:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.45.226.183 X-Trace: news02.optonline.net 998581740 24.45.226.183 (Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:49:00 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:49:00 EDT Organization: Optimum Online Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!news01.optonline.net!news02.optonline.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88094 Shez wrote: > Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: > >. What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS > >haters use nowadays? > > Well there's Word Pro (formerly Ami Pro), which is part of Lotus > Smartsuite. It used to get reviews almost on par with Word, but > personally I found it a royal pain. (Whether this means Word is also > a pain I don't know - I've never used it.) I use WordPro! IMHO, it's much less bletcherous than Word, and a lot smaller. The other Lotus stuff is pretty good too..I find Freelance Graphics Presentations look a lot less 'canned' vs. Powerpoint. And, of course, if you want something to *real* nice, there's nothing quite like TeX[1]. Matt Krause [1] Actually, there is(LaTeX, ConTeX, etc.), but hey... ###### Message-ID: <3B852540.2584FEF1@optonline.net> From: Matthew Krause X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9lthdl$oi9$1@bob.news.rcn.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 15:50:27 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.45.226.183 X-Trace: news02.optonline.net 998581827 24.45.226.183 (Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:50:27 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:50:27 EDT Organization: Optimum Online Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!news01.optonline.net!news02.optonline.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88097 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > In article , > dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) wrote: > > > >Every so often I wonder what Microsoft would have become if it hadn't > >Turned Evil. If it had kept up Xenix, for example. There really are > >talented programmers and software designers in there --- somewhere. > > I was told that they're all in the games division and have been > there for a while. > I would assume they're writing 'Monopoly' ? ###### From: nailed_barnacle@NOSPAMhotmail.com (Neil Barnes) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 23 Aug 2001 18:41:47 GMT Organization: Around here? Lines: 22 Message-ID: <9m3ipb$ha7$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: host62-7-34-231.btinternet.com User-Agent: Xnews/4.04.17tea Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet-peer1!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88166 ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) wrote in : > In article <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com>, > Neil Barnes wrote: >> Neil, who remembers *last night* having to chop a latex file in half >> to stop page four and page three being printed on the same bit of >> paper... > > But if it's a latex file, shouldn't it be stretchy enough so that you > could extend it and avoid having to use such a solution? > Actually, I don't think it was the file per se, I think it was more to do with the 3M postscript file last thing before the cock-up. Odd though, the preview was ok... -- I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost... barnacle http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk ###### From: Eric Fischer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 23 Aug 2001 18:42:25 GMT Lines: 16 Message-ID: <9m3iqh$16v$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSValS2uCmNP+ZqPZ0b464U6wBk/mGXMw0GHnmocpRB8gcvbsQN9HfEol X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 18:42:25 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Originator: enf@enteract.com (Eric Fischer) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88108 Howard S Shubs wrote: > Elliott Roper wrote: > > > Shubs wrote: > > > > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. > > > > Was that Multiplan? > > No. I haven't been able to bring up the name in memory, but that's not it. Jazz was the name of the failed integrated software pachage from Lotus. Multiplan was Microsoft's pre-Excel spreadsheet. eric ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 01 08:23:51 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 55 Message-ID: <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbZY/gMNgA7aD4XNQKoE2J4GFeunDLl6nfZEW60TkEF/Yk02vbjpWqJ X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Aug 2001 11:09:54 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-216-184 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88227 In article <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: >In article <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net>, wrote: >>In article <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, >> hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: > >>'ey, Hawk ;-) > >hi > >>>Oh, come on. Word would never read a file from another computer, changed >>>it so that it's incompativle with the machine that wrote it, and >>>overwrite the original on disk with no hope of recovery, all before >>>coming up. > >>>[*stagehand mumbles in hawk's ear*] > >>>Err, never mind :) > >> May I borrow that stagehand? > > >Sure. Just don't feed him cucumbers (they make him burp :) OK. I'll give him a couple of zuchinnis. > > >>>hawk, who remembers using 1.0 on his undergraduate dissertation, and >>>having to break into multiple files for editing, and having a crash at >>>least every 7 or 8 pages while printing . . . > >>At least they've maintained backwards compatibility. > >In sdeveral ways. 1.0 had an annoying bug that would, occasionally, >leave half a page blank to land a short footnote on the same page (there >was plenty of room for the next line and the footnote when this >happened). Footnotes seemed to be hard to do back then. Our writers just sorta gave up having RUNOFF do the footnoting and had the cut/pasters do it by hand (yes, children, there's a history to that terrible implementation of screen editing). > >I was this happen with a current version two years ago . . . I just had a vision. Misoft has run out of new bugs to ensure later releases; so they put back to the old bugs. Oh, I shouldn't so mean to those poor people. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 01 08:27:44 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 24 Message-ID: <9m819b$goo$3@bob.news.rcn.net> References: me.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <9m2oul$gbf$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B874C80.102629A4@ev1.net> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVYLux2UU4GqcyyctU5kPwSBke2TfKkbSgIBge55YEBIZ5vUiAOJ/EQG X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Aug 2001 11:13:47 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-216-184 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88241 In article <3B874C80.102629A4@ev1.net>, Charles Richmond wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >> >> In article , >> mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) wrote: >> >> >> >qbasic uses floating point unless you tell it not to. (And if it's like >> >most versions of Microsoft Basic, even then it uses floating point for >> >calculations and integers only for storage.) >> >> You have got to be shitting me. >> >I did *not* know that QBasic did this...but I *did* know that the >Commodore 64 BASIC did all arithmetic in floating point. I suppose >that any crappy thing that Micro$uck did... should *not* surprise me... > We'ld have never gone into orbit. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:09:56 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 37 Message-ID: <20010823200956.3e399190.steveo@eircom.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p1008.vcu.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 998614874 84866 194.134.202.245 (24 Aug 2001 01:01:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 01:01:14 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.5.3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--freebsd4.4) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!news2.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88318 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:17:07 -0400 mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) wrote: MW> For envelopes, Ghostscript: Not bad, but in completely the wrong place (and orientation) for the envelope feeder on my printer, not much fun to adjust either :( I usually go for .so /home/steve/clip/env_dl Name Address More Address ... I haven't looked in /home/steve/clip/env_dl for a while but it seems to be .pl 4.3i .po 3.5i .ll 8.5i .ft HB .ps 18 .vs 24 .nf .sp 1i .ta 4iC There are variants with stuff in the tlh corner too in clip. Troff is just too easy to make a word processor attractive :) -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara ###### From: Marcel van Eijk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:13:48 +0200 Organization: Planet Internet Lines: 60 Message-ID: References: <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <6rkg7.589$de6.168442@news3.rdc1.on.home.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ipc3798c19.dial.wxs.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: reader02.wxs.nl 998593881 3628530 195.121.140.25 (23 Aug 2001 19:11:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wxs.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 19:11:21 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news2.kpn.net!news.kpn.net!feeder02.wxs.nl!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88392 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 08:41:01 -0400, Howard S Shubs = wrote: >In article <6rkg7.589$de6.168442@news3.rdc1.on.home.com>, > "Don Chiasson" wrote: > >> A few years ago, Word Perfect put a new product on the market,= a >> word processor called Letter Perfect. It was like Word Perfect, but = lower in >> price than WP, and had fewer features. It was a failure for the = company, no >> one bought Letter Perfect. People seem to want all the features even = if they >> don't use them. Sigh. > >Some people do, yes. I wonder if LP was compatible with WordPerfect in = the=20 >sense of key combinations and file format. If not, there's a pretty = obvious=20 >reason why it failed. Well, somebody bought LP, I still have the disks somewhere. The reason I = bought LP was because the HCC (Hobby Computer Club, dutch computer club) offered= it for just 100 guilders (about 40 to 50 US dollars). It had allmost all the = features of the full WP (including an extensive list of supported printers, which mattered if you didn't run an environment like Windows). The one feature = missing was "switch documents". In WP you could open two files and switch between= them, LP only allowed you to open one file at a time. I don't remember if LP had problems with full WP-files, I mostly used it = to to write new documents. However, if I remember correctly, its file format = was compatible with WP 5.1. The reason the program was so cheap was that WP was at version 6. While = LP was still text-only, WP version 6 was graphical and had full support of the = mouse. I enjoyed using LP, because running on my 20 Mhz 386 it had no problem = keeping up with my typing speed. Marcel --=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Marcel van Eijk (marcele@planet.nl) Computers zijn leuk om mee te werken. Alleen jammer dat er ook gebruikers= zijn. Computers are great to work with, too bad we also have users. ###### Message-ID: <3B85689A.FD663196@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <998524822snz@dsl.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 41 Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:54:40 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.90.176.32 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998600080 12.90.176.32 (Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:54:40 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:54:40 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!f.de.uu.net!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88193 David Given wrote: > > In article <998524822snz@dsl.co.uk>, > bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) writes: > [...] > > I doubt very much if that word processor, or indeed the vast majority of > > word processors, DOES produce "italics". What most of the software, and > > the associated printer fonts, do, is to produced "slanted Roman" (what > > TeX calls \sl). True italic fonts, even those belonging to families such > > as Times, will have strikingly different appearances for many of the > > glyphs. For instance, compare an upright (or slanted:-) letter 'a' with > > the italic form, in the same font family. Ditto lower-case 'g'; etc., > > etc. > > True. > > OTOH, when all you have to play with is an 8x16 character cell, sl and > italic are pretty much equivalent. > > (Wasn't it _The Joy of TeX_ that had a little code snippet that would > unslant italics for you? The result looked very, very weird...) I built a system for annotating graphic printouts with text, that started from a Hershey description and used Bresenhams to select the dots. Parameters to it included the angle at which to write, and the slant of the text (for italics). You could also control the height/width ratio for the character. It could create some wierd looking outputs. This was in the days of CP/M, and the destination was an MX80 printer with dot graphics. It took a while. Everything had to be replotted every few lines, because there was very limited image storage in memory, and there was some reason not to use files. Probably that the floppies would fill up. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@XXXXworldnet.att.net) (Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified) mailto:uce@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest) ###### From: lysse Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m0e1e$8n$1@top.mitre.org> <3B83D5D6.B24E0635@yahoo.com> <7um2m9.k0u.ln@127.0.0.1> Organization: lysse's house, for the next few weeks Reply-To: lysse.news@blueyonder.co.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980226 (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.39 (i486)) Message-ID: Lines: 31 Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:31:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.9.47 X-Complaints-To: http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/abuse X-Trace: news1.cableinet.net 998602297 62.31.9.47 (Thu, 23 Aug 2001 22:31:37 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 22:31:37 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!internal-news-hub.cableinet.net!news1.cableinet.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88308 David Given wrote: > Ah, NE. My favourite DOS editor. It's got all the basic editor features > --- it's got word wrap for writing plain text; it's got autoindentation > for writing code; it can handle unprintable characters; it can handle big > files (but not *too* big, it is DOS, after all); it's nicely ergonomic in > that you can do everything with two keystrokes but it's also got good > menus... I never used NE, but my favourite editor was David Nye's E. Word wrap, autoindent, unprintables, files as big as memory would allow, WS keys; no menu, but a nice help page. But the best thing was that it was only 6640 bytes. It came with assembler source, too, for TASM. It couldn't handle lines longer than 80 characters, it expanded tabs to spaces, and word wrap wasn't entirely reliable (I kept meaning to fix that), but I could live with all of that. > Have you noticed that when you ask it to save preferences, what it > actually does is save a copy of itself patched so if you run the copy, all > the preferences default to what you asked for? Vernon Buerg's LIST program did this as well (although doing this on a compressed executable was a good way to kill it, since it defaulted to overwriting the copy it was loaded from, grr). I preferred E's approach (also VDE's and Turbo Pascal's) of having a separate program which knew the offsets to fiddle with. Set it up once and then throw away the setup program. -- lysse at lysse dot co dot uk "Why are your problems always so much bigger than everyone else's?" "Because they're mine." -- Ally McBeal ###### From: genew@shuswap.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 22:21:07 GMT Reply-To: genew@shuswap.net Message-ID: <3b8571e2.98029021@news.shuswap.net> References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 NNTP-Posting-Host: salmonarm3-19.shuswap.net X-Trace: 23 Aug 2001 15:37:50 -0700, salmonarm3-19.shuswap.net Lines: 25 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!fu-berlin.de!news.bnb-lp.com!nubby2.!salmonarm3-19.shuswap.net Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88278 The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com () wrote: >On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:13:32 +1200, Roger Johnstone wrote: >>#2. Under QBasic, type a fraction e.g. 'let x=0.5' and it will kindly change >>it to 'let x=.5'. Hello, where did my zero go? The smart thing would be to >>put the leading zero IN if it was left out. This is not a ZX81, I am not >>trying to save one more byte of RAM, I want to be able to read my program. >IIRC, qbasic, like the basic used by the ZX81 tokenized the program. The '0.5' >got converted to binary, and the reason the zero disappeared was a function of >how it was displayed. You don't. QBASIC was a compiler not an interpreter. It read text format NOT tokenized code. You're likely thinking of MBASIC or GW-BASIC. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <3b8571e2.98029021@news.shuswap.net> Message-ID: References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <3b8571e2.98029021@news.shuswap.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 36 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 18:09:44 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-1SnqVv3pWJpWP4HPWixAeOYT88SbwewKMmliXb4VUBD7uTMgM56GFXtWWQ0GLxpNBPLef5Nxloa164Y!GWNoVz6dshDNOtIlfdlVrcv0/95W6paTk66jzPggMnJCj3wrx/V8G2XRzFikGHjZauxTVO31CfGQ!gMgUdaC4Mz6jmXaxDy+dmgmq X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 18:09:42 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!dca6-feed1.news.digex.net!dca6-feed2.news.digex.net!intermedia!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!hagbard.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88369 On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, Gene Wirchenko wrote: > The.Central.Scrutinizer.wakawaka@invalid.pobox.com () wrote: > > >On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:13:32 +1200, Roger Johnstone wrote: > >>#2. Under QBasic, type a fraction e.g. 'let x=0.5' and it will kindly change > >>it to 'let x=.5'. Hello, where did my zero go? The smart thing would be to > >>put the leading zero IN if it was left out. This is not a ZX81, I am not > >>trying to save one more byte of RAM, I want to be able to read my program. > > >IIRC, qbasic, like the basic used by the ZX81 tokenized the program. The '0.5' > >got converted to binary, and the reason the zero disappeared was a function of > >how it was displayed. > > You don't. QBASIC was a compiler not an interpreter. It read > text format NOT tokenized code. > > You're likely thinking of MBASIC or GW-BASIC. QBasic, QuickBasic, and the equivalent component of the MS BASIC PDS suite all 'compiled' lines as you entered them into the editor. They were internally stored threaded. Edits would re-compile the appropriate part of the threaded code, _and_ alter the line of text (capitalize reserved words, adjust spacing, etc.). Loading the ASCII text file would cause it to compile, very quickly, right after the load. Try it with a large file on a slow computer (286 or so should do) and look at the lower left of the editor sometime. Do you remember the old 100,000 line/minute compilation speed ads for QuickBASIC? They were measuring this particular operation to get that number. The conventional compiler part of the tools were much, much slower. -Mike ###### Message-ID: <3B85A10A.63E321BB@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m0e1e$8n$1@top.mitre.org> <3B83D5D6.B24E0635@yahoo.com> <7um2m9.k0u.ln@127.0.0.1> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 24 Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:40:40 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.90.179.7 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 998613640 12.90.179.7 (Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:40:40 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:40:40 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88414 lysse wrote: > > David Given wrote: > ... snip ... > > > Have you noticed that when you ask it to save preferences, what it > > actually does is save a copy of itself patched so if you run the copy, all > > the preferences default to what you asked for? > > Vernon Buerg's LIST program did this as well (although doing this on a > compressed executable was a good way to kill it, since it defaulted > to overwriting the copy it was loaded from, grr). I preferred E's > approach (also VDE's and Turbo Pascal's) of having a separate program > which knew the offsets to fiddle with. Set it up once and then throw > away the setup program. I use list every day. Is Buerg still around? -- Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@XXXXworldnet.att.net) (Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified) mailto:uce@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest) ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:18:24 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 26 Message-ID: References: <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m0e1e$8n$1@top.mitre.org> <3B83D5D6.B24E0635@yahoo.com> <7um2m9.k0u.ln@127.0.0.1> <3B85A10A.63E321BB@yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbE+8Ost6N9bLnhr26Nm2XV88i/IsVv9M0VXRC7nNdRcy2K50VVDGI+ X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Aug 2001 01:18:38 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88401 On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:40:40 GMT, CBFalconer wrote: >lysse wrote: >> >> David Given wrote: >> >... snip ... >> >> > Have you noticed that when you ask it to save preferences, what it >> > actually does is save a copy of itself patched so if you run the copy, all >> > the preferences default to what you asked for? >> >> Vernon Buerg's LIST program did this as well (although doing this on a >> compressed executable was a good way to kill it, since it defaulted >> to overwriting the copy it was loaded from, grr). I preferred E's >> approach (also VDE's and Turbo Pascal's) of having a separate program >> which knew the offsets to fiddle with. Set it up once and then throw >> away the setup program. > >I use list every day. Is Buerg still around? Seems to be: http://www.buerg.com/ -- Arargh (at enteract dot com) http://www.arargh.com ###### From: als@usenet.thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 24 Aug 2001 01:50:41 GMT Organization: Chemnitz University of Technology Lines: 37 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <87n14v99h5.fsf@litterbox.meowing.net> <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> Reply-To: als@usenet.thangorodrim.de NNTP-Posting-Host: bofh.csn.tu-chemnitz.de X-Trace: narses.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de 998617841 9618 134.109.108.7 (24 Aug 2001 01:50:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@tu-chemnitz.de NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Aug 2001 01:50:41 GMT User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!uni-erlangen.de!news.tu-chemnitz.de!als Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88350 Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: >Thanks so much for all this information (overload!) This is really >terrific. > >I have a follow-up question (and pardon my complete ignorance on the >topic). What's left on the market (other than WP)? What do all the MS >haters use nowadays? How about vi (or, more correctly, vim) and LaTeX? That's what I use for all the texts (assignment, lecture notes, documentation, letters, time sheets, ...) I write. Works well, is very portable (the platforms I use include a Newton MP2100, a HP200LX and a bunch of UNIX (Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris) systems und produces very nice documents. Ok, so this isn't exactly a wordprocessor[0], but a typesetting environment. But I don't really feel the need for a wordprocessor - a powerful texteditor and a powerful typesetting system is just fine for my. And when needed, this is complemented by the usual UNIX tool chain[1]. ;-) Regards, Alex. [0] Son: Dad, what is a wordprocessor? Dad: You know what a food processor does to food? Son: Yes. Dad: Well, a text processor does it to text. [1] Last example: I need a list of installed software packages of a certain category. Ok, after chaining together: - the package manager, - grep, - awk and directly inserting the resulting output I had what I needed - already nicely formatted and ready to use. -- We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being increasingly capable. -- Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 08:21:22 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998641282snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998648257 mail2news:27727 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 39 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88396 In article dg@pearl.tao.co.uk "David Given" writes: > In article <998524822snz@dsl.co.uk>, > bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) writes: > [...] > > I doubt very much if that word processor, or indeed the vast majority of > > word processors, DOES produce "italics". What most of the software, and > > the associated printer fonts, do, is to produced "slanted Roman" (what > > TeX calls \sl). True italic fonts, even those belonging to families such > > as Times, will have strikingly different appearances for many of the > > glyphs. For instance, compare an upright (or slanted:-) letter 'a' with > > the italic form, in the same font family. Ditto lower-case 'g'; etc., > > etc. > > True. > > OTOH, when all you have to play with is an 8x16 character cell, sl and > italic are pretty much equivalent. Indeed; however, the /users/ should not have been told that it was "italics" and thereby become ingrained to the idea that "italic" means "sloping". (Incidentally, talking of character cell displays, ISTR that there was something once that would slant text by changing the timing on the character generator's clocking out of the pixels; did I imagine this?) > (Wasn't it _The Joy of TeX_ that had a little code snippet that would > unslant italics for you? The result looked very, very weird...) It may have been in Spivak, yes: my copy is at work. Knuth certainly provided the font (cmu10, wasn't it) for "upright italic". -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 08:33:54 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998642034snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <9m3iqh$16v$1@bob.news.rcn.net> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998648258 mail2news:27731 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 14 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88395 In article <9m3iqh$16v$1@bob.news.rcn.net> enf@pobox.com "Eric Fischer" writes: > Jazz was the name of the failed integrated software pachage from Lotus. It was? What then was Lotus Symphony? (Which packaged together a spreadsheet, word processor, some other stuff, and, bizarrely, a terminal emulator [which wasn't a patch on Kermit].) -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: "Peter Ibbotson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:27:25 +0100 Message-ID: <998652274.19357.0.nnrp-07.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <998641282snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 998652274 nnrp-07:19357 NO-IDENT mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2481.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2481.0000 Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mailgate.lakeview.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88383 "Brian {Hamilton Kelly}" wrote in message news:998641282snz@dsl.co.uk... > Indeed; however, the /users/ should not have been told that it was > "italics" and thereby become ingrained to the idea that "italic" means > "sloping". > > (Incidentally, talking of character cell displays, ISTR that there was > something once that would slant text by changing the timing on the > character generator's clocking out of the pixels; did I imagine this?) > I don't think you are. I can't remember what[1] it was. Possibly one of the early Micros. [1] Apple ][s shifted the clock phase to get 2 more colours in HiRes mode but that wasn't it. -- Work peteri@lakeview.co.uk.plugh.org | remove magic word .org to reply Home peter@ibbotson.co.uk.plugh.org | I own the domain but theres no MX ###### From: Hans B Pufal Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 14:42:51 +0100 Organization: Wanadoo, l'internet avec France Telecom Lines: 17 Message-ID: <3B8659DB.3020609@aconit.org> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <9m3iqh$16v$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <998642034snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: agrenoble-101-2-1-165.abo.wanadoo.fr Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: wanadoo.fr 998656820 8510 193.251.69.165 (24 Aug 2001 12:40:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.fr NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Aug 2001 12:40:20 GMT User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.2) Gecko/20010726 Netscape6/6.1 X-Accept-Language: en-us Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!opentransit.net!proxad.net!wanadoo.fr!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88196 Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: > In article <9m3iqh$16v$1@bob.news.rcn.net> enf@pobox.com "Eric Fischer" writes: >>Jazz was the name of the failed integrated software pachage from Lotus. > It was? What then was Lotus Symphony? IIRC, Jazz was the followon to Symphony. Don't recall any more than that though. -- HBP ###### From: lou@SPAM.ME.AND.DIE.techhouse.org (Dragonmaster Lou) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 14:31:19 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Brown University Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <9m3iqh$16v$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <998642034snz@dsl.co.uk> Reply-To: lou@SPAM.ME.AND.DIE.techhouse.org NNTP-Posting-Host: techhouse.brown.edu X-Trace: saturn.services.brown.edu 998663479 21748 128.148.34.10 (24 Aug 2001 14:31:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@nntp.brown.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 14:31:19 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.5.2 UNIX) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!oshean-news.uri.edu!nntp.brown.edu!lou Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88390 On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 08:33:54 GMT, Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: >In article <9m3iqh$16v$1@bob.news.rcn.net> enf@pobox.com "Eric Fischer" writes: > >> Jazz was the name of the failed integrated software pachage from Lotus. > >It was? What then was Lotus Symphony? (Which packaged together a >spreadsheet, word processor, some other stuff, and, bizarrely, a terminal >emulator [which wasn't a patch on Kermit].) I think Jazz was their Mac integrated package. Symphony was on the PC. -- -------------------- http://www.techhouse.org/lou ---------------------- "Dragonmaster Lou" | "Searching for a distant star, heading off to lou at techhouse org | Iscandar, leaving all we love behind, who knows Tech House Alum | what dangers we'll find..." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 24 Aug 2001 18:56:31 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 34 Message-ID: <9m680v$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m3ipb$ha7$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88231 In article <9m3ipb$ha7$1@plutonium.btinternet.com>, Neil Barnes wrote: >ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) wrote in >: >> In article <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com>, >> Neil Barnes wrote: >>> Neil, who remembers *last night* having to chop a latex file in half >>> to stop page four and page three being printed on the same bit of >>> paper... >> But if it's a latex file, shouldn't it be stretchy enough so that you >> could extend it and avoid having to use such a solution? > >Actually, I don't think it was the file per se, I think it was more to do >with the 3M postscript file last thing before the cock-up. Odd though, the >preview was ok... You *successfully* split a latex file??? wow . . . neither \clearpage nor \pagebreak worked??? no \vskip or \vspace tricks? :( Or dump to separate .ps files from gv for p1-3 and 4-$ ? hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 24 Aug 2001 19:00:04 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 42 Message-ID: <9m687k$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <1272.634T2251T8776056@nowhere.in.particular> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88229 In article <1272.634T2251T8776056@nowhere.in.particular>, Charlie Gibbs wrote: >In article <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu >(Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) writes: >>>Early on, MacWord was a COMPLETELY different program sharing nothing >>>but the name with its DOS cousin. While the DOS version was ugly, >>>MacWord was an elegant tool, relatively friendly to typists, easy to >>>learn, fun to play with, opening vistas of annoying creativity to the >>>masses. ("Did you have to use EVERY font you own in your cover >>>letter?") >>The technical name for that is "Macintosh fever," and it dates to >>macwrite. >The mercifully brief craze for adding a "Mac-" prefix to everything >led to the term "macdinking", referring to the way people would spend >far more time messing with their document to make it look pretty than >they spent on content. A study at the time showed that on average, >documents produced on a Mac were prettier, but documents produced on >an MS-DOS box had better content. Windows leveled this one out at >the lowest common denominator. Originally, apple claimed 26 minutes from opening the box to a secretary printing a first memo. They failed to disclose how much longer memos took once people found shadow, etc. (for crying out loud, why would any one want to shadow and bubble text in a word processor???). >The advent of desktop publishing led to what has been referred to >as "ransom-note typography". And a couple of fonts designed to let you create such output with a single font . . . I seem to recall one labeled ransom . . . hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 24 Aug 2001 19:13:31 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 29 Message-ID: <9m690r$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <9m2716$mik$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!feed.textport.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88230 In article , Mike Schaeffer wrote: >On 23 Aug 2001, Neil Barnes wrote: >> Mike Schaeffer wrote in >> : >> Using MS basic on a 6502 Tangerine system, I remember writing utilities like >> 'renumbering' software (which tidied up the mess you got when you had to add >> lots of lines that you didn't leave space for) >I guess you could reneumber a given range of lines with your tools? I >personally liked to number fairly non-linearly (code starts at 10, I/O >calls at 10000, maybe display at 20000, etc.). and renumbering the whole >program would have destroyed that. For a very big program that had to be renumbered *and* changed in order, once, I found myself using a combination of the renumbering command in mbasic5 *and* wordstar, with a search and replace. Or was it all word star. I'm getting shivers just *thinking* of the weird things I must have done . . . hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 24 Aug 2001 19:19:07 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 43 Message-ID: <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!fu-berlin.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88235 In article <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net>, wrote: >In article <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, > hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: >'ey, Hawk ;-) hi >>Oh, come on. Word would never read a file from another computer, changed >>it so that it's incompativle with the machine that wrote it, and >>overwrite the original on disk with no hope of recovery, all before >>coming up. >>[*stagehand mumbles in hawk's ear*] >>Err, never mind :) > May I borrow that stagehand? Sure. Just don't feed him cucumbers (they make him burp :) >>hawk, who remembers using 1.0 on his undergraduate dissertation, and >>having to break into multiple files for editing, and having a crash at >>least every 7 or 8 pages while printing . . . >At least they've maintained backwards compatibility. In sdeveral ways. 1.0 had an annoying bug that would, occasionally, leave half a page blank to land a short footnote on the same page (there was plenty of room for the next line and the footnote when this happened). I was this happen with a current version two years ago . . . hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 24 Aug 2001 19:23:49 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 15 Message-ID: <9m69k5$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!news.stealth.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88228 In article , Alexander Schreiber wrote: >[0] Son: Dad, what is a wordprocessor? > Dad: You know what a food processor does to food? > Son: Yes. > Dad: Well, a text processor does it to text. So *that's* where those translations from japanese come from . . . -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: Eric Fischer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 24 Aug 2001 20:18:10 GMT Lines: 12 Message-ID: <9m6cq2$sm1$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m3iqh$16v$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <998642034snz@dsl.co.uk> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVa+IX6GS7ArRxmcEoTGYcV1igptqRgsYmi5C3X+BPY/m9SpDoskgWO2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Aug 2001 20:18:10 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Originator: enf@enteract.com (Eric Fischer) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!fu-berlin.de!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88243 Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: > > Jazz was the name of the failed integrated software pachage from Lotus. > > It was? What then was Lotus Symphony? Clearly I should have said that Jazz was the name of *a* failed integrated software package from Lotus. eric, who ended up with a copy of Que's _Using Symphony_ book that had been bought by somebody under the mistaken impression that the book was about music ###### From: Adam Sampson Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 24 Aug 2001 21:35:58 +0100 Organization: The Society Of People Who Repeatedly Point Out That "alot" And "allot" Are Both Wrong, And It Should Be Written "a lot" Lines: 11 Sender: azz@cartman.azz.us-lot.org Message-ID: <87elq1dwlt.fsf@cartman.azz.us-lot.org> References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: raptor.ukc.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: athena.ukc.ac.uk 998696184 27117 129.12.4.232 (24 Aug 2001 23:36:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@ukc.ac.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:36:24 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!xara.net!gxn.net!server6.netnews.ja.net!server4.netnews.ja.net!server2.netnews.ja.net!athena.ukc.ac.uk!cartman.azz.us-lot.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88357 mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) writes: > It doesn't. qbasic (and qb) save Basic code as uncompressed > plaintext. qbasic (the free version you used to get with MS-DOS) saved programs as plaintext. qb (the commercial version) saved programs in tokenised form by default, only saving plaintext if you explicitly asked it to. -- Adam Sampson ###### From: mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <4f53ot8rq2fj2t50ucjr1todepofb8r0q0@4ax.com> <3f95otgk22e0p1pv67dgmj99focug4efiu@news.newsguy.com> Reply-To: mwmiller@columbus.rr.com Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Lines: 20 Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:08:23 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.210.227.48 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: typhoon.columbus.rr.com 998694503 204.210.227.48 (Fri, 24 Aug 2001 19:08:23 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 19:08:23 EDT Organization: Road Runner Columbus Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!news.stealth.net!news-east.rr.com!cyclone.columbus.rr.com!typhoon.columbus.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88275 On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:30:53 -0400, Paul Guertin wrote: >Arargh! wrote: >> >Word 5.5 for DOS is still available, for free, on Microsoft's web site. >> Where? A google search didn't find it, and it's not on MS's MS-DOS >> download area. >Found it (after a couple of 404s) at >http://download.microsoft.com/download/word50/Wd55_eng/5.5/WIN98/EN-US/Wd55_eng.exe Here's the page it's linked from: http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/9798/Wd55eng.aspx (No, the x at the end is not a typo.) And for what it's worth, here's the International English version: http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/9798/Wd55ben.aspx I'm told that it's missing some font files. I don't know whether that's necessarily a bad thing. -- Matthew W. Miller -- mwmiller@columbus.rr.com ###### From: "Roger Johnstone" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 11:39:06 +1200 Organization: ihug ( New Zealand ) Lines: 49 Message-ID: <9m6ojh$r7a$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> References: me.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <9m2oul$gbf$2@bob.news.rcn.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p27-max1.inv.ihug.co.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: lust.ihug.co.nz 998696370 27882 203.173.222.155 (24 Aug 2001 23:39:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@ihug.co.nz NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:39:30 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!lsanca1-snf1!news.gtei.net!enterprise!news.xtra.co.nz!newsfeeds.ihug.co.nz!lust.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88234 ---------- In article <9m2oul$gbf$2@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > In article , > mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) wrote: > > >>qbasic uses floating point unless you tell it not to. (And if it's like >>most versions of Microsoft Basic, even then it uses floating point for >>calculations and integers only for storage.) > > You have got to be shitting me. > > /BAH > > Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. Fortunately QBasic does have integer maths routines. Well, I assume it does, since it runs much faster when I switch to using integer variables. I still use QBasic at work on an old 486 PC running Windows 3.1, mainly for writing small utilities for our internal use. It's often used for creating PCB or HPGL files. HPGL=Hewlett Packard Graphics Language, HP's old plotter language. Our laser printer uses it as a poor man's PostScript. I'm embarassed to say that I quite like QBasic (apart from it removing the blasted leading zeroes, and adding all those feaking spaces!), but then Applesoft BASIC was my first introduction to programming. Now, Applesoft BASIC didn't have any integer maths routines, presumably 12KB of ROM space was getting a bit tight. Any integer variables were converted to floating point, calculated, then converted back to integer. Naturally this made integer maths slower than floating point. The only incentive to ever use integer variables was memory, integers used 2 bytes, fp used 5 bytes. It usually didn't matter unless you were using a large array. Still, it was better than Apple's original BASIC written by Steve Wozniak. It didn't have floating point at all, although it was fast. And it used # as a 'not equal to' sign instead of <>. I've never even written a program in Integer BASIC but I still miss that one. -- Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand Apple II - Future Cop:LAPD - iMac Voodoo2 - Warcraft II http://homepage.mac.com/rojaws ______________________________________________________________________ "First learn computer science and all the theory. Next develop a programming style. Then forget all that and just hack." George Carrette ###### From: genew@shuswap.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 01:36:59 GMT Reply-To: genew@shuswap.net Message-ID: <3b86f2f8.196625409@news.shuswap.net> References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <3b8571e2.98029021@news.shuswap.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 NNTP-Posting-Host: salmonarm3-41.shuswap.net X-Trace: 24 Aug 2001 18:53:43 -0700, salmonarm3-41.shuswap.net Lines: 29 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!newsranger.com!news.bnb-lp.com!nubby2.!salmonarm3-41.shuswap.net Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88288 Mike Schaeffer wrote: [snip] >QBasic, QuickBasic, and the equivalent component of the MS BASIC PDS >suite all 'compiled' lines as you entered them into the editor. They were >internally stored threaded. Edits would re-compile the appropriate part >of the threaded code, _and_ alter the line of text (capitalize reserved >words, adjust spacing, etc.). Loading the ASCII text file would cause it >to compile, very quickly, right after the load. Try it with a large file >on a slow computer (286 or so should do) and look at the lower left of >the editor sometime. > >Do you remember the old 100,000 line/minute compilation speed ads for >QuickBASIC? They were measuring this particular operation to get that >number. The conventional compiler part of the tools were much, much >slower. I didn't know about the editor tokenizing. The source code read from and written to disk was text though. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### Message-ID: <3B874C80.102629A4@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: me.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <9m2oul$gbf$2@bob.news.rcn.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 20 Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 05:00:22 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998715622 24.179.111.125 (Fri, 24 Aug 2001 22:00:22 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 22:00:22 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!news.stealth.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88370 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > > In article , > mwmiller@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) wrote: > > > >qbasic uses floating point unless you tell it not to. (And if it's like > >most versions of Microsoft Basic, even then it uses floating point for > >calculations and integers only for storage.) > > You have got to be shitting me. > I did *not* know that QBasic did this...but I *did* know that the Commodore 64 BASIC did all arithmetic in floating point. I suppose that any crappy thing that Micro$uck did... should *not* surprise me... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Message-ID: <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 20 Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 05:29:59 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998717399 24.179.111.125 (Fri, 24 Aug 2001 22:29:59 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 22:29:59 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news.cs.utwente.nl!newsgate.cistron.nl!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!128.230.129.106!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88363 Howard S Shubs wrote: > > In article <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk>, > Elliott Roper wrote: > > > In article , Howard S > > Shubs wrote: > > > > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. > > > > Was that Multiplan? > > No. I haven't been able to bring up the name in memory, but that's not it. > Are you maybe thinking about FrameWork??? -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: nailed_barnacle@NOSPAMhotmail.com (Neil Barnes) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 25 Aug 2001 06:25:23 GMT Organization: Around here? Lines: 51 Message-ID: <9m7gcj$ape$1@neptunium.btinternet.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m3ipb$ha7$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m680v$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: host62-7-58-44.btinternet.com User-Agent: Xnews/4.04.17tea Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!isdnet!btnet-peer1!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88359 hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote in <9m680v$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>: > In article <9m3ipb$ha7$1@plutonium.btinternet.com>, > Neil Barnes wrote: >> ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) wrote in >> : >>> In article <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com>, >>> Neil Barnes wrote: >>>> Neil, who remembers *last night* having to chop a latex file in half >>>> to stop page four and page three being printed on the same bit of >>>> paper... > >>> But if it's a latex file, shouldn't it be stretchy enough so that you >>> could extend it and avoid having to use such a solution? > > >> >> Actually, I don't think it was the file per se, I think it was more to >> do with the 3M postscript file last thing before the cock-up. Odd >> though, the preview was ok... > > You *successfully* split a latex file??? wow . . . > > neither \clearpage nor \pagebreak worked??? no \vskip or \vspace > tricks? > > :( > > Or dump to separate .ps files from gv for p1-3 and 4-$ ? > Hawk, I'm afraid this was a one a.m. solution, for a paper that had to be in about a week ago...so I applied an MS style solution: o Print file backwards (from lyx) till the broken page o Cut everything after proken page and paste to another document o Print from the beginning, including the diagram o stick the document back together and lo, the numbers all added up. If it happens again, I need to do more investigation, but I don't think the latex file itself was bad, as the dvi viewer showed the correct output. -- I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost... barnacle http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 01 08:30:58 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 23 Message-ID: <9malrk$i6u$3@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZDv1S0hVISEDNBDDy8fh/QdAHHjGIcZDFSobgcTp799KlUQ22VbAVb X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Aug 2001 11:17:08 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-102-9 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88447 In article , Howard S Shubs wrote: >In article <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net>, Charles Richmond >wrote: > >> Next you'll be saying that Gordon Bell and Dave Cutler could >> *not* help being the smucks that they are... Or maybe that > >"shmucks" > >> Mr. Palmer is a good and decent man, even though he rode DEC >> into the ground... > >He was hired to do that by the BOD. Don't blame him for doing his job. I >blame the BOD, and would like to smack each one of them. There is that. However, the idiot also spent money as if he were Gates and did it with no impunity. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 01 09:37:37 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 44 Message-ID: <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbdRExGsxSMSExhe6EUfuvOpJD6OodOOzsq/+5syO+kzZjeFp9rP5GC X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Aug 2001 12:23:47 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!blackbush.xlink.net!blackbush.de.kpnqwest.net!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!netnews.com!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-102-9 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88450 In article <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net>, Charles Richmond wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >> >> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...] >> >> I just had a vision. Misoft has run out of new bugs to ensure >> later releases; so they put back to the old bugs. >> >> Oh, I shouldn't so mean to those poor people. >> >Your sympathy is *wasted* on such as Mi$oft... The love of money >is the root of all *evil*...and who could love money *more* than >Billy Boy Personally, I don't think that's Billy's goal. > ... and Mr. Balmer??? > >"Pity the poor in bondage who have *none* to help them..." > >Next you'll be saying that Gordon Bell and Dave Cutler could >*not* help being the smucks that they are... Nope. They couldn't. The fact that nobody said no to their destructive tendencies was a big part of the problem. > ...Or maybe that >Mr. Palmer is a good and decent man, even though he rode DEC >into the ground... It was his job to strip all cash from the company. I blame the Board of Directors for that. The fact that they hired a fucking idiot... Maybe that's the only kind who could do that kind of a job. My problem with Palmer was his managing style. The dissolution of DEC could have been done with a lot less pain than what he injected. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 00:31:20 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998699480snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998823671 mail2news:19751 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 15 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88513 In article <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu "Prof. Richard E. Hawkins" writes: > I was this happen with a current version two years ago . . . So *that's* where those translations from japanese come from . . . :-) -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 25 Aug 2001 17:33:54 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 12 Message-ID: <9m8ni2$jva$1@top.mitre.org> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com> Reply-To: jcmorris@mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Host: jmorris-pc.mitre.org X-Trace: top.mitre.org 998760834 20458 128.29.251.13 (25 Aug 2001 17:33:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Aug 2001 17:33:54 GMT X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!newsfeed.stanford.edu!canoe.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!jcmorris Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88426 nailed_barnacle@NOSPAMhotmail.com (Neil Barnes) writes: >Ack - just bounced off that lovely ms attitude with Notepad: >save as 'license.2' >ok, saved 'license.2.txt'. Damn. >save as 'all files' 'license.2' >overwrite existing license.2.txt? >ah, sod it, rename ->license.2 Try saving it as "license.2" (*with* the quotes). Joe Morris (who works with but will not necessarily defend Windows...) ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Supersedes: Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 14:33:29 -0400 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 26 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-957.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!newsfeed.Austria.EU.net!newsfeed.kpnqwest.at!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88489 In article <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net>, Charles Richmond wrote: > Howard S Shubs wrote: > > > > In article <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk>, > > Elliott Roper wrote: > > > > > In article , Howard S > > > Shubs wrote: > > > > > > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. > > > > > > Was that Multiplan? > > > > No. I haven't been able to bring up the name in memory, but that's not it. > > > Are you maybe thinking about FrameWork??? No. I'm thinking of the original spreadsheet program, whose name I -still- can't come up with. Lotus copied large quantities of it, but bought the company which made it before the court could rule against them, then asked for dismissal. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### From: "Eric Schweitzer (archy)" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 17:22:19 -0400 Lines: 19 Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: schmooze.hunter.cuny.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In-Reply-To: Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!news.stealth.net!63.208.208.143.MISMATCH!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!newsfeed.utk.edu!uky.edu!news.cuny.edu!schmooze.hunter.cuny.edu!ershc Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88462 On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Howard S Shubs wrote: > > > > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. > > > > Was that Multiplan? > > > No. I haven't been able to bring up the name in memory, but that's > > > not it. > > Are you maybe thinking about FrameWork??? > > No. I'm thinking of the original spreadsheet program, whose name I > -still- can't come up with. Lotus copied large quantities of it, but > bought the company which made it before the court could rule against > them, then asked for dismissal. Do you mean VisiCalc? -- ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:12:48 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 15 Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-948.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!fu-berlin.de!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cambridge1-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!bos-service1.ext.raytheon.com!cyclone.swbell.net!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88491 In article , "Eric Schweitzer (archy)" wrote: > > No. I'm thinking of the original spreadsheet program, whose name I > > -still- can't come up with. Lotus copied large quantities of it, but > > bought the company which made it before the court could rule against > > them, then asked for dismissal. > > Do you mean VisiCalc? Thank you. Yes. Visicalc. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### Message-ID: <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 24 Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 22:26:15 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998778375 24.179.111.125 (Sat, 25 Aug 2001 15:26:15 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 15:26:15 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!feed.textport.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88502 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > > [snip...] [snip...] [snip...] > > I just had a vision. Misoft has run out of new bugs to ensure > later releases; so they put back to the old bugs. > > Oh, I shouldn't so mean to those poor people. > Your sympathy is *wasted* on such as Mi$oft... The love of money is the root of all *evil*...and who could love money *more* than Billy Boy and Mr. Balmer??? "Pity the poor in bondage who have *none* to help them..." Next you'll be saying that Gordon Bell and Dave Cutler could *not* help being the smucks that they are... Or maybe that Mr. Palmer is a good and decent man, even though he rode DEC into the ground... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 19:07:15 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 16 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-609.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88484 In article <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net>, Charles Richmond wrote: > Next you'll be saying that Gordon Bell and Dave Cutler could > *not* help being the smucks that they are... Or maybe that "shmucks" > Mr. Palmer is a good and decent man, even though he rode DEC > into the ground... He was hired to do that by the BOD. Don't blame him for doing his job. I blame the BOD, and would like to smack each one of them. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### From: mwilson@the-wire.com (Mel Wilson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Distribution: world Message-ID: <86Di7ks/KrxA089yn@the-wire.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net> Lines: 28 X-Newsreader: VSoup v1.2.9.37Beta [95/NT] Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 20:11:40 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.206.39.72 X-Trace: nnrp1.uunet.ca 998827248 205.206.39.72 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 08:00:48 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 08:00:48 EDT Organization: UUNET Canada News Reader Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uunet.ca!nnrp1.uunet.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88448 In article , Howard S Shubs wrote: >In article >, > "Eric Schweitzer (archy)" wrote: >> > No. I'm thinking of the original spreadsheet program, whose name I >> > -still- can't come up with. Lotus copied large quantities of it, but >> > bought the company which made it before the court could rule against >> > them, then asked for dismissal. >> Do you mean VisiCalc? >Thank you. Yes. Visicalc. OK for you. This hasn't helped my peace of mind at all. At that time, I was supporting an accounting package. Our business guy came in one day to tell us that VisiCalc (?) had implemented a Data Interchange Format to bring outside data into spreadsheets. So we implemented a little feature that let our users select and/or summarize financial data to move into spreadsheets for whatever purposes they could imagine. Business being what it is, we wound up having to implement it three times: for DIF, for Symbolic Link format (for 1-2-3 .. yes? .. no?) and one other format for Multiplan (?). What was the other format? Have I matched up the software and formats right? Thanks. Mel. ###### From: lysse Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net> Organization: lysse's domain Reply-To: lysse.news@blueyonder.co.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980226 (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.6 (i486)) Message-ID: Lines: 13 Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 01:31:45 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.9.47 X-Complaints-To: http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/abuse X-Trace: news1.cableinet.net 998789505 62.31.9.47 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 02:31:45 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 02:31:45 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!internal-news-hub.cableinet.net!news1.cableinet.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88471 Howard S Shubs wrote: >> Are you maybe thinking about FrameWork??? > No. I'm thinking of the original spreadsheet program, whose name I -still- > can't come up with. Lotus copied large quantities of it, but bought the > company which made it before the court could rule against them, then asked for > dismissal. Visicalc? -- lysse at lysse dot co dot uk "Why are your problems always so much bigger than everyone else's?" "Because they're mine." -- Ally McBeal ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 23:23:07 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 9 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-658.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!204.94.211.44!enews.sgi.com!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88490 In article , lysse wrote: > Visicalc? That be the one, thanks! -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### Message-ID: <3B889574.94913A10@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> <3B875371.A22B523@ev1.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 34 Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 04:23:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998799834 24.179.111.125 (Sat, 25 Aug 2001 21:23:54 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 21:23:54 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88493 Howard S Shubs wrote: > > In article > , > "Eric Schweitzer (archy)" wrote: > > > > No. I'm thinking of the original spreadsheet program, whose name I > > > -still- can't come up with. Lotus copied large quantities of it, but > > > bought the company which made it before the court could rule against > > > them, then asked for dismissal. > > > > Do you mean VisiCalc? > > Thank you. Yes. Visicalc. > For "more than you wanted to know" about Visicalc, go to: Or if you prefer, go to Dan Bricklin's page about VisiCalc: and download an executable copy for MS-DOS: -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: Peter N. M. Hansteen Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 26 Aug 2001 15:35:09 +0200 Organization: Only to a certain degree Lines: 16 Sender: peter@tosh Message-ID: <878zg7eygi.fsf@bgnett.no> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> <6dm5otgmhko2i9aac2irbotoesda50qat2@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.54.107.19 X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 998833410 1338088 194.54.107.19 (16 [67457]) X-Orig-Path: 127.0.0.1!nobody Original-Sender: peter@bgnett.no X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.7 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!194.54.107.19!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88420 Mike Schaeffer writes: > for the two Microsoft Windowing platforms; Would a protected-mode > Windows have suprised developers in the 1987-89 timeframe? I > certainly know that it was something of a suprise to Microsoft, as > the skunkworks project of one lone engineer. Most people seem to have forgotten that Microsoft had protected mode Windows 2.n versions, dubbed Windows/286 and Windows/386. IIRC these were released in 1988. Then again, those PC users who actually found the concept of multitasking useful in that timeframe usually ran QuarteDeck's DesqView. That product worked amazingly well, even on the relatively crippled 80286. -- Peter N. M. Hansteen, member of the first RFC 1149 implementation team ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 12:24:58 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 10 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9malrk$i6u$3@bob.news.rcn.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-190.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!newsfeed.Austria.EU.net!newsfeed.kpnqwest.at!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88487 In article <9malrk$i6u$3@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > There is that. However, the idiot also spent money as > if he were Gates and did it with no impunity. Consider that he was dealing -with- Gates. Maybe what Gates has got (attitude) is catching? -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### From: lysse Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> Organization: lysse's domain Reply-To: lysse.news@blueyonder.co.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980226 (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.6 (i486)) Message-ID: <8g8bm9.dda.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> Lines: 14 Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 17:31:57 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.9.47 X-Complaints-To: http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/abuse X-Trace: news1.cableinet.net 998847117 62.31.9.47 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 18:31:57 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 18:31:57 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!internal-news-hub.cableinet.net!news1.cableinet.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88468 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >>Your sympathy is *wasted* on such as Mi$oft... The love of money >>is the root of all *evil*...and who could love money *more* than >>Billy Boy > Personally, I don't think that's Billy's goal. I wonder how much of Billy's goal is based on "I'll show them" taken to a ridiculous extreme? -- lysse at lysse dot co dot uk "Why are your problems always so much bigger than everyone else's?" "Because they're mine." -- Ally McBeal ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 01 08:21:58 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 18 Message-ID: <9md9n3$nie$3@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <8g8bm9.dda.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVYhcvup2IWmo+hfhEmsTCtzC4JbmFKhrGGnzS8DPApjuomKJrdBWqzW X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 11:08:19 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!209-122-255-33 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88554 In article <8g8bm9.dda.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk>, lysse wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > >>>Your sympathy is *wasted* on such as Mi$oft... The love of money >>>is the root of all *evil*...and who could love money *more* than >>>Billy Boy > >> Personally, I don't think that's Billy's goal. > >I wonder how much of Billy's goal is based on "I'll show them" taken >to a ridiculous extreme? Personally, I think it's revenge and not petulance. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 01 08:23:37 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 22 Message-ID: <9md9q6$nie$4@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <3B89DFD5.8702FF48@beagle-ears.com> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbgs95W1I9dJmLUb6kOjOZ3NIL0NvHO0La1ylq0EWkpGtJ82TuUdNBU X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 11:09:58 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!209-122-255-33 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88555 In article <3B89DFD5.8702FF48@beagle-ears.com>, Lars Poulsen wrote: >Roger Johnstone wrote: >> #1. Under Windows 95 I tried to rename a file as BHM, an acronym. >> Windows decided I must have accidentally typed it all in capitals >> and kindly changed it to Bhm. Arghhh! This "smart feature" must >> have been thought up by an idiot. > >Although there is an old saying that one should "Never attribute to >malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity", I do >believe that this feature was put in deliberately to screw up >mixed-platform environments (such as mine) where the file system >seen by the Windows Explorer really lives on a Linux system, from >where it is exported by Samba. You know, there is a checkbox to >stop it from doing that .... Of course it's on purpose. Never underestimate the NIH syndrome. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 01 09:12:19 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 15 Message-ID: <9mdclf$al3$2@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9malrk$i6u$3@bob.news.rcn.net> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVa8G1+PeUKY7GK7L1kwBi4rm6ltK7yKAs4EH05c/O9xKoqQtWga4HGF X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 11:58:39 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!209-122-234-179 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88556 In article , Howard S Shubs wrote: >In article <9malrk$i6u$3@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > >> There is that. However, the idiot also spent money as >> if he were Gates and did it with no impunity. > >Consider that he was dealing -with- Gates. Maybe what Gates has got >(attitude) is catching? I don't think so. Palmer was a short man. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 01 10:50:03 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 31 Message-ID: <9mdicn$8ei$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9malrk$i6u$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9mdgk1$3a4$1@top.mitre.org> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbgwXCNYLCCB7s32F3yRrKczmpq5GWkNfojK4tF1Xxo7xUw4Kk5o+yO X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 13:36:23 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!fu-berlin.de!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!209-122-234-50 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88558 In article <9mdgk1$3a4$1@top.mitre.org>, jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: > >> Howard S Shubs wrote: >>> Charles Richmond wrote: > >>>> Mr. Palmer is a good and decent man, even though he rode DEC >>>> into the ground... > >>>He was hired to do that by the BOD. Don't blame him for doing his job. I >>>blame the BOD, and would like to smack each one of them. > >>There is that. However, the idiot also spent money as >>if he were Gates and did it with no impunity. > >ObNitpick: didn't you mean *with* impunity? Yup. That's what happens when I change one part of the sentence. > ... "Impunity" already includes >the negative, and means "without [fear of] punishment." I wrote it both ways. One of the nice things about programming is that a test run would have caught inconsistency. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 01 08:19:44 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 57 Message-ID: <9md9iu$nie$2@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZYVUIsdxyBAzXXB6ss8dQplviPsaixcqgK5sKYVRkbXmVwJh5X+hlz X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 11:06:06 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!209-122-255-33 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88561 In article , The.Central.Scrutinizer.nospam@invalid.pobox.com () wrote: >On Sun, 26 Aug 01 09:37:37 GMT, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >>In article <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net>, >> Charles Richmond wrote: >>>jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >>>> >>>> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...] >>>> >>>> I just had a vision. Misoft has run out of new bugs to ensure >>>> later releases; so they put back to the old bugs. >>>> >>>> Oh, I shouldn't so mean to those poor people. >>>> >>>Your sympathy is *wasted* on such as Mi$oft... The love of money >>>is the root of all *evil*...and who could love money *more* than >>>Billy Boy >> >>Personally, I don't think that's Billy's goal. > >Perhaps, but he is *way* more interested in cloberring competition through >extremely nasty business tactics than in providing products of an even >acceptable level of quality. Right. Money is the _means_ and not the goal. > .. He's single handedly set the computer industry >back twenty years. Only now has MS's offereings >gained middle 70's technology. There's no need to offensive ;-). 20 years implies 1980. We were way ahead at that time, IMO. >Only MS could make a CPU as screaming fast as a >pentium III run so slow. Only >MS could make a half gig of ram the minimum requirement >if you don't want your system to constantly thrash. That's a human attribute. TW wrote the driver for RP07s. One day, he was in the machine room watching it while his disk tests were running. Now, TW was famous for his low estimates. He couldn't understand why we needed such a large capacity on a system. JMF bet him that the disk would be full in three months. TW looked at JMF as if he had turned in a slug. JMF's estimate was off by a week or so. People don't get frugal until there's a dearth. One of the problems with the computing industry is that the cycle of faster I/O vs. faster CPUs was interrupted. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: Elliott Roper Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 02:42:21 +0100 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <230820010242218036%elliott@yrl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit User-Agent: YA-NewsWatcher/5.0.1 X-Complaints-To: abuse@xo.supernews.co.uk Lines: 16 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!skynet.be!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!sn-uk-post-01!supernews.com!xo.supernews.co.uk!elliott Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88563 In article , Howard S Shubs wrote: > In article <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, > hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: > > > Similarly, Excel was solid (but it seems to me there was an ms > > spreadsheet that preceeded excel that was a pain in the tail to use), > > and had the market locked up before facing any serious competition. > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. Was that Multiplan? I remember using it on Mac when the world was new and all. It was OK for its day. I don't remember Lotus getting anywhere near enough for intercourse. In those pre-Cambrian times 1-2-3 was character cell only was it not? ###### From: nailed_barnacle@NOSPAMhotmail.com (Neil Barnes) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 23 Aug 2001 06:15:02 GMT Organization: Around here? Lines: 32 Message-ID: <9m2716$mik$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-1-69-224.btinternet.com User-Agent: Xnews/4.04.17tea Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newscore.gigabell.net!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88605 Mike Schaeffer wrote in : > On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Matthew W. Miller wrote: > >> It doesn't. qbasic (and qb) save Basic code as uncompressed >> plaintext. Yes, Virginia, even DOS programs are subject to Microsoft >> Bloat (tm). > > Are you complaining about saving source code as an ASCII file? That > seems a lot more useful than the binary files that GWBASIC defaulted > to. > Using MS basic on a 6502 Tangerine system, I remember writing utilities like 'renumbering' software (which tidied up the mess you got when you had to add lots of lines that you didn't leave space for) which were very simple because the internal representation tokenised the statements (which made them easy to find without having to parse things) and the line numbers and jump targets, which were in 16-bit hex form. The effect was that the size of the image didn't change as I changed the details, which made life a lot easier. Did the same mix of tokens and text get stuffed out to tape on these late 70's development systems? -- I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost... barnacle http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk ###### From: nailed_barnacle@NOSPAMhotmail.com (Neil Barnes) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 23 Aug 2001 06:20:24 GMT Organization: Around here? Lines: 35 Message-ID: <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-1-69-224.btinternet.com User-Agent: Xnews/4.04.17tea Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88606 hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote in <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>: > Oh, come on. Word would never read a file from another computer, > changed it so that it's incompativle with the machine that wrote it, > and overwrite the original on disk with no hope of recovery, all > before coming up. > > [*stagehand mumbles in hawk's ear*] > > Err, never mind :) > Ack - just bounced off that lovely ms attitude with Notepad: save as 'license.2' ok, saved 'license.2.txt'. Damn. save as 'all files' 'license.2' overwrite existing license.2.txt? ah, sod it, rename ->license.2 > You get that long between crashes??? > > hawk, who remembers using 1.0 on his undergraduate dissertation, and > having to break into multiple files for editing, and having a crash at > least every 7 or 8 pages while printing . . . Neil, who remembers *last night* having to chop a latex file in half to stop page four and page three being printed on the same bit of paper... -- I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost... barnacle http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> Organization: University of Michigan, College of Engineering From: ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) Lines: 11 Message-ID: <96fi7.1738$96.1540@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 22:53:57 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 141.213.74.25 X-Trace: srvr1.engin.umich.edu 998866437 141.213.74.25 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 18:53:57 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 18:53:57 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!srvr1.engin.umich.edu!ftit Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88585 In article <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net>, wrote: >In article <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, >I just had a vision. Misoft has run out of new bugs to ensure >later releases; so they put back to the old bugs. > >Oh, I shouldn't so mean to those poor people. Why not? -- Sergej Roytman ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> Organization: University of Michigan, College of Engineering From: ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) Lines: 66 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 23:22:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 141.213.74.25 X-Trace: srvr1.engin.umich.edu 998868123 141.213.74.25 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:22:03 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:22:03 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!srvr1.engin.umich.edu!ftit Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88593 In article , wrote: >On Sun, 26 Aug 01 09:37:37 GMT, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >>In article <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net>, >> Charles Richmond wrote: >>>> >>>Your sympathy is *wasted* on such as Mi$oft... The love of money >>>is the root of all *evil*...and who could love money *more* than >>>Billy Boy >> >>Personally, I don't think that's Billy's goal. > >Perhaps, but he is *way* more interested in cloberring competition through >extremely nasty business tactics than in providing products of an even >acceptable level of quality. Makes sense. After all, how much money does one man need? How much can he even spend in a lifetime? I agree (if I understood what you said) that it must really be all about power in Billy-Bob's sad little, monopolistic mind. > He's single handedly set the computer industry >back twenty years. Only now has MS's offereings gained middle 70's technology. >Only MS could make a CPU as screaming fast as a pentium III run so slow. Only >MS could make a half gig of ram the minimum requirement if you don't want your >system to constantly thrash. And I've decided that MICROS~1's (thanks, whoever came up with this one) designs are actually not bad for what they're intended to do. Before anyone jumps on top of me and throws a sharp little axe at me, what I mean is, that the software is designed with dominating the market, rather than any esthetic consideration (like, whether or not it works well) in mind. If your main goal is not to write pretty code, you will not think it a Bad Thing to turn out huge resource hogs, because RAM is cheap and so is disk space, and both of them are getting cheaper. And it's a whole lot easier to find trained monkeys with a highschool Visual BASIC degree under their furry little belts than to find high-caliber programmers who know how to write a kernel, and manage them so that they'll work together, etc. I guess it's also a factor that there was a lot of ignorant people buying computers recently. If you were to try to sell some high-tech widget to someone who had done his homework, and generally had an idea about what the thing's supposed to do and how, it's one thing. If your dupe^Wcustomer's only consideration is whether he'll be able to graze "duh Innernet", and there's plenty more where he came from, you can sell any shoddy piece of work and he'll be too busy admiring the pretty colors to notice that all the nasty, greasy machinery underneath was designed by idiots. And as a bonus, he will be so happy when he learns where to find the "init 0" button (under the "Start" menu, of course!), that he'll come right back to you when he needs a new widget. So, you think it scandalous that Billy-Bob is selling the crap he's selling, but give it a generation or two and if you tell someone that you've got a reliable system with uptimes that are limited by power interruptions rather than instability he'll say, "Weird, man!"---as we would think it an unnecessary luxury to have servants help us get dressed in the morning, unless we were too ill to do it for ourselves or something. This came out of a conversation I had with a student in a class I was TAing. I felt depressed after that little talk. -- Sergej Roytman ###### Message-ID: <3B89CAB6.BEA72A02@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 22 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 02:23:25 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 998879005 24.179.111.125 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:23:25 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:23:25 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88638 Sergej Roytman wrote: > > [snip...] [snip...] [snip...] > > This came out of a conversation I had with a student in a class I was > TA'ing. I felt depressed after that little talk. > I agree with all the characterizations of Billy-Boy that Mr. Roytman and /BAH mentioned in the parts above (that were snipped)... It *is* about power, but money is a handy way of keeping score. And it *is* quite discouraging to hear the newbies coming up...when re-booting and re-installing software is just the norm. One of my Unix admin friends was shocked to discover this from talking with young programmers while riding a bus to work. I guess if you keep someone tied to a rock for long enough, they will come to accept it as the way things are supposed to be... Sad. Sad, indeed... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Message-ID: <3B89DFD5.8702FF48@beagle-ears.com> Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 22:51:17 -0700 From: Lars Poulsen X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en]C-CCK-MCD (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: da,en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <3b8121a6.425664628@enews.newsguy.com> <3B808E0C.EAEFA7F1@yahoo.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 16 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.154.106.6 X-Trace: azure.impulse.net 998891408 192 207.154.106.6 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.online.be!feed.cgocable.net!out.nntp.be!propagator-dallas!news-in-dallas.newsfeeds.com!sienna.impulse.net!azure.impulse.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88539 Roger Johnstone wrote: > #1. Under Windows 95 I tried to rename a file as BHM, an acronym. > Windows decided I must have accidentally typed it all in capitals > and kindly changed it to Bhm. Arghhh! This "smart feature" must > have been thought up by an idiot. Although there is an old saying that one should "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity", I do believe that this feature was put in deliberately to screw up mixed-platform environments (such as mine) where the file system seen by the Windows Explorer really lives on a Linux system, from where it is exported by Samba. You know, there is a checkbox to stop it from doing that .... -- / Lars Poulsen - http://www.beagle-ears.com - lars@beagle-ears.com 125 South Ontare Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93105 - +1-805-569-5277 ###### From: jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 27 Aug 2001 13:06:09 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 18 Message-ID: <9mdgk1$3a4$1@top.mitre.org> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9malrk$i6u$3@bob.news.rcn.net> Reply-To: jcmorris@mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Host: jmorris-pc.mitre.org X-Trace: top.mitre.org 998917569 3396 128.29.251.13 (27 Aug 2001 13:06:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 13:06:09 GMT X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!fu-berlin.de!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!portc03.blue.aol.com!uunet!dca.uu.net!news.tufts.edu!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!jcmorris Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88532 jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: > Howard S Shubs wrote: >> Charles Richmond wrote: >>> Mr. Palmer is a good and decent man, even though he rode DEC >>> into the ground... >>He was hired to do that by the BOD. Don't blame him for doing his job. I >>blame the BOD, and would like to smack each one of them. >There is that. However, the idiot also spent money as >if he were Gates and did it with no impunity. ObNitpick: didn't you mean *with* impunity? "Impunity" already includes the negative, and means "without [fear of] punishment." Joe Morris ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <878zg7eygi.fsf@bgnett.no> Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ltref$3fn$1@top.mitre.org> <20010821205529.5a5802a1.steveo@eircom.net> <6dm5otgmhko2i9aac2irbotoesda50qat2@4ax.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@bgnett.no> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 49 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 11:17:32 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-m8VTZ4dnjzN31yPTQBD3Q8ndOzraIwLG5VKiiGr83HGy+oEaJ9X2kx2Y7bCfC4YsY8SiP+v+6O5u51e!tm60jVzAVC3jmh7+bm7Pwf2e2Exi/h5DpbKe9ZHx2Hllb7BpMtfVQJFFhDJ76IWNMuAJ7NkvvXgk!4M+5vOxXH7O35z90DXw5Y0La X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 11:17:30 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!out.nntp.be!propagator-dallas!news-in-dallas.newsfeeds.com!nntp2.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!hagbard.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88624 On 26 Aug 2001, Peter N. M. Hansteen wrote: > Mike Schaeffer writes: > > > for the two Microsoft Windowing platforms; Would a protected-mode > > Windows have suprised developers in the 1987-89 timeframe? I > > certainly know that it was something of a suprise to Microsoft, as > > the skunkworks project of one lone engineer. > > Most people seem to have forgotten that Microsoft had protected mode > Windows 2.n versions, dubbed Windows/286 and Windows/386. IIRC these > were released in 1988. Windows/286 wasn't actually protected mode... it was more of a marketing ploy to increase public perception. The only thing 286 specific about that version of Windows was that it could control the A20 mask to gain access to the 64K memory immediately after 1MB [1]. That said, Windows/386 _was_ protected mode. For /386, Microsoft developed a V86 multitasker that worked something like DesqView 386... it would enable Windows to multitask DOS applications by creating virtual DOS machines. The _real mode_ Windows kernal ran in one of these Virtual DOS machines. All the VxD stuff that was around in Windows 3.0 Enhanced Mode... that architecture debuted in Windows/386. The singular enhancement of Windows 3.0 was that they ported the Windows kernel over to protected mode. This enabled windows binaries to run in protected mode. FWIW, this 386-protected mode stuff wasn't the only time Microsoft pre-introduced significant technology. A Windows for Workgroups 3.11 machine running Win32s was architecturally very similar to Windows 95, having both the 32 bit file access and Win32 support. Windows 95 just added support for more Win32 API's and ported some of the more performance intensive code over to the 32-bit side. Other than that, it was largely a new shell, some fancy widgets, and not that much more... [1] For the sake of completeness, one of the troubles introduced with the 80286 involved the way it calculated real-mode addresses. Like the 8088/6 before it, the real mode 286 calculated addresses thus: (seg<<4)+ofs. For seg=0xFFFF and ofs=0xFFFF, this addresses memory past 1MB. In the 8086, constraned by 20 address lines, these higher addresses wrapped around to 0. For the 286, these addresses were completely expressed on the bus, enabling access to slightly more RAM. However, since this caused problems with legacy applications that depended on the wrapping behavior, IBM introduced a scheme to mask off the A20 line, and force the addresses to wrap. In many machines, the A20 mask was controlled by the keyboard controller, and certain protected mode extenders that frequently turned the mask on and off could cause the keyboard to act funny. -Mike ###### From: Alexandre Pechtchanski Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <6838def7.0108201315.16f62893@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m27b8$mik$2@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m8ni2$jva$1@top.mitre.org> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 32 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:29:42 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 998940640 129.85.24.56 (Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:30:40 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:30:40 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.nyu.edu!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88644 On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:05:49 GMT, The.Central.Scrutinizer.nospam@invalid.pobox.com () wrote: >On 25 Aug 2001 17:33:54 GMT, Joe Morris wrote: >>nailed_barnacle@NOSPAMhotmail.com (Neil Barnes) writes: >> >>>Ack - just bounced off that lovely ms attitude with Notepad: >>>save as 'license.2' >>>ok, saved 'license.2.txt'. Damn. >>>save as 'all files' 'license.2' >>>overwrite existing license.2.txt? >>>ah, sod it, rename ->license.2 >> >>Try saving it as "license.2" (*with* the quotes). > >wrong. microsoft *always* knows best. > >[runs from room screaming] Screaming is good. Lets you vent the soul and _not_ stand in the long line of people waiting to kill Bill Gates. Actually, there _is_ a way to make it the way you want it, and it is even obvious _after the fact_ (just try to think the way school dropouts think - there, see! This is how it is supposed to work with Microsoft products). Save it as "license.2." (no quotes, but two periods). Now notepad thinks you don't want extension, so it won't append .txt - and Windows (or, more precisely, underlying DOS calls) think that you mean "everything after last period is an extension", so you get file of type 2. -- [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY ###### From: lysse Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m15vp$1rl4@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m8122$goo$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <8g8bm9.dda.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9md9n3$nie$3@bob.news.rcn.net> Organization: lysse's domain Reply-To: lysse.news@blueyonder.co.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980226 (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.6 (i486)) Message-ID: Lines: 11 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 19:31:53 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.9.47 X-Complaints-To: http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/abuse X-Trace: news1.cableinet.net 998940713 62.31.9.47 (Mon, 27 Aug 2001 20:31:53 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 20:31:53 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!internal-news-hub.cableinet.net!news1.cableinet.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88579 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >>I wonder how much of Billy's goal is based on "I'll show them" taken >>to a ridiculous extreme? > Personally, I think it's revenge and not petulance. Revenge for what? -- lysse at lysse dot co dot uk "Why are your problems always so much bigger than everyone else's?" "Because they're mine." -- Ally McBeal ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 27 Aug 01 11:45:03 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 92 Message-ID: <3657.639T197T7053302@nowhere.in.particular> References: <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <3B89DFD5.8702FF48@beagle-ears.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-887.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88681 In article <3B89DFD5.8702FF48@beagle-ears.com> lars@beagle-ears.com (Lars Poulsen) writes: >Roger Johnstone wrote: > >> #1. Under Windows 95 I tried to rename a file as BHM, an acronym. >> Windows decided I must have accidentally typed it all in capitals >> and kindly changed it to Bhm. Arghhh! This "smart feature" must >> have been thought up by an idiot. > >Although there is an old saying that one should "Never attribute to >malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity", I do >believe that this feature was put in deliberately to screw up >mixed-platform environments (such as mine) where the file system >seen by the Windows Explorer really lives on a Linux system, from >where it is exported by Samba. You know, there is a checkbox to >stop it from doing that .... I to have to constantly remind myself of that saying. However, every time I do, a little voice inside my head says, "But Microsoft isn't stupid!" Speaking of Windows sabotaging Samba, here's a copy of a recent posting in comp.linux.networking. Remember, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you... > X-SystemInfo: Internet: comp.os.linux.networking > X-Message-No: 4059 (database) > From: Chronos Tachyon > Subject: Re: Upgrading to Win2000/SP2 broke my Samba 2.2 login > Date: Wed, 4 Jul 1 11:41:01 > Message-ID: <7kK07.111698$R7.19025102@typhoon.kc.rr.com> > Path: spln!rex!lex!extra.newsguy.com!lotsanews.com!newsfeed.mathworks.com!portc03.bl ue.aol.com!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news- east.rr.com!news.rr.com!cyclone.kc.rr.com!news.kc.rr.com!cyclone3.kc.rr.com!ne ws3.kc.rr.com!typhoon.kc.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail > Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking > References: <9hvkq3$cb$1@neptunium.btinternet.com> > Organization: Very little > User-Agent: KNode/0.4 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.163.128.147 > X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com > X-Trace: typhoon.kc.rr.com 994275715 24.163.128.147 (Wed, 04 Jul 2001 14:41:55 CDT) > NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 14:41:55 CDT > Xref: spln comp.os.linux.networking:309296 > > On Wed 04 Jul 2001 12:46, Ben Brown wrote: > > > Samba 2.2 was working OK for Win2000 domain logins and roaming profiles... > > > > Then I upgraded to Windows 2000 service pack 2 and I can't login.... > > > [Snip a bunch of logfile output] > > > > Any ideas? > > > > Server is Redhat 7.1 with 2.4.5 kernel and samba-2.2.0-20010417 RPM from > > samba.org > > > > Regards, > > > > Ben Brown > > brbrown at xarin dot com > > > > When I encountered this problem a while back, I hit comp.protocols.smb with > it and Jeremy Allison told me what was going on. In Win2K SP2, M$ added a > check to make sure that an NT4-style PDC really *is* running NT4 and not > Samba; it works by sending an illegal command to the PDC, then refusing to > authenticate against the server unless it responds with _exactly_ the error > code that the real NT4 uses. Samba 2.2.0 doesn't, so it breaks. It's > quite blatantly an attack on Samba, so I'm really surprised that Slashdot > hasn't picked up on it yet... > > You'll have to do one of three things: uninstall SP2 and go back to SP1; > use the current CVS of Samba 2.2.x where the dirty trick has been > neutralized; or wait for Samba 2.2.1 to be released, which will have the > same fix. My money would be on option #1 for the short term. > > -- > Chronos Tachyon > Guardian of Eristic Paraphernalia > Gatekeeper of the Region of Thud > [Reply instructions: My real domain is "echo
| cut -d. -f6,7"] -- cgibbs@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs) I'm switching ISPs - watch this space. ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 27 Aug 2001 21:08:54 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 25 Message-ID: <9mect6$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <9m2oul$gbf$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m6ojh$r7a$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88661 In article <9m6ojh$r7a$1@lust.ihug.co.nz>, Roger Johnstone wrote: >Still, it was better than Apple's original BASIC written by Steve Wozniak. >It didn't have floating point at all, although it was fast. And it used # as >a 'not equal to' sign instead of <>. I've never even written a program in >Integer BASIC but I still miss that one. If memory serves, early machines had the floating point routines (and hires graphics routines) on cassette tape, while the later had an extra rom containing them. ANd then came the II+, with applesoft in rom rather than tape, hires and floating point built into rom, and tose autostart roms that made it launch basic and even load from floppies without so much as a "by your leave." harumph. To think we lost the disassembler for *that* . . . hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 27 Aug 2001 21:12:30 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 20 Message-ID: <9med3u$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m3ipb$ha7$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m680v$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m7gcj$ape$1@neptunium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88660 In article <9m7gcj$ape$1@neptunium.btinternet.com>, Neil Barnes wrote: >> You *successfully* split a latex file??? wow . . . >I'm afraid this was a one a.m. solution, for a paper that had to be in about >a week ago...so I applied an MS style solution: > >o Print file backwards (from lyx) till the broken page Oh. that's doable :) And now that it's too late, I'll mention that sending a paniced message to the lyx developers' list likely would have worked :) hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 27 Aug 2001 21:17:26 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 24 Message-ID: <9medd6$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <998699480snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88658 In article <998699480snz@dsl.co.uk>, Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: >In article <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> > hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu "Prof. Richard E. Hawkins" writes: >> I was this happen with a current version two years ago . . . >So *that's* where those translations from japanese come from . . . Now I'm getting dizzy . . . I'd swear that I posted this same response to something someone else said late last week . . . Oh, I see :) Touche. My mind just hasn't started yet today. Fortunately I don't teach until tomorrow . . . hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 23:46:37 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998955997snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998960037 mail2news:7087 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 27 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88708 In article ftit@engin.umich.edu "Sergej Roytman" writes: > I guess it's also a factor that there was a lot of ignorant people > buying computers recently. If you were to try to sell some high-tech > widget to someone who had done his homework, and generally had an idea > about what the thing's supposed to do and how, it's one thing. If your > dupe^Wcustomer's only consideration is whether he'll be able to graze > "duh Innernet", and there's plenty more where he came from, you can > sell any shoddy piece of work and he'll be too busy admiring the pretty > colors to notice that all the nasty, greasy machinery underneath was > designed by idiots. And as a bonus, he will be so happy when he learns > where to find the "init 0" button (under the "Start" menu, of course!), > that he'll come right back to you when he needs a new widget. One doesn't even need to look as recently as that (the era of "duh Innernet"), if one believes the infamous reports of the sales of Win'95 in Japan, when 40% of those going into stores to purchase Win'95 not only did not have a computer AT ALL, but had not even considered buying one in the first place. -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: ivie@cc.usu.edu (Roger Ivie) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Message-ID: Date: 28 Aug 01 16:40:33 MDT References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> Distribution: world Organization: Utah State University Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!xmission!news.cc.utah.edu!cc.usu.edu!ivie Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88719 In article , Tom Buskey writes: > Howard S Shubs writes: > >> In article <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, >> hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: >> >> > Similarly, Excel was solid (but it seems to me there was an ms >> > spreadsheet that preceeded excel that was a pain in the tail to use), >> > and had the market locked up before facing any serious competition. >> >> Yes, and Lotus raped it. > > > Multiplan was for DOS originally. I had(have?) version 1.0 from > Zenith. It ran on any DOS system (they were not all IBM PC > compatible. ex: Zenith Z100) I have Multiplan for CP/M on my DECmate II. -- -------------------------+---------------------------------------------------- Roger Ivie | Free the ROT-13! ivie@cc.usu.edu | http://www.freesklyarov.org/ http://cc.usu.edu/~ivie/ | ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 28 Aug 01 11:25:09 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 20 Message-ID: <767.640T470T6854303@nowhere.in.particular> References: <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <998955997snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-645.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news2 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88859 In article <998955997snz@dsl.co.uk> bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) writes: >One doesn't even need to look as recently as that (the era of "duh >Innernet"), if one believes the infamous reports of the sales of Win'95 >in Japan, when 40% of those going into stores to purchase Win'95 not >only did not have a computer AT ALL, but had not even considered buying >one in the first place. It just shows what can happen when you pour half a billion dollars into a one-shot advertising campaign. On the other hand, in another era people would walk into a computer store and ask for "a Visicalc", and wind up walking out with an Apple II because that's the machine it ran on. -- cgibbs@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs) I'm switching ISPs - watch this space. ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 28 Aug 01 22:42:55 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 27 Message-ID: <996.640T2795T13626520@nowhere.in.particular> References: <998955997snz@dsl.co.uk> <767.640T470T6854303@nowhere.in.particular> <3B8C0743.BD179B62@sun.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-743.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!fu-berlin.de!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!nntp.abs.net!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news2 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88865 In article The.Central.Scrutinizer.nospam@invalid.pobox.com (The.Central.Scrutinizer.nospam) writes: >On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 17:04:03 -0400, Eric Sosman >wrote: > >>Charlie Gibbs wrote: >> >>> On the other hand, in another era people would walk into a computer >>> store and ask for "a Visicalc", and wind up walking out with an >>> Apple II because that's the machine it ran on. >> >> And that, IMHO, is the way things *should* be: a computing >>device should be purchased for what it does, not for what it is. > >Fuck that. I want to buy a machine 1000 times faster than cray's best >and have it run like crap so that I can avoid using 10 brain cells to >select an operating system. "I want something with reclining leather seats that goes really fast and gets really shitty gas mileage." -- Robocop -- cgibbs@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs) I'm switching ISPs - watch this space. ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:57:18 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998960238snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m2pjk$gbf$3@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <998699480snz@dsl.co.uk> <9medd6$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998981619 mail2news:9788 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 41 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!algonet!newspeer.highwayone.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88911 In article <9medd6$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu "Prof. Richard E. Hawkins" writes: > In article <998699480snz@dsl.co.uk>, > Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: > >In article <9m69bb$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> > > hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu "Prof. Richard E. Hawkins" writes: > > >> I was this happen with a current version two years ago . . . > > >So *that's* where those translations from japanese come from . . . > > Now I'm getting dizzy . . . I'd swear that I posted this same response > to something someone else said late last week . . . Yeerrss. > Oh, I see :) Touche. Aha! The penny drops! > My mind just hasn't started yet today. Fortunately I don't teach > until tomorrow . . . I didn't realize that you had a Bank Holiday Monday in the US of A as well. Mind you, our undergraduates are more civilized (well, they aren't, but we are): the new academic year always starts on the Monday nearest to Sept 28th --- which this year means Oct 1st. It used to be said that "There are three good reasons for working in academia: July, August, and September". Sadly, with an increased number of short courses, etc., this is no longer true in the slightest respect. -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: shannon@daydream.shannon.net (Charles Shannon Hendrix) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 28 Aug 2001 00:11:38 -0400 Organization: 32-bit Message-ID: <9mf5lq$hpl$1@daydream.shannon.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@ Reply-To: shannon@widomaker.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!feed.textport.net!sn-xit-04!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88835 In article , Mike Schaeffer wrote: > Windows/286 wasn't actually protected mode... it was more of a marketing > ploy to increase public perception. The only thing 286 specific about that > version of Windows was that it could control the A20 mask to gain access > to the 64K memory immediately after 1MB [1]. Isn't that the origin of the braindead 64K resources segment that still runs out even on WinME? > FWIW, this 386-protected mode stuff wasn't the only time Microsoft > pre-introduced significant technology. As George Carlin might ask, how do you introduce something before it's introduced? I find I can't parse this. -- shannon@widomaker.com _________________________________________________ ______________________/ armchairrocketscientistgraffitiexenstentialist "And in billows of might swell the Saxons before her,-- Unite, oh unite! Or the billows burst o'er her!" -- Downfall of the Gael ###### From: jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 28 Aug 2001 13:26:44 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 11 Message-ID: <9mg66k$sof$1@top.mitre.org> References: <57sul9.an5.ln@setter.lysse.co.uk> <9m00l2$9mi$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <3B89DFD5.8702FF48@beagle-ears.com> <3657.639T197T7053302@nowhere.in.particular> Reply-To: jcmorris@mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Host: jmorris-pc.mitre.org X-Trace: top.mitre.org 999005204 29455 128.29.251.13 (28 Aug 2001 13:26:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Aug 2001 13:26:44 GMT X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!feed.textport.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!canoe.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.tufts.edu!blanket.mitre.org!news.mitre.org!jcmorris Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88734 "Charlie Gibbs" writes: >Speaking of Windows sabotaging Samba, here's a copy of a recent >posting in comp.linux.networking. Remember, just because you're >paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you... [snip of report that SP2 introduced a test that kills Samba validations] Ouch! Shades of "The job ain't done 'till Lotus won't run." Joe Morris ###### From: "Peter Ibbotson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 17:39:18 +0100 Message-ID: <999016524.25741.0.nnrp-13.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> References: <9m2oul$gbf$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <9m6ojh$r7a$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> <9mect6$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 999016524 nnrp-13:25741 NO-IDENT mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2481.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2481.0000 Lines: 29 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mailgate.lakeview.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88892 "Prof. Richard E. Hawkins" wrote in message news:9mect6$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu... > If memory serves, early machines had the floating point routines (and > hires graphics routines) on cassette tape, while the later had an extra > rom containing them. ANd then came the II+, with applesoft in rom > rather than tape, hires and floating point built into rom, and tose > autostart roms that made it launch basic and even load from floppies > without so much as a "by your leave." > > harumph. To think we lost the disassembler for *that* . . . Actually it was the mini assembler and Sweet16 that went out of the monitor rom. Hires routines were on Tape or folded into Programmers Aid #1 ROM for integer basic and commands were added to the AppleSoft basic to support the same routines. The original "Woz" floating point routines were also dropped at the same time. Still you got them back with the language card. I bootstrapped my own multipass assembler with the aid of the miniassembler and used it to then write a forth implementation along with several games (too poor at the time to buy the US imports) -- Work peteri@lakeview.co.uk.plugh.org | remove magic word .org to reply Home peter@ibbotson.co.uk.plugh.org | I own the domain but theres no MX> ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> From: Tom Buskey Message-ID: Lines: 18 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Crater Lake) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: /wLwTbuv/gj6KRUDighC6A45pu3jc9/YlnGMFyJnVPI7pQU94UmmHtUJX3TP46qbtlT1tbmiambC!dNJN+qZc68ewWTdg/DuT2RTBr28vmyzUPjeyO4IsMWHeR7qkUdXLiBute5Yac5AF+T5H8px9PCDf!a50EPkR3spe9LxY= X-Complaints-To: abuse@gtei.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 20:04:10 GMT Distribution: world Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 20:04:11 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!paloalto-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!paloalto-snr2.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88720 Howard S Shubs writes: > In article <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, > hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: > > > Similarly, Excel was solid (but it seems to me there was an ms > > spreadsheet that preceeded excel that was a pain in the tail to use), > > and had the market locked up before facing any serious competition. > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. Multiplan was for DOS originally. I had(have?) version 1.0 from Zenith. It ran on any DOS system (they were not all IBM PC compatible. ex: Zenith Z100) I had a later version (3.2?) that I gave to someone that need to translate some docs from SYLK/other multiplan format to wks. ###### From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 17:04:03 -0400 Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 14 Message-ID: <3B8C0743.BD179B62@sun.com> References: <3B88419D.DBF359C4@ev1.net> <9mapoj$bdk$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <998955997snz@dsl.co.uk> <767.640T470T6854303@nowhere.in.particular> NNTP-Posting-Host: tardis.east.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!algonet!newspeer.highwayone.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!eastnews1.East.Sun.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88900 Charlie Gibbs wrote: > > On the other hand, in another era people would walk into a computer > store and ask for "a Visicalc", and wind up walking out with an > Apple II because that's the machine it ran on. And that, IMHO, is the way things *should* be: a computing device should be purchased for what it does, not for what it is. However, in an economy able to make and sell (for example) hugely expensive wristwatches that are functionally indistinguishable from cheap throw-aways, such moments of sanity are aberrations. -- Eric.Sosman@sun.com ###### From: Howard S Shubs Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 21:52:45 -0400 Organization: ='SEQUENTIAL' Lines: 21 Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-713.newsdawg.com User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) X-Face: "S"r{U%bs].&Ud}Pc~~~0a]M:t5l>>EN\1Faw10M9NK1Xq59wo7-"s0S+[{etQorO /Nf-Ci"i9v'MT!R8)J]N[4|2&x1r^Iq&{SB"6dknr0=+6UFb.>+{zMn_1=rw&/V+"d@* ZS5\LoW_ Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!howard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88882 In article , Tom Buskey wrote: > Howard S Shubs writes: > > > In article <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, > > hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: > > > > > Similarly, Excel was solid (but it seems to me there was an ms > > > spreadsheet that preceeded excel that was a pain in the tail to use), > > > and had the market locked up before facing any serious competition. > > > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. > > > Multiplan was for DOS originally. What does Multiplan have to do with this? I was talking about Visicalc. -- Howard S Shubs "Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!" ###### Sender: "C.Y./J.E.Cripps" From: "Tiro Verus"" Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> User-Agent: tin/1.5.8-20010221 ("Blue Water") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.3-STABLE (i386)) Lines: 34 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 07:40:36 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.139.128.3 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: iad-read.news.verio.net 999070836 216.139.128.3 (Wed, 29 Aug 2001 07:40:36 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 07:40:36 GMT Organization: Verio Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!kanja.arnes.si!news-hub.siol.net!news.stealth.net!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!iad-read.news.verio.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88874 Shari Sommer Chernack wrote: > I am trying to learn about the history of MS Word (and life before it) > I have found some messages in the archives about > the history of word processing and thought this would be a good place Vide: http://neil.franklin.ch/Usenet/alt.folklore.computers/19981211_TECO_and_WordStar more Dan Strychalski Wordstar is a landmark, with loyal users today: http://www.cuenet.com/cbabbage/wordstar/ http://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm Robert Sawyer on WordStar More history: http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/1999/99-03/msg00840.html http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/1999/99-05/msg00233.html http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg01756.html http://LTSeek.ltc.vanderbilt.edu/ciltLTSeek/section/ctrlV.htm Dan Strychalski iii > to throw the question out. If you do know any answers, or if you know > of any books that discuss the topic, please email me or post a > response. Thanks. -- Free Dmitry Sklyarov: http://www.freesklyarov.org Repeal the DMCA: http://www.anti-dmca.org ###### Message-ID: <3B8CC1DF.3156F659@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 23 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 08:22:32 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 999073352 24.179.111.125 (Wed, 29 Aug 2001 01:22:32 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 01:22:32 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88896 Tom Buskey wrote: > > Howard S Shubs writes: > > > In article <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>, > > hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: > > > > > Similarly, Excel was solid (but it seems to me there was an ms > > > spreadsheet that preceeded excel that was a pain in the tail to use), > > > and had the market locked up before facing any serious competition. > > > > Yes, and Lotus raped it. > > Multiplan was for DOS originally. I had(have?) version 1.0 from > Zenith. It ran on any DOS system (they were not all IBM PC > compatible. ex: Zenith Z100) > Heck, there was a version of Multiplan that ran on the Commodore 64!!! -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 29 Aug 2001 21:03:37 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 41 Message-ID: <6uae0in0xi.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@ <9mf5lq$hpl$1@daydream.shannon.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 999111817 4972 10.0.3.2 (29 Aug 2001 19:03:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Aug 2001 19:03:37 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88917 shannon@daydream.shannon.net (Charles Shannon Hendrix) writes: > In article , > Mike Schaeffer wrote: > > > version of Windows was that it could control the A20 mask to gain access > > to the 64K memory immediately after 1MB [1]. 64k-16 Bytes actually. there was a 16 byte overlap with the first 1M. 8088 addresses were calculated S*16+O with S and O each in the range 0..0xFFFF(=65535). When setting S to FFFF, you with O could get the range 0FFFF0..10FFEF. With A20 masked out that would be smashed to FFFF0..FFFFF+00000..0FFEF. So with unmasking A20 you gained 100000..10FFEF = 64k-16 > Isn't that the origin of the braindead 64K resources segment that still > runs out even on WinME? Not at all. The 64k resources is a special case of the 8088s 64k segment size, the O=0..0xFFFF bit. > > FWIW, this 386-protected mode stuff wasn't the only time Microsoft > > pre-introduced significant technology. > > As George Carlin might ask, how do you introduce something before it's > introduced? I find I can't parse this. Technical introduction vs marketing introduction. Sometime marketroids only notice something after it is done, instead of hyping it before it is even developed or even physically possible. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <6uae0in0xi.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@ <9mf5lq$hpl$1@daydream.shannon.net> <6uae0in0xi.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 37 NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:10:26 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-GY9+PXmKYXQ4zKBQ+uDZtN74JCbRr1nws8SQqVmL7pYAdG+PM49pvQ34xw5Jnjtv6scSGqMqxMS927y!MXApee2V0yWBIr5j8In9GajztQ/t4Yi2gP/CSuHnPwu6aMArzcreUVUW5krhPHV0VRJa6l4MfP8N!mq1jLT+rR24JuLOET7OwQd8X X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:10:24 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!surfnet.nl!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!hagbard.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88931 On 29 Aug 2001, Neil Franklin wrote: > shannon@daydream.shannon.net (Charles Shannon Hendrix) writes: > > > In article , > > Mike Schaeffer wrote: > > > > > version of Windows was that it could control the A20 mask to gain access > > > to the 64K memory immediately after 1MB [1]. > > 64k-16 Bytes actually. there was a 16 byte overlap with the first 1M. > > 8088 addresses were calculated S*16+O with S and O each in the range > 0..0xFFFF(=65535). When setting S to FFFF, you with O could get the > range 0FFFF0..10FFEF. > > With A20 masked out that would be smashed to FFFF0..FFFFF+00000..0FFEF. > > So with unmasking A20 you gained 100000..10FFEF = 64k-16 That does make more sense, now that you mention it. Do you happen to know how this UMB (correct term?) was used? I know that by the time DOS 5.0 rolled around you could loadhigh drivers into upper memory, but I don't know how it was used in Windows/286. I'm also far enough removed from the whole mess to remember how DPMI enabled the Windows 3.0 kernel to run in protected mode on the V86 multitasker. Am I correct in assuming that the 386-specific code in Windows 3.0 implemented its own DPMI compliant extender on which the kernel could run? I guess it would also have had to play nicely with EMM386. Maybe I should just break out the books... -Mike ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 29 Aug 2001 23:58:26 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 60 Message-ID: <6un14ile9p.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@ <9mf5lq$hpl$1@daydream.shannon.net> <6uae0in0xi.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 999122306 5309 10.0.3.2 (29 Aug 2001 21:58:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 29 Aug 2001 21:58:26 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88933 Mike Schaeffer writes: > On 29 Aug 2001, Neil Franklin wrote: > > > So with unmasking A20 you gained 100000..10FFEF = 64k-16 > > Do you happen to know how this UMB (correct term?) was used? IIRC: UMB = Upper Memory Blocks = C0000..FFFFF where no ROM is High Memory = the 100000..10FFEF bit. himem.sys was the driver for accessing high memory (and switching the A20 gate). emm386.sys mapped RAM into the holes in ROM for UMB space. msdos.sys itsself provided then the memory allocation. > I know that > by the time DOS 5.0 rolled around you could loadhigh drivers into upper > memory, but I don't know how it was used in Windows/286. The Windows kernel was placed in there. Using about 35k, wasting the rest. So under 5.0 it was better to use himem.sys and put as much DOS and drivers that fitted and then leave Windows in main memory. > I'm also far enough removed from the whole mess to remember how DPMI > enabled the Windows 3.0 kernel to run in protected mode on the V86 > multitasker. Am I correct in assuming that the 386-specific code in > Windows 3.0 implemented its own DPMI compliant extender on which the > kernel could run? IIRC Win3.0 in extended (=386) mode had an 8088(/286?) virtual machine monitor dosx.exe(?)+*.386 and then ran Windows proper krnl386.exe+gdi.exe+user.exe+progman.exe+userstuff in the first VM, and each DOS box in other VMs. > I guess it would also have had to play nicely with > EMM386. IIRC it uses some undocumented call to disable emm386.sys and reenable it when Windows was terminated. The entire passing of control between the two of them was a tangled mess. > Maybe I should just break out the books... Good idea. [Gets 'Windows Internals' from bookshelf.] Ah, it is win386.exe+*.386, not dosx.exe. The later would be on 286es, no real VMs, just memory swapping for one running DOS box. $DIETY I still know (nearly) all this crap. I should be suing MS for permanet damage to my brain. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 01 08:31:58 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 69 Message-ID: <9ml7em$nft$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@ <9mf5lq$hpl$1@daydream.shannon.net> <6uae0in0xi.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6un14ile9p.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVY6O/bZdXkZCBxYz8pUvlKMsVxN8RbOY0mRTmZub99vgbXuDDMV6aRD X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 Aug 2001 11:18:46 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-245-52 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89021 In article <6un14ile9p.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>, Neil Franklin wrote: >Mike Schaeffer writes: > >> On 29 Aug 2001, Neil Franklin wrote: >> >> > So with unmasking A20 you gained 100000..10FFEF = 64k-16 >> >> Do you happen to know how this UMB (correct term?) was used? > >IIRC: UMB = Upper Memory Blocks = C0000..FFFFF where no ROM is > High Memory = the 100000..10FFEF bit. > >himem.sys was the driver for accessing high memory (and switching the >A20 gate). emm386.sys mapped RAM into the holes in ROM for UMB space. >msdos.sys itsself provided then the memory allocation. > > >> I know that >> by the time DOS 5.0 rolled around you could loadhigh drivers into upper >> memory, but I don't know how it was used in Windows/286. > >The Windows kernel was placed in there. Using about 35k, wasting the >rest. So under 5.0 it was better to use himem.sys and put as much DOS >and drivers that fitted and then leave Windows in main memory. > > >> I'm also far enough removed from the whole mess to remember how DPMI >> enabled the Windows 3.0 kernel to run in protected mode on the V86 >> multitasker. Am I correct in assuming that the 386-specific code in >> Windows 3.0 implemented its own DPMI compliant extender on which the >> kernel could run? > >IIRC Win3.0 in extended (=386) mode had an 8088(/286?) virtual machine >monitor dosx.exe(?)+*.386 and then ran Windows proper >krnl386.exe+gdi.exe+user.exe+progman.exe+userstuff in the first VM, >and each DOS box in other VMs. > > >> I guess it would also have had to play nicely with >> EMM386. > >IIRC it uses some undocumented call to disable emm386.sys and reenable >it when Windows was terminated. The entire passing of control between >the two of them was a tangled mess. > > >> Maybe I should just break out the books... > >Good idea. [Gets 'Windows Internals' from bookshelf.] Ah, it is >win386.exe+*.386, not dosx.exe. The later would be on 286es, no real >VMs, just memory swapping for one running DOS box. > > >$DIETY I still know (nearly) all this crap. I should be suing MS for >permanet damage to my brain. I haven't been following all of the technical aspects to Misoft's development strategies and cycles, but I think it's a good thing to remember how not to do something. It sounded to me like they did everything bassackwards. Again, I didn't understand the details (my brain is on strike these days) so my opinion might be completely off track. If my instincts are correct, no wonder they're a mess. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: Mike Schaeffer X-X-Sender: Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) In-Reply-To: <9ml7em$nft$1@bob.news.rcn.net> Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@ <9mf5lq$hpl$1@daydream.shannon.net> <6uae0in0xi.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6un14ile9p.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9ml7em$nft$1@bob.news.rcn.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lines: 24 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:42:20 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-z2pF+rO5KOhY/mBJii6rbrbHrKwUxM4hyNN1uJYojh6OIwZX18IUdju2G7MH8/pWWj2KnBJxgQe5J+U!v4Yw6gMIcJRbcGmb6hWyyMTOhdykSy6foL0EVsIhTnN8IG0ZUzQ9rfHrK0kgXxKv4EOU3HMlbvJF!0vucB47VXuycPseLLjkwKYq+ X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:42:12 -0500 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!amsnews01.chello.com!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nntp3.aus1.giganews.com!news6.giganews.com.POSTED!hagbard.io.com!mschaef Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89092 On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > I haven't been following all of the technical aspects > to Misoft's development strategies and cycles, but I think > it's a good thing to remember how not to do something. It > sounded to me like they did everything bassackwards. They did do a decent job of maintaining backwards compatbility. I can run Windows 1.0 applets, circa 1985, on my Windows 2000 machine. As for the morass of Windows 95, etc., it's largely a compatibility play that results in vestigal DOS and 16-bit windows code still being around. As far as I know, I could run my 1993 propriatary CD-ROM drive using the original DOS device driver and MSCDEX under WinME and it'd work fine. That's only truly interesting when you realize that WinME does most of its file access in 32-bit code and likes its drivers in the WDM style used by Win2000, a completely different kernel. It's amazing it runs at all. I do believe that the move to Windows XP and the NT kernel (finally for home users) is a good sign that people are finally starting to assign a reasonable level of value to this ancient legacy support. People used to believe that Windows 95 would be the home version of the NT kernel. -Mike ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice) Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Message-ID: Organization: NDS Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 00:24:56 -0400 References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: max1h-36.his.com X-Trace: vienna7.his.com 999231898 max1h-36.his.com (31 Aug 2001 00:24:58 -0400) Lines: 41 X-Authenticated-User: ehrice Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!206.228.179.2!news-peer1.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!feeder.qis.net!nntp1.roc.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!vienna7.his.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88990 In article <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com>, j-steven-york@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote: > Early on, MacWord was a COMPLETELY different program sharing nothing > but the name with its DOS cousin. While the DOS version was ugly, > MacWord was an elegant tool, relatively friendly to typists, easy to > learn, fun to play with, opening vistas of annoying creativity to the > masses. ("Did you have to use EVERY font you own in your cover > letter?") Initially it lagged in some power-user areas, but > improvement was rapid, and from the very beginning it excelled in > areas that no text-based word-processor could hope to compete with. > Perhaps fortunately for WP though, it would take many years for > printer technology to come along that would take advantage of that > power, with sufficient speed, and at a low enough price point. There wasn't a thing called "MacWord." Apple provided purchasers of the Mac with MacPaint and MacWrite, the latter being an early and simple word-processing program that did about 2/3rds of what Word was to do when Microsoft came out with it six months (or so) later. So Word on the Mac dates to late 1984, maybe early 1985. MacWrite continued to grow, but Apple was careful not to challenge Word with it -- it stayed at about 2/3 functionality through its days as ClarisWrite and ClarisWrite Pro, and its eventual droppage as a product. ClarisWrite is STILL better than Word for the 99% of all requirements most people have. No dancing paperclips, secret places to store information about the author, contained fonts, help files that don't, multi-megabyte storage requirements, or documents that can't be read from one version to another. I have both products on all but one of my Macs and use MacWrite/ClarisWrite preferentially -- I go over to Word only when I need to do multi-column work, or mail-merge, neither feature ever getting into the *Write product. So far as printers, Apple offered the Imagewriter with the first Macs, and it did all the fancy fonts and such just fine. From the start. When the Laserwriter and Laserwriter Plus first came out (two?) years later, it cleaned up the dot-matrix print quality and speeded up the output process. Certainlyit was nothing like the "many years" you describe. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice) Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Message-ID: Organization: NDS Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 00:24:58 -0400 References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9m15g5$1qqs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <1272.634T2251T8776056@nowhere.in.particular> NNTP-Posting-Host: max1h-36.his.com X-Trace: vienna7.his.com 999231899 max1h-36.his.com (31 Aug 2001 00:24:59 -0400) Lines: 29 X-Authenticated-User: ehrice Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsmi-eu.news.garr.it!newsmi-us.news.garr.it!NewsITBone-GARR!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.flash.net!nntp1.roc.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!vienna7.his.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88998 In article <1272.634T2251T8776056@nowhere.in.particular>, "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: > The mercifully brief craze for adding a "Mac-" prefix to everything > led to the term "macdinking", referring to the way people would spend > far more time messing with their document to make it look pretty than > they spent on content. A study at the time showed that on average, > documents produced on a Mac were prettier, but documents produced on > an MS-DOS box had better content. Windows leveled this one out at > the lowest common denominator. If it's the study I am thinking of, it was horribly flawed. It consisted of the students in two classes at the University of Delaware; and the analysis of quality was done by one person, the (female, if that helps identify the student, it has nothing to do with the study quality) professor who made the assignments, taught the classes, and graded the papers. It did produce later studies that failed to find any such "Macdinking leads to lower quality" effect. > The advent of desktop publishing led to what has been referred to > as "ransom-note typography". It was fun. I got over it faster than most, but it was fun. And there were books out there like "Zen and the Art of Mac" to encourage people to spend their time on the visual effects. Edward ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice) Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Message-ID: Organization: NDS Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 00:24:59 -0400 References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9ln2eu0rll@drn.newsguy.com> <3b896da3.379574950@enews.newsguy.com> <9lu88i$q9f$1@daydream.shannon.net> <3B82C342.5F5B53CF@sun.com> <3B82F8EA.FF46738D@ev1.net> <3B83CD9F.683ED150@sun.com> <3B841727.9A787658@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: max1h-36.his.com X-Trace: vienna7.his.com 999231900 max1h-36.his.com (31 Aug 2001 00:25:00 -0400) Lines: 37 X-Authenticated-User: ehrice Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!206.228.179.2!news-peer1.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!feeder.qis.net!nntp1.roc.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!vienna7.his.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88988 In article <3B841727.9A787658@ev1.net>, Charles Richmond wrote: > IIRC, the B-1 was finally built by the Regan administration...it > was made sub-sonic to save money. The B-2 *might* have been called > the B-2 because each one costs *two* billion dollars. (;-)) > > You can see a picture of the B-1 bomber at: > > < http://www.af.mil/photos/Apr2000/20000402-f-1467b-001.html> > > and a picture of the B-2 bomber at: > > But if you merge the two URLs and go to... http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/B_1B_Lancer.html you'll see that the Air Force claims the B-1 to be supersonic. The swing-wings are a lot of work to go to, to make a subsonic plane. Speed: 900-plus mph (Mach 1.2 at sea level) ... Date Deployed: June 1985 Unit Cost: $200-plus million per aircraft The B-2 is the subsonic one: Speed: High subsonic ... Unit cost: Approximately $1.3 billion Date Deployed: December 1993 Edward ###### From: cbh@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk (Chris Hedley) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 09:49:26 +0100 Organization: Honest Chris' Sysadmin Emporium Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B83CD9F.683ED150@sun.com> <3B841727.9A787658@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: teabag.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: teabag.demon.co.uk:193.237.4.110 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 999250135 nnrp-01:15643 NO-IDENT teabag.demon.co.uk:193.237.4.110 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: cbh@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk (Chris Hedley) Lines: 6 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!teabag.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88974 According to Edward Rice : > Speed: 900-plus mph (Mach 1.2 at sea level) 900mph at sea level? They wouldn't do it a second time. Chris. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 01 Sep 01 09:10:33 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 33 Message-ID: <9mqifj$gjr$4@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@ <9mf5lq$hpl$1@daydream.shannon.net> <6uae0in0xi.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6un14ile9p.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9ml7em$nft$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <9mousl$n2a@nfs0.sdrc.com> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVbUce9Q7ibvGaSAHN9OCUzzv85k1ZMdNm++mFDwIycOVGJ7ZE3udOTz X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2001 11:57:39 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-245-16 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89158 In article <9mousl$n2a@nfs0.sdrc.com>, scjones@thor.sdrc.com (Larry Jones) wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >> >> I haven't been following all of the technical aspects >> to Misoft's development strategies and cycles, but I think >> it's a good thing to remember how not to do something. It >> sounded to me like they did everything bassackwards. > >No, they just did everything in the obvious manner. No it is not an obvious manner. > ... Just like >mainframers did 20 years ago before they figured out the right ways to >do things. Honey, we had our act together 20 years ago. We even had some of it together 30 years ago. There is NO "right" way to do things. Every decision has pros and cons. > .. As someone (Herb Grosch?) said: In most industries, people >make progress by standing on the shoulders of the giants who came >before them. In the computer industry, we step on their toes instead. You must work for Misoft. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: Martin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 1 Sep 2001 0:5:26 +1200 Organization: ihug ( New Zealand ) Lines: 7 Message-ID: <170.644T1349T52029unclebob@ihug.co.nz> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B83CD9F.683ED150@sun.com> <3B841727.9A787658@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p7-max1.nap.ihug.co.nz X-Trace: lust.ihug.co.nz 999299615 16898 203.173.221.7 (31 Aug 2001 23:13:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@ihug.co.nz NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 23:13:35 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: THOR 2.6 (Amiga;TCP/IP) *UNREGISTERED* Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!surfnet.nl!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp-relay.ihug.net!lust.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89170 >According to Edward Rice : >> Speed: 900-plus mph (Mach 1.2 at sea level) >900mph at sea level? They wouldn't do it a second time. At low tide... ###### From: scjones@thor.sdrc.com (Larry Jones) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: 31 Aug 2001 21:17:09 GMT Organization: Structural Dynamics Research Corp. Lines: 17 Distribution: world Message-ID: <9mousl$n2a@nfs0.sdrc.com> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <878zg7eygi.fsf@ <9mf5lq$hpl$1@daydream.shannon.net> <6uae0in0xi.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <6un14ile9p.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <9ml7em$nft$1@bob.news.rcn.net> Reply-To: larry.jones@sdrc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.sdrc.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!den-news-01.qwest.net!newsfeed.fuse.net!sdrc.com!thor.sdrc.com!scjones Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89129 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > > I haven't been following all of the technical aspects > to Misoft's development strategies and cycles, but I think > it's a good thing to remember how not to do something. It > sounded to me like they did everything bassackwards. No, they just did everything in the obvious manner. Just like mainframers did 20 years ago before they figured out the right ways to do things. As someone (Herb Grosch?) said: In most industries, people make progress by standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before them. In the computer industry, we step on their toes instead. -Larry Jones In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks. -- Calvin ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 11:13:22 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <999342802snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B83CD9F.683ED150@sun.com> <3B841727.9A787658@ev1.net> <170.644T1349T52029unclebob@ihug.co.nz> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 999377493 mail2news:450 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 18 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89327 In article <170.644T1349T52029unclebob@ihug.co.nz> unclebob@ihug.co.nz "Martin" writes: > >According to Edward Rice : > >> Speed: 900-plus mph (Mach 1.2 at sea level) > > >900mph at sea level? They wouldn't do it a second time. > > At low tide... Or a few hundred feet above the surface of the Dead Sea. -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) From: nailed_barnacle@NOSPAMhotmail.com (Neil Barnes) References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <9m3ipb$ha7$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> <9m680v$1ifs@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> <9m7gcj$ape$1@neptunium.btinternet.com> <9med3u$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> Organization: Around here? User-Agent: Xnews/4.04.17tea Lines: 24 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 18:34:56 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.154.98.206 X-Complaints-To: abuse@easynet.net X-Trace: monolith.news.easynet.net 999369296 194.154.98.206 (Sat, 01 Sep 2001 19:34:56 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 19:34:56 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!easynet-monga!easynet.net!easynet-post2!monolith.news.easynet.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89335 hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Prof. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote in <9med3u$1ouc@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>: > In article <9m7gcj$ape$1@neptunium.btinternet.com>, > Neil Barnes wrote: >>> You *successfully* split a latex file??? wow . . . > >> I'm afraid this was a one a.m. solution, for a paper that had to be in >> about a week ago...so I applied an MS style solution: >> >> o Print file backwards (from lyx) till the broken page > > Oh. that's doable :) And now that it's too late, I'll mention that > sending a paniced message to the lyx developers' list likely would have > worked :) > That occurred to me - but lack of time prevented, plus I need to get the fault better defined. Maybe after I finish the course work for this year... -- I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost... barnacle http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 20:56:24 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <999377784snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <9mqifj$gjr$4@bob.news.rcn.net> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 999429620 mail2news:7327 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 20 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89331 In article <9mqifj$gjr$4@bob.news.rcn.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: > Honey, we had our act together 20 years ago. We even had some > of it together 30 years ago. Hear, hear! My mind continually boggles at the stupidities of modern "programmers". > There is NO "right" way to do things. Every decision has pros > and cons. "There are four-and-twenty ways\\Of constructing Roman lays\\ and {\it every\/} single one of them is {\bf right}." -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: Brian Inglis Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 01:32:38 -0600 Organization: Systematic Software Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108170810.7f7b1580@posting.google.com> <3B7D9963.3CAF69E@trailing-edge.com> Reply-To: Brian.dot.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: h-207-148-144-178.dial.cadvision.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news3.cadvision.com 999588758 22584 207.148.144.178 (4 Sep 2001 07:32:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@cadvision.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 07:32:38 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!west2.newsfeed.sprint-canada.net!nntp.cadvision.com!207.228.64.17.MISMATCH!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89552 On Thu, 23 Aug 2001 03:13:45 GMT, jeffreyb@gwu.edu (Jeffrey Boulier) wrote: >In article , >Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote: >>stu at cambridge scientific center did "script" in the '60s ... which >>had a runoff like syntax. Then in the early '70s the people at CSC >>added "GML" markup syntax to script .... although "script" could still >>be used in either runoff like syntax or markup syntax. > >Was Waterloo SCRIPT a clone of IBM SCRIPT? I spent some time mucking with >a pretty big document. Had a terrible time printing it, though; about half >the time the printout would come out completely corrupted from the bowels >of the machine room. It finally turned out that there were two printers, a >Xerox 4090 (?) and 9790, and only the 4090 had enough memory to correctly >interpret the document. IIRC Xerox printers had a CP/M(?) system on the print processor, the rasterization was time sensitive, may have started after the paper started moving, instead of being completed for a page before the paper was moved, and may have used banding, so you could print more complex documents by sorting the output commands in x-y order (as the rasterizer saw it), or breaking up elements so they fitted into one band, instead of dumping it to the printer in the order the generating software produced it. I learned this from hand coding some complex form overlays for download to 40x0 printers. Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada -- Brian.Inglis@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca) fake address use address above to reply tosspam@aol.com abuse@aol.com abuse@yahoo.com abuse@hotmail.com abuse@msn.com abuse@sprint.com abuse@earthlink.com abuse@cadvision.com abuse@ibsystems.com uce@ftc.gov spam traps ###### From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 16:31:57 -0400 Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 29 Message-ID: <3B953A3D.3BE0BF8B@sun.com> References: <9mqifj$gjr$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <999377784snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: tardis.east.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!194.42.224.136!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!eastnews1.East.Sun.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89566 Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: > > In article <9mqifj$gjr$4@bob.news.rcn.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: > > > Honey, we had our act together 20 years ago. We even had some > > of it together 30 years ago. > > Hear, hear! My mind continually boggles at the stupidities of modern > "programmers". > > > There is NO "right" way to do things. Every decision has pros > > and cons. > > "There are four-and-twenty ways\\Of constructing Roman lays\\ > and {\it every\/} single one of them is {\bf right}." Nine and sixty, if you please, and not Roman but tribal. "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right!" -- Rudyard Kipling, "In the Neolithic Age," fifth stanza Admittedly, this newsgroup is devoted not so much to the Neolithic as to the Paleosiliconic age. Still, an attraction towards and a respect for things old ought to engender some scrupulousness in the matter of accuracy. -- Eric.Sosman@sun.com ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 23:16:52 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <999645412snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <9mqifj$gjr$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <999377784snz@dsl.co.uk> <3B953A3D.3BE0BF8B@sun.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 999648316 mail2news:6615 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 24 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89670 In article <3B953A3D.3BE0BF8B@sun.com> Eric.Sosman@sun.com "Eric Sosman" writes: > "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, > And every single one of them is right!" > -- Rudyard Kipling, "In the Neolithic Age," fifth stanza > > Admittedly, this newsgroup is devoted not so much to the Neolithic > as to the Paleosiliconic age. Still, an attraction towards and a > respect for things old ought to engender some scrupulousness in > the matter of accuracy. Whoops! Thank you. Now then, where did I find the reference to Roman lays (apart from Messalina and suchlike in Suetonius? :-) And never mind about paleosiliconic: how about thermionic? -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: Mike K Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 10:58:02 +0100 Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 22 Message-ID: <3B95F72A.FC42448C@uk.sun.com> References: <9mqifj$gjr$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <999377784snz@dsl.co.uk> <3B953A3D.3BE0BF8B@sun.com> <999645412snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: volga.uk.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: new-usenet.uk.sun.com 999683883 18323 129.156.144.129 (5 Sep 2001 09:58:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@new-usenet.uk.sun.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 5 Sep 2001 09:58:03 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76C-CCK-MCD Netscape [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.7 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newscore.gigabell.net!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89571 Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: > > In article <3B953A3D.3BE0BF8B@sun.com> Eric.Sosman@sun.com "Eric Sosman" writes: > > > "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, > > And every single one of them is right!" > > -- Rudyard Kipling, "In the Neolithic Age," fifth stanza > > > > Admittedly, this newsgroup is devoted not so much to the Neolithic > > as to the Paleosiliconic age. Still, an attraction towards and a > > respect for things old ought to engender some scrupulousness in > > the matter of accuracy. > > Whoops! Thank you. > > Now then, where did I find the reference to Roman lays (apart from > Messalina and suchlike in Suetonius? :-) Anything to do with Macauley's "Lays of Ancient Rome", which included the ever-popular "How Horatius Kept The Bridge", by any chance? Mike ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and word processing in general) References: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> Organization: BayCHI - http://www.baychi.org/ X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: rlw@best.com (Bob Weissman) Lines: 47 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:19:20 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.184.139.139 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: sea-read.news.verio.net 1000163960 206.184.139.139 (Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:19:20 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:19:20 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-hog.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!sea-read.news.verio.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:90213 In article , Al Kossow wrote: >In article , "Vaughn" ><2mosrite@home.com> wrote: > >> Microsoft word descends from the Bravo family of visual editor/typesetter >> software pioneered at Xerox PARC in the mid nineteen-seventies. >> Bravo was the editor used on the Alto computer; many of Bravo's ideas were >> later reimplemented in BravoX for the Xerox D-machines (Dorado, Dandelion, >> Dolphin, etc). >> > >BravoX (Also known as the Xerox Document System Editor) ran on the Alto. >I've not seen any documentation that shows it was ported to later >computers. > >It was written in a bytecode interpreted language called Butte, >which I have been told was still used for the first few versions >of Word on Macintosh. Right. BravoX differed from its predecessor, Bravo, in that it was modeless and used onscreen menus. Bravo used modes and command keys. The Bravo joke was that typing "edit" while in command mode would delete your entire buffer and replace it with the letter t. e - select everything d - delete selection i - enter insert mode t - self inserting due to being in insert mode The problem was there was only one level of undo, so that inserting the 't' became the undoable action, and the entire buffer text was thus lost. My memory is pretty fuzzy on this (it was 1980-ish), but I if I recall correctly, Butte was a compiler, not a language; it was nothing more than BCPL (the language Bravo and BravoX were really written in) compiled into Mesa bytecodes (the native (microcoded) instruction set of the Xerox D-machines). I seriously doubt that this ever ran on any other computers, including any flavor of Macintosh or Lisa, unless somebody wrote an emulator of which I'm unaware. I believe it was circa 1980 when Charles Simonyi, manager of the BravoX project, left Xerox for a start-up near Seattle none of us had ever heard of. BravoX development ended shortly after that in favor of the Xerox Star. And the rest is very, very sad history. Well, OK, it wasn't sad for Charles. But you know what I mean. - Bob ###### From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: History of Microsoft Word (and word processing in general) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 16:41:21 -0700 Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. Lines: 16 Message-ID: References: <6838def7.0108201123.ca83304@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: il0502a-dhcp38.apple.com X-Trace: news.apple.com 1000165280 22049 17.205.24.38 (10 Sep 2001 23:41:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.apple.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 10 Sep 2001 23:41:20 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!171.64.14.106!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!forum.apple.com!news.apple.com!il0502a-dhcp38.apple.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:90196 In article , rlw@best.com (Bob Weissman) wrote: > > My memory is pretty fuzzy on this (it was 1980-ish), but I if I recall > correctly, Butte was a compiler, not a language; it was nothing more > than BCPL (the language Bravo and BravoX were really written in) > compiled into Mesa bytecodes (the native (microcoded) instruction set of > the Xerox D-machines). I seriously doubt that this ever ran on any > other computers, including any flavor of Macintosh or Lisa, unless > somebody wrote an emulator of which I'm unaware. > The only version of BravoX that I've seen was running on the Alto. Was there also a version that ran under Pilot on the Dolphin or Dandilion?