Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: mschubb on May 14, 2013, 01:45:06 pm
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"Technology changes at breakneck speed, and one has to either keep up, or be left behind. Now, of course if you
want to continue using CPM and WordPerfect, that's your right. Just don't expect to run it on a present-day CPU."
Really, Michael? This time you have gone too far.
On behalf of deeply-misunderstood -- and much-maligned -- Wordperfect users, I protest. Yes, like many of my minority, I started out in CPM. (She was a beautiful, smoke-grey, suitcase-sized KayPro IV with two 5.25" floppies and 64K of RAM... yes KILOBYTES, not gigabytes or even megabytes.)
But today, my fast-fingered brothers and sisters can run the latest WordPerfect X6 perfectly fine on our quad-core i7s. Okay... most of us also use MS Word when we have to collaborate on a document with regular people. But the simple truth remains, WordPerfect rocks it.
And we fervent few will only give up this program when you pry it from our cold dead hands.
To heck with the user guidelines. Let the flame wars and ugly name-calling begin.
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I'll see your Kaypro (I had the 10MB hard drive version) and raise you an Osborne I running Wordstar.
(still in hand in case the betting gets heavy, a Vector Graphics S-100 Z80 machine running Memorite, SCOPE and ExecuPlan)
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I used to use Wordperfect...it sucked less than Word!
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TurboDOS forever! Running on a Cromemco S100 machine.
I even wrote code with Wordstar. I think the keystrokes are still embedded in my spinal column...
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OK TRS-80 Model I using Electric Pencil.
Les
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I already posted a comment in the thread about Michael's take on the Adobe fracas. Yes, every computer in my house except one has WordPerfect on it, and it is VASTLY superior to MS W*rd in every way. My main PC is an Intel Core I7 with 12GB of ram running Win 7 Pro, and I use WordPerfect almost every day.
I also keep a copy of MS W*rd on it, just to handle documents sent by others who don't know what a quality word processing program is.
And the one computer that doesn't have WordPerfect on it? It's my mother's old Kaypro with WordStar. Still runs, but none of us use it any more.
Eric M.
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That quote annoyed me too.
There's a lot of good old software that continues to run fine on modern hardware and OSs.
I regularly use a little program for printing labels called Visual Labels, first released in 1996, not updated since then, not only runs sweetly here on W7 64bit and a i3770. but most importantly I've never found a better bit of software for quickly designing and printing labels.
I've built all my websites with Homesite 4.5, last updated in 2000 (before Adobe bought it up and killed it), it still does what I need perfectly.
It's curious that some people look dismissively at users of older software, even when it still works fine, but wouldn't take the same sort of attitude if you were shooting on much older camera.
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I'll see your Kaypro (I had the 10MB hard drive version) and raise you an Osborne I running Wordstar.
I'll go all in with a Palm M515 PDA synching to a Windows 7 PC via Palm Desktop under XP virtualization.
Paul
ps: I also liked WordPerfect better than Word. Although I must confess I prefer Excel to Lotus 1-2-3.
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I raise (lower?) the bet to a ZX-Spectrum: 16KB of ROM, 48KB or RAM, and standard audio tapes as external storage; the things I did with that machine...
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As I can't speak the language, I won't write a poem.
Can't resist: I hate 'em all.
;-(
Rob C
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A sigh of sweet nostalgia for my Morrow CP/M running Wordperfect.
When was that, 28-29 years ago?
yikes.
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I had an original IMSAI 8080 that I built from a kit, then heavily modified.... until I finally got an early PC.... but that was all a long time and no way in hell would I want to go back and revisit it all...although I still have it all. Need to sell it.... ;D
Alan
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My two obsolete Canadian pennies:
Penny one: WordPerfect 5, in DOS 3.1 did (does) most of the stuff Word does and does it in 640k of ram.
Penny two: I still do all my accounting using NewViews, an amazing Canadian piece of accounting software from QW Page -- you can run a multinational on it -- and I run it on a 486 with 640 k of ram (had 1 meg, but the stuff over 640 just became unreliable) and I print the reports on a Panasonic Raven dot matrix. I do wish that they would have a MAC version but that is apparently a non-starter.
My definition of 'obsolete" : 'it works',
Jean-Michel
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From what I have seen of Word use in offices, we may as well have stuck with DOS and WP 5.1, because no one (well, the number rounds to zero) knows how to use any of the new fangled features of Word past version 2.0. In the latest version on my desk, I can't even find the features I used to know about. For some reason, there's this new complex tool bar now and none of the stuff I used to find easily is within easy reach anymore. Why did they change it? I wrote software for 25 years in a previous life, I am not a techno-Luddite but I am starting to truly despise this stuff.
At home, I recently upgrade to Lion (my old iMac won't run Mountain Lion) and there is some basic Finder behaviour that changed in Lion. Why? There was nothing wrong with it before.
We long ago reached the point of sufficiency for the vast majority of people in desktop hardware and software, except for the most specialized of uses, much like with D-SLRs. My 90-year old mother could beenfit from a computer that was an appliance, like a toaster, but we don't dare buy her one because the constant upgrading would drive her and her family batty.
Maybe the new tablet-type thingees are supposed to address that computer-as-appliance need, I don't know, I hope so, and maybe one day I'll buy one.
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From what I have seen of Word use in offices, we may as well have stuck with DOS and WP 5.1, because no one (well, the number rounds to zero) knows how to use any of the new fangled features of Word past version 2.0. In the latest version on my desk, I can't even find the features I used to know about. For some reason, there's this new complex tool bar now and none of the stuff I used to find easily is within easy reach anymore. Why did they change it? I wrote software for 25 years in a previous life, I am not a techno-Luddite but I am starting to truly despise this stuff.
At home, I recently upgrade to Lion (my old iMac won't run Mountain Lion) and there is some basic Finder behaviour that changed in Lion. Why? There was nothing wrong with it before.
We long ago reached the point of sufficiency for the vast majority of people in desktop hardware and software, except for the most specialized of uses, much like with D-SLRs. My 90-year old mother could beenfit from a computer that was an appliance, like a toaster, but we don't dare buy her one because the constant upgrading would drive her and her family batty.
Maybe the new tablet-type thingees are supposed to address that computer-as-appliance need, I don't know, I hope so, and maybe one day I'll buy one.
My mom and MIL are both rather computer illiterate...well my MIL is way better than my Mom. In any case the Ipads I got them both were a godsend and they use them like crazy. Add an Airprint printer and they need little else. Got them Iphones too to replace the androids and they are in heaven. Better than sliced bread :)
BTW, Word 97 was WAY better than it is now. Why the change????
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Young pups!
How about a Timex Sinclair run by BASIC and tether to a TV?
Then 2disk IBM PC with colour monitor for $6500 using Easy writer II.
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Young pups!
How about a Timex Sinclair run by BASIC and tether to a TV?
Then 2disk IBM PC with colour monitor for $6500 using Easy writer II.
That sounds similar to my Commodore 64. That gave me an excuse to get our first color TV set. It had some sort of word processing program, whose name I forget, from an outfit called "Batteries Included." It's one shining feature was the best ever version of Frogger. The IBM PC version somewhat later was considerably weaker, especially in the sound track.
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It's been a lot of years and I cannot remember the name of the guy who wrote an assembly language text processor that used the WordStar commands. It ran under DOS and if IRCC required only 64K of memory to run. It could be configured in a lot of ways and I used as my editor for writing program code. I probably have it somewhere on an old floppy disk.
On the off chance that Google is my friend, lo and behold it's still around: https://sites.google.com/site/vdeeditor/Home Wow!
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and none of you are using Emacs and LaTex, shame on you. ;) (ok, ok i'll admit, it runs on a virtual machine running FreeBSD under ,heaven forbid Windows 8, but that is just because Adobe doesn't have a native FreeBSD LR version)
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Friden 5610. Punched paper tape & flexowriter. Will it read a DNG file?
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and none of you are using Emacs and LaTex, shame on you.
Does it count if you used to? :) I ran emacs a lot on my Amiga.
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Wordstar was a lot better on a CP/M machine anyways...... ;D
Alan
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Phew!
This is like a "dick-measuring competition" to see who has the smallest... ;D
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Which is rather sad.
What would have been interesting is to learn how many people are still using older software productively today and what they're finding useful.
My profiling business still sees lots of users of Windows XP and happily using older versions of Photoshop like CS, CS2 & CS3.
Although some here have been highly dismissive of XP being 'old' or 'out of date' I was amused last week to see Milan's brand new, not fully finished, Metro line using XP as the operating system for it's ticket machines.
'If it ain't broke it doesn't need fixing' can apply to software as much as anything else.
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Which is rather sad.
What would have been interesting is to learn how many people are still using older software productively today and what they're finding useful.
My profiling business still sees lots of users of Windows XP and happily using older versions of Photoshop like CS, CS2 & CS3.
Although some here have been highly dismissive of XP being 'old' or 'out of date' I was amused last week to see Milan's brand new, not fully finished, Metro line using XP as the operating system for it's ticket machines.
'If it ain't broke it doesn't need fixing' can apply to software as much as anything else.
Let's start then:
Still using an old XP on a unit
Still using on this XP Freehand for vectors tasks instead
Of ilustrator and indesign.
Still runnin PS 3 on windows 7
Never used ever a word app
Still using an old 720p video camera
Still using an old monitor on one unit for its quality
Still runnin old version of browsers
Not still runnin the same girlfriend. I like to upgrade from time to time.
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Which is rather sad.
What would have been interesting is to learn how many people are still using older software productively today and what they're finding useful.
My profiling business still sees lots of users of Windows XP and happily using older versions of Photoshop like CS, CS2 & CS3.
Although some here have been highly dismissive of XP being 'old' or 'out of date' I was amused last week to see Milan's brand new, not fully finished, Metro line using XP as the operating system for it's ticket machines.
'If it ain't broke it doesn't need fixing' can apply to software as much as anything else.
Yep, some things work reasonably well, like my XP dedicated to Photoshop 6! Any you know what: my Photoshop 6 is too sophisticated for my other, newer machine running Vista. ;-)
Funnies aside, I simply don't see anything missing from PS6 that the inclusion of a method of correcting verticals wouldn't have solved. For me. I just don't need further performing dogs for the simple, basic, photography that interests me now, or even that I used to do professionally. Even the verticals wouldn't really be a problem were I still on the job, as it were: I'd have gone Canon and bought the 17mm and 24mm shifters. Problem solved; thanks, Tax Man! Without the tax man on my side, it really doesn't make sense to care.
Rob C
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Which is rather sad.
What would have been interesting is to learn how many people are still using older software productively today and what they're finding useful.
My profiling business still sees lots of users of Windows XP and happily using older versions of Photoshop like CS, CS2 & CS3.
Although some here have been highly dismissive of XP being 'old' or 'out of date' I was amused last week to see Milan's brand new, not fully finished, Metro line using XP as the operating system for it's ticket machines.
'If it ain't broke it doesn't need fixing' can apply to software as much as anything else.
I spent my working career in the pharmaceutical industry and there is still a huge XP installed base. The primary reason is that all computer systems need to be extensively tested and validated and this is not a trivial cost in terms of both time and money. XP is rock solid and the associated applications whether off the shelf or custom made do one thing and one thing only. They work and give the desired results. Shortly before retirement three years ago, one of the big pharmaceutical companies in the US was the first to move from XP to Win7 and I talked with the head of IT about this. There was concern (probably warranted) about Microsoft support for XP and they felt it was better to make the move in an orderly manner rather than scramble later on. He wouldn't give me a dollar figure for the transition cost only noting it was quite high.
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Original IBM PC - 64k hard wired to the motherboard. I couldn't even load a mouse driver on it today. The keyboard weighed about 5 lbs. MS Word for DOS 1.0. Made my own GUI w/ an ASCII text editor and bat files with numbers for names, LOL. Much later, testing out the first version of "Windows" I didn't think it would fly because it didn't "do anything" and just seeing files as little icons seemed silly. I much preferred "Gem Draw."
Any of you play the text version of "Zork"? That game helped me expand my ability to hold a visual construct completely in my head. Astonishing how far we've come so fast - I'm reading this board & posting this from my iPad while sipping morning coffee in bed!
Rand
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Any of you play the text version of "Zork"?
O ya. And it's progenitor and the original text game: "Adventure"
I'm still "lost in a maze of twisty passages, all alike"
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O ya. And it's progenitor and the original text game: "Adventure"
I'm still "lost in a maze of twisty passages, all alike"
xyzzy.
Jeremy
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xyzzy.
Jeremy
Now you tell me. :)