No, WordStar was the perfect ASCII/monospace style tool.
On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Joshua Thorp <[email protected]> wrote: > Also surprised Owen hasn't brought Markdown into the mix here. Seems like > the perfect ASCII/monospace style for meaningful formatting. > > > On Mar 17, 2013, at 10:27 AM, Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Two things come to mind on this topic: > > Tower of Babel > > Uncanny Valley > > > > (I hope my indentation, use of Case and parenthesis didn't throw anyone > off too far!) > > > > When the Web was young, Print Designers went simply *apeshit* over this > new HTML thing, in both senses of the term. Some had a great good time > playing with all the possibilities but most just got surly about losing the > precise control they had come to expect from print. Designers used to > *literally* attend a press check to make sure that what they specced into > the camera and typographic work *was* exactly what they wanted... and > sometimes there would be modest changes made on the spot while the presses > idled in the background. > > > > I remember it being a perq of the job, though not without it's own > stress, and a good "closure". A trip to Denver or San Francisco or New > York at the end of a finished job, and once the press-check was done and > the presses started rolling, you didn't have to worry about someone > saying... "oh.. one more thing!". The client was usually at the press > check too, so if they saw something *after* the print run was done, they > just got tight lipped and held their tongue. I think the apparent ease and > convenience of making changes was the BANE of designers once WYSIWIG got > rolling. An excuse for clients to apply "late binding" to content... run > their own deadline right up to the press deadline and leave it to the > designers to incorporate last minute changes hours before it went to press. > I think it was *this*, not the challenges of learning newfangled > computers, that drove many old school print designers out of the Biz. > > > > As for WYSIWIS... this has been a problem with *color* forever, and > myriad strategies have been adopted to mitigate it, from the Pantone(tm) > color specification system to elaborate attempts to resolve the > mechanical/optical as well as *perceptual* differences between reflective > (print) and emissive (computer screens) and between additive and > subtractive color. And referencing the "uncanny valley"... getting it > "almost right" can be more disturbing than merely "in the ballpark". > >> It is a bit humorous: the "What You See Is What I See" idea .. and its > >> little brother WYSIWYG, but there is also an interesting point to be > >> made. It seems to be _hard_ to obtain! > >> > >> This is one of the reasons, IMHO, that twitter is so popular. I've > >> started using it quite a bit simply because it _is_ so readable and > >> very fast to do so. And it definitely has the greatest info content > >> per sq. in. of any media I'm aware of. > >> > >> On thinking more about it, the chief problem I have with formatting in > >> email is that our various machines and their apps have absurdly > >> different ways of setting these things. > >> > >> So when I use GMail's web-mail system, it allows four text sizes, tiny > >> to huge. I have absolutely no idea how these translate to your > >> screen. I've resorted to creating images of email, sending it to the > >> sender, and asking "is this what you meant me to see"? and gotten a > >> horrified, Gawd No response. > >> > >> What I find is Silos of Usage: i.e. folks on Windows running Exchange > >> will agree between themselves. GMail-ers ditto. Mac mail.app-ers > >> too. Oh, and naturally Twitter folk. And naturally the Unformatted > >> Text folk, bless them. > >> > >> Maybe we should have an agreed upon style that we all share and a few > >> Windows, Mac, Linux hipsters transmit instructions on how to obtain > >> that style with each of the Silos? > >> > >> -- Owen > >> > >> ============================================================ > >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > -- *Doug Roberts [email protected]* *http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*<http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins> * <http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins> 505-455-7333 - Office 505-672-8213 - Mobile*
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