Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-09 Thread Liam Proven 
On 9 July 2016 at 05:00, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
>> I can remember more functionality via WordStar keystrokes than I can via
>> vi ones! :-)
>
> That's the very reason I teach Vi in classes but privately still use Joe
> extensively. I prefer muscle-memory-macro-keystrokes over what I'd call
> "conscious modes". I respect the ideas in Vi, and occasionally I dwell in
> it a lot and code there etc...

Well yes, OK. But whereas I remember more Word* from the '80s than I
do vi, which I have used this year, I remember more CUA keystrokes now
than anything else.

The lovely Roger Pugh from this very list gave me a BNIB Amstrad
PCW9512+ a few years back. (Thanks again, Roger!) I recall him being
amazed that, with the thing sitting on my coffee table, not having
touched a PCW in 25y, I could remember the key combo to reboot one.
:-D

> I play some musical editor games. I even
> occasionally use the Motif-based "nedit" (esp on SGI boxen, it just ...
> feels... right).

Never used an SGI. :-(

Well, apart from an x86 Visual Workstation running Windows.

> However, I feel most natural in Joe. I think it's simply
> just a "style" or taste issue based on past comfort with the WS and
> descendants.

Fair enough. For me, that feeling is a CUA editor, from Notepad to
Gedit to OS X TextEdit. And that is what I miss at shell level in
Linux.

>> Yes, it did look better, true.
>
> Do you happen to know that backstory about the color research? I remember
> that, but only vaguely.

I'm a frayed knot.

>> But all those arcane Ctrl-shift F5, shift-F7, alt-F11, F3, ctrl-F1
>> patterns -- eeuw.
>
> Clerks, admins, secretaries, receptionists, record hounds, and many others
> were freakin' ninjas with them. My mom was a Q Write disciple, still
> uses it in DOSBox, and still can do things with it I can't reproduce
> without coding. I know they were sorta arcane, and I won't lie and say I
> was a WP badass, but I witnessed some word processing badassery in
> conjunction with it by the aforementioned tradeswomen and men.


Oh yeah, I've seen such people.

My line manager at Red Hat was like that in jEdit. I watched him do
stuff I didn't know text editors could do.

Note, I don't code any more. So 99% of editor advocacy is irrelevant
to me -- I have zero use for syntax highlighting, colouring,
formatting, autocomplete, any of it. I write English text, nothing
else. This strips away a lot of the discussion, I find.

But Silas was writing English text in a code editor, and flipping
paragraphs around like a ninja. Astonishing. I've not seen such editor
virtuosity since the DOS days of the end-'80s/start-'90s.

> Remember that scene in one of the Star Trek movies where he firsts
> exclaims "You mean it's a MANUAL!" when he's told the computer he's
> attempting to voice command won't respond ? You think he's going to fumble
> with the keyboard then he starts typing so fast you think he's about the
> smoke the model M or whatever he's bangin' on at lightspeed. Some folks
> are like that with their word processing skills... My awesome grandma was.

:-)

Yes, I do, and no, I'm not. But I can still boggle Windows users with
my ability to control it without a mouse. I learned Windows 2 in a job
where we didn't own a PC mouse. We didn't need 'em -- we sold Macs. So
I learned all the shortcuts. Many still work.

I upgraded the seldom-used Win7 partition on my Thinkpad X200 to Win10
last month. To my surprise, I rather like it. And a lot of the
shortcuts /still/ work.

> Maybe you are one! You definitely seem to have written extensively and
> from some obvious experience and authority with word processing in
> general.

I was a support guy for 15-20y, mostly on desktop stuff. I built and
installed servers, but customers don't need hands-on help with
servers, generally. It's with desktops and laptops. So for me to know
all the apps was a professional skill.

[Insert "must support all the things" meme]

>> When WP 5.1 caught on, at least I could use drop-downs for the stuff I
>> couldn't remember the f-key combos for.
>
> Ah yes, I remember discovering that to my delight as well.

Clunky, but they were a huge help. Menus are /much/ more discoverable
than hotkeys.

>> I have a download of WP 6 for DOS here, waiting for me to try in a VM.
>
> Yeah, I have a massive DOS collection o' piracy and purchases that are
> slowly coalescing over the years into a few organized VMs and DOSBox
> instances I've been nurturing.

I'm considering building and offering an assortment of DOS VMs for
download, because a lot of kids are curious about this stuff but have
absolutely no idea how to install and configure any of these apps.

Pre-built downloadable DOS VMs with classic apps pre-installed.

>> I have Word 5.5 and 6 for DOS, but they can readily and repeatably crash
>> DOSemu. :-(
>
> I'll take your *Word* for it (ugh, sorry).

:-D

> I do remember it had a spiffy
> B graphical splash screen with someone

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-09 Thread Mouse 
>>> [...] and directly write ANSI sequences, it'll just work.
>> (a) That is not my experience.
> I did acknowledge (but it was snipped in your reply---it's the
> missing footnote).

True enough.

> I've also checked the xterm use of DCS.  I *still* don't understand
> where you would use those particular sequences.

_I_ wouldn't, since I don't use xterm.  My terminal emulator has a much
richer DCS command language, allowing things like requesting window
resize, or opening another window (displaying elsewhere) onto the same
emulator.

DCS is basically the escape hatch to device-speific functionality.

> I've also come across plenty of libraries and modules (for various
> langauges) that use raw ANSI sequences to color things when they
> "technically" should be using the Termcap Sf and Sb
> capabilities---those scuflaws!  Touting non-portable behavior like
> that!

Well, technically, there is no such thing as ANSI colour.  The colour
sequences are ISO-defined extension arguments to ANSI's SGR sequence.

But, yes, I've seen that too, most often with Linux.  It is EXTREMELY
annoying to type ls and see

[0m[01;34mdir[0m  file  [01;36mlink[0m  [01;32mpgm[0m

It's even more annoying when other things - eg, vi - understand the
terminal type correctly set in $TERM, but things like ls insist on
assuming not only without evidence but in the presence of evidence to
the contrary that the display device can handle ISO-extended X3.64 SGR.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-09 Thread Sean Conner 
It was thus said that the Great Mouse once stated:
> > I've come to the conclusion [1] that terminfo and curses aren't
> > needed any more.  If you target VT100 (or Xterm or any other
> > derivative) and directly write ANSI sequences, it'll just work.
> 
> (a) That is not my experience.

  I did acknowledge (but it was snipped in your reply---it's the missing
footnote).

> (b) To the extent that it's true, it works only if you stick to a very
> much least-common-denominator set of sequences.  VT-100s, VT-220s,
> VT-240s, xterms, kterms, etc, each support a slightly different set of
> sequences, with in some cases (eg, DCS) slightly different semantics
> for the same basic sequences.  Assume anything more than some very
> minimal set and you are likely to find it breaks somewhere.

  Again, it's been easily fifteen years since I last used a physical
terminal, and even then, back around 2000, I only knew one other person (in
person) that owned a physical terminal like I did.  

  Today?

  Any terms I use (and I think the most users *NOT ON THIS LIST*) use are
xterms or derivatives of xterm.  

  I've also checked the xterm use of DCS.  I *still* don't understand where
you would use those particular sequences.

  I've also come across plenty of libraries and modules (for various
langauges) that use raw ANSI sequences to color things when they
"technically" should be using the Termcap Sf and Sb capabilities---those
scuflaws!  Touting non-portable behavior like that!

> > It's a few lines of code to get the current TTY (on any modern Unix
> > system) into raw mode in order to read characters [2].
> 
> "Raw mode" has been ill-defined since sgtty.h gave way to termios.h.
> Raw mode usually means something like -icanon -isig -echo -opost, and
> for lots of purposes you don't need to go that far; -icanon with min=1
> time=0 is enough for anything that doesn't want to read
> usually-signal-generating characters as data.
> 
> > [2] It's six lines to get an open TTY into raw mode,
> 
> system("stty raw");
> 
> :-)
> 
> Let's see.
> 
> struct termios o, n; tcgetattr(fd,); n=o; cfmakeraw(); 
> tcsetattr(fd,TCSANOW,);

  If I found that in any code I had to maintain, I'd reject that line as the
unmaintainable mess that it is.  Personally, I use:

  struct termios old;
  struct termios raw;
  intfh;

  fh = open("/dev/tty",O_RDWR);
  tcgetattr(fh,);
  raw = old;
  cfmakeraw();
  raw.c_cc[VMIN]  = 1;
  raw.c_cc[VTIME] = 1;
  tcsetattr(fh,TCSANOW,);

(I didn't include variable declarations or obtaining the file handle to the
TTY device in my initial message).

  -spc (Fraktur?  Really?  Fraktur?  What company had enough blackmail
material to get Fraktur part of the ECMA-48 standard?)

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Fred Cisin 

On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Swift Griggs wrote:

Remember that scene in one of the Star Trek movies where he firsts
exclaims "You mean it's a MANUAL!" when he's told the computer he's
attempting to voice command won't respond ? You think he's going to fumble
with the keyboard then he starts typing so fast you think he's about the
smoke the model M or whatever he's bangin' on at lightspeed. Some folks
are like that with their word processing skills...


Not a model M.
In "STIV : The Voyage Home", Scotty talks to a Macintosh Plus.  When 
somebody hands him the mouse, he then thinks that he needs to talk into 
that as a microphone.  Then he proceeds to do things that were not only 
impossible with such a machine, but would require extreme familiarity 
with it, which he initially seemed not to have.   They save the whales, 
but at least it ends with the 20th century woman rejecting Kirk.   Should 
ba a clip on YouTube.

There is a wikipedia argument page about the product placement.

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Swift Griggs 
On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
> I can remember more functionality via WordStar keystrokes than I can via 
> vi ones! :-)

That's the very reason I teach Vi in classes but privately still use Joe 
extensively. I prefer muscle-memory-macro-keystrokes over what I'd call 
"conscious modes". I respect the ideas in Vi, and occasionally I dwell in 
it a lot and code there etc... I play some musical editor games. I even 
occasionally use the Motif-based "nedit" (esp on SGI boxen, it just ... 
feels... right). However, I feel most natural in Joe. I think it's simply 
just a "style" or taste issue based on past comfort with the WS and 
descendants. Familiarity that I'm not trying to pass off as any superiority 
in WS-family editors. I tell folks that Vi is still essential if you want 
to be a Unix bad-ass. Knowing even it's most primitive forms is helpful if 
you dive into ancient platforms and want to fix old code or impress girls 
with your regex acumen and flawless command-mode incantations. I figure 
if politicians can mix truth with lies, I can dabble, too.

> Yes, it did look better, true.

Do you happen to know that backstory about the color research? I remember 
that, but only vaguely.

> But all those arcane Ctrl-shift F5, shift-F7, alt-F11, F3, ctrl-F1 
> patterns -- eeuw.

Clerks, admins, secretaries, receptionists, record hounds, and many others 
were freakin' ninjas with them. My mom was a Q Write disciple, still 
uses it in DOSBox, and still can do things with it I can't reproduce 
without coding. I know they were sorta arcane, and I won't lie and say I 
was a WP badass, but I witnessed some word processing badassery in 
conjunction with it by the aforementioned tradeswomen and men.

Remember that scene in one of the Star Trek movies where he firsts 
exclaims "You mean it's a MANUAL!" when he's told the computer he's 
attempting to voice command won't respond ? You think he's going to fumble 
with the keyboard then he starts typing so fast you think he's about the 
smoke the model M or whatever he's bangin' on at lightspeed. Some folks 
are like that with their word processing skills... My awesome grandma was.  
Maybe you are one! You definitely seem to have written extensively and 
from some obvious experience and authority with word processing in 
general.

> When WP 5.1 caught on, at least I could use drop-downs for the stuff I 
> couldn't remember the f-key combos for.

Ah yes, I remember discovering that to my delight as well.

> I have a download of WP 6 for DOS here, waiting for me to try in a VM.

Yeah, I have a massive DOS collection o' piracy and purchases that are 
slowly coalescing over the years into a few organized VMs and DOSBox 
instances I've been nurturing.

> I have Word 5.5 and 6 for DOS, but they can readily and repeatably crash 
> DOSemu. :-(

I'll take your *Word* for it (ugh, sorry). I do remember it had a spiffy 
B graphical splash screen with someone writing with a pen, IIRC. Maybe 
that was 5.5. I think I have it around somewhere too, blaspheming some 
bits in one of my archives. :-P 

> But, yes, it certainly contributed to the dumbing-down of software and 
> users both.

Well, I think also that when commercial software puts effort into simply 
giving people what the want. It's like that old saying about people in 
democracies getting the government they deserve. In commercial software 
money = voting. People appear to *want* some of the garbage we have these 
days. Either that, or corporations are so powerful they can afford to be 
tone-deaf and full of hubris toward their customers. Hmm, wait I just 
remembered I'm a Comcast customer: my only option for fast Internet 
access. They rape me for vulgar sums and I just suck it up quietly; no 
choice.

> Sadly, only the surface appearance, though -- not the ubiquitous 
> networking, not the OOPS dev tools.

I hear ya. I've been doing a lot of fiddlin' with old 68k Macs and 
anything before Open Transport was, uhm, not so great. Even then, it's 
damn fragile and I feel like it's going to lock up at any time or this guy 
is going to show up and lecture me:

GI: Joe PSA - "Stop all the DOWNLOADIN!" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eA3XCvrK90
 
> I am fully aware that my feelings towards MS Word are a form of
> Stockholm Syndrome. I don't think it's a good app, just the one I now
> know best.

Hehe, nice. At least you have a sense of humor about your heresy. :-)

> It's for good reasons that I use the oldest versions I can.

I can't even stand *trying* it now. 2003 is the last one I could even sit 
in front of. When recruiters or HR folks *DEMAND* my resume in Word, 
that's what I reach for. Been burned too many times by trying to export 
from Abiword or Libre/Open/Star Office. *claps weakly* Thanks guys, I know 
you tried. Most of the time they will grudgingly accept PDFs. I imagine 
myself smoldering and shaking with tremors the whole time spent in that 
shameful act of kowtowing to the man, though. :-> At least I have

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Sean Conner 
It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once stated:
> 
> On occasion, I still use an editor that I wrote for CP/M and later
> ported to DOS.  11KB and it has lots of features that are peculiar to my
> preferences.  I'd thought about porting it to Linux, but currently, it's
> still in assembly and dealing with terminfo or curses is not something
> that I look forward to.  So I use Joe.

  I've come to the conclusion [1] that terminfo and curses aren't needed any
more.  If you target VT100 (or Xterm or any other derivative) and directly
write ANSI sequences, it'll just work.  It's a few lines of code to get the
current TTY (on any modern Unix system) into raw mode in order to read
characters [2].

  -spc (Of course, then you have to deal with escape sequences, which can
get messy ... )

[1] Bias most likely from my own usage.  Mileage may vary here on this
list where all sorts of odd-ball systems are still in use 8-P

[2] It's six lines to get an open TTY into raw mode, one line to restore
upon exit.  Add in a few more lines to handle SIGWINCH (window
resize).  *Much* easier than dealing with curses.

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Sean Conner 
It was thus said that the Great Paul Berger once stated:
> >
> The DOS editor I really like  was originally call PE and an enhanced 
> version "E" was shipped with later version of PC-DOS, there are also 
> some clones of the editor floating around as well.  I still use this 
> editor regularly because of its very flexible ways of selecting and 
> manipulating text.

  I used PE 1.0 for *years* as my editor, and only found two issues with it:

1) it only supported lines of 255 characters or less
2) it didn't handle files where lines didn't end with CRLF

That's it.  I was even able to edit files that exceeded the RAM of the
machine (I didn't do it often since it was sluggish but it could handle it).

  -spc (I just wish I could have found the source code to is, but alas ... )

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/08/2016 12:33 PM, Paul Koning wrote:


> I may have missed it, but I haven't seen the IBM MT/ST mentioned.
> That's certainly a rather old system, dating back to 1964 according
> to Wikipedia, which says it's the oldest word processor (and
> references an article about WP history).

That was mentioned, both in the article and by yours truly pretty early on.

Another one was the IBM Mag Card typewriter.

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Paul Koning 

> On Jul 8, 2016, at 3:43 PM, Fred Cisin  wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Paul Koning wrote:
>> I may have missed it, but I haven't seen the IBM MT/ST mentioned. That's 
>> certainly a rather old system, dating back to 1964 according to Wikipedia, 
>> which says it's the oldest word processor (and references an article about 
>> WP history).
> 
> The original post that started this thread referred to a URL
> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/how-to-write-a-history-of-writing-software/489173/?platform=hootsuite
> 
> It suggested that one significant contender for that author's "FIRST author 
> to write a book on a word processor" was Len Deighton.  In the late 1960s he 
> bought one.  He wrote first drafts on his typewriter, then his secretary, 
> Ellenor Handley, retyped it into his MT/ST and edited it there.
> Specifically, a novel entitled "Bomber", published in 1970.
> 
> If the MT/ST was released in 1964, then even with its high price, it seems 
> odd that so many years would go by before anybody used it for a book 
> manuscript.

I can think of any number of reasons.  $10k, in 1964?  That's half a house.  
Its user interface may have been ill suited for the job; after all it was 
designed for business documents.  Finally, the tape capacity was 25 kbytes, 
which is only a few percent of the size of a typical book.  Len Deighton was a 
very successful writer by 1970; he may have decided to spend piles of money on 
a new tool because he could.   But few writers strike it rich; they'd buy a 
good typewriter because it's a mandatory tool, but few would want to spend more 
than that.

paul

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Paul Berger 

On 2016-07-08 4:33 PM, Paul Koning wrote:

On Jul 8, 2016, at 3:13 PM, Chuck Guzis  wrote:

On 07/08/2016 11:46 AM, Paul Berger wrote:


Before displaywriter the OP division of IBM produced the Office
system 6 which had a really cool inkjet printer as long as you
didn't have to fix them service reps called them "Spray and pray"
They where not a thermal inkjet like most modern ones, but rather
used a pressurized ink system to force the ink through nozzles on the
print head, I saw one operating without the shroud around the
printhead that sucked back overspray, it was really cool the print
head moved along silently and the character just appeared on the
page.

I recall seeing the IBM inkjet printer at a late 70s NCC.  IIRC it used
electrostatics to deflect the ink drops to their proper position.

I saw that technology described in a Dutch magazine ("De Ingenieur" = "the 
engineer") around 1972 or so.  As PB mentioned, it uses a shroud or baffle, since the ink 
stream is always active; the control voltage steers the drops towards the paper or towards the 
baffle.  Ink hitting the baffle was recirculated, I think.
Yes that is correct some of the droplets where purposely steered into 
the "gutter" and yes it was by electrostatic deflection.. IBM would used 
the same sort of system in the Item Numbering Feature (INF) on the 3890 
cheque sorter to print a number on the back of documents on the fly.  
This machine could process up to 2400 cheaque sized documents a minute 
so they are really moving along... print quality was not quite as good.





...
Initially, I think the biggest advantages of the early wapros was the
ability to make edits to existing documents and to create multiple
copies of the same document.  I wonder how many of the young 'uns here
have experienced the joys of carbon paper (especially when accidentally
reversed) or having to re-type a whole page of text to make a few simple
edits.

A bit like editing text (programs) on paper tape...

I may have missed it, but I haven't seen the IBM MT/ST mentioned.  That's 
certainly a rather old system, dating back to 1964 according to Wikipedia, 
which says it's the oldest word processor (and references an article about WP 
history).
I remember some of the older OP techs talking about the MT/ST, the tape 
reader was entirely electro-mechanical and read in stripes across the 
tape.  This would be a precursor of the Magcard Selectric and the Memory 
typewriter.  The later had a wide loop of tape inside an enlarged 
selectric case for storage.


Paul.




paul

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Fred Cisin 

On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Paul Koning wrote:
I may have missed it, but I haven't seen the IBM MT/ST mentioned. 
That's certainly a rather old system, dating back to 1964 according to 
Wikipedia, which says it's the oldest word processor (and references an 
article about WP history).


The original post that started this thread referred to a URL
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/how-to-write-a-history-of-writing-software/489173/?platform=hootsuite

It suggested that one significant contender for that author's "FIRST 
author to write a book on a word processor" was Len Deighton.  In the late 
1960s he bought one.  He wrote first drafts on his typewriter, then his 
secretary, Ellenor Handley, retyped it into his MT/ST and edited it there.

Specifically, a novel entitled "Bomber", published in 1970.

If the MT/ST was released in 1964, then even with its high price, it seems 
odd that so many years would go by before anybody used it for a book 
manuscript.



(I also mentioned that the pronunciation of MT/ST made me want to create a 
word processor to be called "FULL ST")

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread John Willis 
>
>
> There are or were lots of odd editors for the PC. IBM E was one --
> apparently it's quite like some mainframe tool. Came with PC-DOS and
> was... strange.
>
>
I liked EPM under OS/2, and had to get acquainted with TEDIT for disaster
recovery of same. I believe "E" under OS/2 was just a stripped-down GUI
editor akin to MS Notepad.

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Paul Koning 

> On Jul 8, 2016, at 3:13 PM, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> 
> On 07/08/2016 11:46 AM, Paul Berger wrote:
> 
>> Before displaywriter the OP division of IBM produced the Office
>> system 6 which had a really cool inkjet printer as long as you
>> didn't have to fix them service reps called them "Spray and pray"
>> They where not a thermal inkjet like most modern ones, but rather
>> used a pressurized ink system to force the ink through nozzles on the
>> print head, I saw one operating without the shroud around the
>> printhead that sucked back overspray, it was really cool the print
>> head moved along silently and the character just appeared on the
>> page.
> 
> I recall seeing the IBM inkjet printer at a late 70s NCC.  IIRC it used
> electrostatics to deflect the ink drops to their proper position.

I saw that technology described in a Dutch magazine ("De Ingenieur" = "the 
engineer") around 1972 or so.  As PB mentioned, it uses a shroud or baffle, 
since the ink stream is always active; the control voltage steers the drops 
towards the paper or towards the baffle.  Ink hitting the baffle was 
recirculated, I think.

> ...
> Initially, I think the biggest advantages of the early wapros was the
> ability to make edits to existing documents and to create multiple
> copies of the same document.  I wonder how many of the young 'uns here
> have experienced the joys of carbon paper (especially when accidentally
> reversed) or having to re-type a whole page of text to make a few simple
> edits.

A bit like editing text (programs) on paper tape...

I may have missed it, but I haven't seen the IBM MT/ST mentioned.  That's 
certainly a rather old system, dating back to 1964 according to Wikipedia, 
which says it's the oldest word processor (and references an article about WP 
history).

paul

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Paul Berger 

On 2016-07-08 4:28 PM, John Willis wrote:


There are or were lots of odd editors for the PC. IBM E was one --
apparently it's quite like some mainframe tool. Came with PC-DOS and
was... strange.



I liked EPM under OS/2, and had to get acquainted with TEDIT for disaster
recovery of same. I believe "E" under OS/2 was just a stripped-down GUI
editor akin to MS Notepad.
EPM was another derivative of the DOS editor PE.  PE was one of several 
very nice DOS programs written by IBMers in their spare time, many of 
these where shared internally and PE was one of them that later became 
an official product.


Paul.

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread william degnan 
I used, until my Windows XP days, an editor called Qedit.  Q.exe It was
fast and one could edit columns as well as rows.  This made it useful for
pre-parsing of data files.

I also used PEdit, an IBM program.  I used to teach DisplayWrite 4 at the
IBM Customer Center in Wilmington, Delaware.

I must have a few dozen word processor programs, little ones mostly, from
various systems.  A lot of WordStar versions in particular for CP/M.

b

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/08/2016 11:46 AM, Paul Berger wrote:

> Before displaywriter the OP division of IBM produced the Office
> system 6 which had a really cool inkjet printer as long as you
> didn't have to fix them service reps called them "Spray and pray"
> They where not a thermal inkjet like most modern ones, but rather
> used a pressurized ink system to force the ink through nozzles on the
> print head, I saw one operating without the shroud around the
> printhead that sucked back overspray, it was really cool the print
> head moved along silently and the character just appeared on the
> page.

I recall seeing the IBM inkjet printer at a late 70s NCC.  IIRC it used
electrostatics to deflect the ink drops to their proper position.


> The first purpose built wordprocessor I ever saw was a Micom system
> in a government office around 1980/81.  Micom first made
> wordprocessors based on 8080 around 1975.

Another one that pops into my head was CPT, which used a page-edit sort
of terminal. The system spewed a page's worth of text to the terminal,
which was then edited on the terminal offline.  The operator then hit
"send" (or some such) to transmit the edited content back to the host.
I still have a flipchart reference and a few 8" CPT disks.

Some WPs, such as Artec, used a Diablo KSR with a one-line LCD mounted
on it and a floor-standing dual 8" drive main unit.  IIRC, there was a
CRT option available, but it was expensive.

Then there were the systems installed in newspaper bullpens--essentially
smart terminals hooked to a server.  I don't recall the leading brand,
but I think Lanier was very big in that area.

Initially, I think the biggest advantages of the early wapros was the
ability to make edits to existing documents and to create multiple
copies of the same document.  I wonder how many of the young 'uns here
have experienced the joys of carbon paper (especially when accidentally
reversed) or having to re-type a whole page of text to make a few simple
edits.

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Paul Berger 

On 2016-07-08 3:19 PM, Liam Proven wrote:

On 8 July 2016 at 20:00, Chuck Guzis  wrote:

On 07/08/2016 10:27 AM, Liam Proven wrote:



Only hardcore IBM customers used DisplayWrite. It had, naturally,
great support for IBM's (rather expensive but very solid) laser
printers, which were slightly competitive and popular around the end
of the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s. Odd spindly fonts, as I recall.

My first employers sold a lot of copies of Ashton-Tate MultiMate, as
it was the only mainstream network-aware WP for DOS LANs -- it
supported both Netware and 3Com 3+Share, which was also popular
around that time. It may have done file locking and network-drive
shared templates, but as you say, proportionally-spaced fonts were a
problem.


What I found surprising about the IBM Displaywriter was that much of the
"smarts" of the thing resided in the printer firmware itself (e.g.
underlining, bolding, etc.) and not the DW CPU unit--and, of course, the
printer used EBCDIC.

Aha. I have never seen an actual DisplayWriter -- note that final "r".

DisplayWrite (no "r" on the end) was a WP package for DOS. I believe
it looked & worked quite like a hardware DisplayWriter, but as I said,
I wouldn't know. I'm quite curious and I'm sorry I missed out on them.

Oddly, at least oddly I was told, quite a few people/companies bought
& used DisplayWrite even if they never had or used a hardware
DisplayWriter. It wasn't very competitive but it was good enough --
the "professional" tier of early DOS wordprocessors were all expensive
and rather arcane.


There was also a version of displaywrite for 370, I am told that the 
only thing that is really similar is the name of the products. Before 
displaywriter the OP division of IBM produced the Office system 6 which 
had a really cool inkjet printer as long as you didn't have to fix 
them service reps called them "Spray and pray" They where not a thermal 
inkjet like most modern ones, but rather used a pressurized ink system 
to force the ink through nozzles on the print head, I saw one operating 
without the shroud around the printhead that sucked back overspray, it 
was really cool the print head moved along silently and the character 
just appeared on the page.  Print quality was very good.  The 6670 laser 
printer ( a copier 3 with a laser print head) was also originally part 
of that system  they also produced good quality results but often had 
duplexing issues.  later on there was the 5520 system which was really a 
S/34 running special software and a special version of the 5251 terminals.


The first purpose built wordprocessor I ever saw was a Micom system in a 
government office around 1980/81.  Micom first made wordprocessors based 
on 8080 around 1975.


Paul.

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Liam Proven 
On 8 July 2016 at 20:42, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
>> There are or were lots of odd editors for the PC. IBM E was one --
>> apparently it's quite like some mainframe tool. Came with PC-DOS and
>> was... strange.
>
> Originally, PC-DOS had only EDLIN, which, amazingly, was *less* powerful
> than CP/M ED.

Oh my, yes. I was quite the Edlin virtuoso in the late '80s, but then,
there really wasn't much to master.

> "E" in  PC DOS didn't come about until version 6.3 or so.  By then, MS
> had their EDIT editor which was intimately tied into QuickBASIC.

Ah yes, true. It got separated out in the NT era.

> Before that, when I typed "E" on my old PC systems, I get the Semware
> editor--a very nice tool.  I purchased it, but rarely used it.
>
> Another good DOS editor was VEDIT, which, IIRC, was also offered for the
> IBM Displaywriter.

Never saw them!

> I still don't like *nix vi to this very day.

Oh good, it's not just me. :-)


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Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/08/2016 11:19 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

> There are or were lots of odd editors for the PC. IBM E was one -- 
> apparently it's quite like some mainframe tool. Came with PC-DOS and 
> was... strange.

Originally, PC-DOS had only EDLIN, which, amazingly, was *less* powerful
than CP/M ED.

"E" in  PC DOS didn't come about until version 6.3 or so.  By then, MS
had their EDIT editor which was intimately tied into QuickBASIC.

Before that, when I typed "E" on my old PC systems, I get the Semware
editor--a very nice tool.  I purchased it, but rarely used it.

Another good DOS editor was VEDIT, which, IIRC, was also offered for the
IBM Displaywriter.

I still don't like *nix vi to this very day.

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Liam Proven 
On 8 July 2016 at 20:00, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> On 07/08/2016 10:27 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>
>
>> Only hardcore IBM customers used DisplayWrite. It had, naturally,
>> great support for IBM's (rather expensive but very solid) laser
>> printers, which were slightly competitive and popular around the end
>> of the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s. Odd spindly fonts, as I recall.
>>
>> My first employers sold a lot of copies of Ashton-Tate MultiMate, as
>> it was the only mainstream network-aware WP for DOS LANs -- it
>> supported both Netware and 3Com 3+Share, which was also popular
>> around that time. It may have done file locking and network-drive
>> shared templates, but as you say, proportionally-spaced fonts were a
>> problem.
>
>
> What I found surprising about the IBM Displaywriter was that much of the
> "smarts" of the thing resided in the printer firmware itself (e.g.
> underlining, bolding, etc.) and not the DW CPU unit--and, of course, the
> printer used EBCDIC.

Aha. I have never seen an actual DisplayWriter -- note that final "r".

DisplayWrite (no "r" on the end) was a WP package for DOS. I believe
it looked & worked quite like a hardware DisplayWriter, but as I said,
I wouldn't know. I'm quite curious and I'm sorry I missed out on them.

Oddly, at least oddly I was told, quite a few people/companies bought
& used DisplayWrite even if they never had or used a hardware
DisplayWriter. It wasn't very competitive but it was good enough --
the "professional" tier of early DOS wordprocessors were all expensive
and rather arcane.

It's also something that seemed to cause a major divide across the
Atlantic, for some odd reason. Brits almost never paid for or
registered shareware, I'm told, whereas many North Americans did and
it could be a lucrative business.

Over here in Europe it wasn't taken very seriously so none of the
shareware WPs took off.

The American magazines I read talked of WPs I'd never seen -- and as a
professional skill I learned just about every WP program I could set
hands on on DOS and Mac. Brits used ones that were obscure in N
America, and vice versa.

> There were a mess of PC word processors, as well as CP/M ones.
> WordPerfect, PerfectWriter, PC Write, Palantir, Electric Pencil...

Heard of the latter 2, never saw them.

Oh, and there was LetterPerfect, too, the cheap cut-down WordPerfect.

> I recall that the preferred one for the AVR Eagle systems was
> Spellbinder and that it had a lot of adherents--I don't know if it was
> ever offered for the PC platform.

I am not sure but I think so, yes.

> On occasion, I still use an editor that I wrote for CP/M and later
> ported to DOS.  11KB and it has lots of features that are peculiar to my
> preferences.  I'd thought about porting it to Linux, but currently, it's
> still in assembly and dealing with terminfo or curses is not something
> that I look forward to.  So I use Joe.

:-)

There are or were lots of odd editors for the PC. IBM E was one --
apparently it's quite like some mainframe tool. Came with PC-DOS and
was... strange.

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Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Eric Christopherson 
On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 8:12 AM, Liam Proven  wrote:

> But when I got my hands on early Macs and Windows 2 in my first job, I
> discovered the CUA model, and I've liked it ever since. I still miss
> CUA editing on the Linux command line.
>
> There are some: http://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/42908.html
>

Thanks, Liam -- that page has finally brought back to me the name of Xwpe,
an IDE/editor I played around with a little in the 90s. I never really used
it for anything, but for whatever reason I've been really curious about its
identity for all this time.

"
First, he pointed me at XWPE. It certainly looks the part, but sadly the
project seems to have died. I did get it running on Fedora 20 by installing
some extra libraries and symlinking them to names XWPE wanted, but it
crashes very readily.
http://www.identicalsoftware.com/xwpe
"


-- 
Eric Christopherson

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/08/2016 10:27 AM, Liam Proven wrote:


> Only hardcore IBM customers used DisplayWrite. It had, naturally, 
> great support for IBM's (rather expensive but very solid) laser 
> printers, which were slightly competitive and popular around the end 
> of the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s. Odd spindly fonts, as I recall.
> 
> My first employers sold a lot of copies of Ashton-Tate MultiMate, as 
> it was the only mainstream network-aware WP for DOS LANs -- it 
> supported both Netware and 3Com 3+Share, which was also popular
> around that time. It may have done file locking and network-drive
> shared templates, but as you say, proportionally-spaced fonts were a
> problem.


What I found surprising about the IBM Displaywriter was that much of the
"smarts" of the thing resided in the printer firmware itself (e.g.
underlining, bolding, etc.) and not the DW CPU unit--and, of course, the
printer used EBCDIC.

There were a mess of PC word processors, as well as CP/M ones.
WordPerfect, PerfectWriter, PC Write, Palantir, Electric Pencil...

I recall that the preferred one for the AVR Eagle systems was
Spellbinder and that it had a lot of adherents--I don't know if it was
ever offered for the PC platform.

On occasion, I still use an editor that I wrote for CP/M and later
ported to DOS.  11KB and it has lots of features that are peculiar to my
preferences.  I'd thought about porting it to Linux, but currently, it's
still in assembly and dealing with terminfo or curses is not something
that I look forward to.  So I use Joe.

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Liam Proven 
On 8 July 2016 at 19:08, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
>
> Wordstar allowed for "user routines" for various keyboard and display
> functions.  I suspect you could have made any key or combination of keys
> do all sorts of strange things.

Ah, yes, I vaguely recall looking at that. But it was too much like
hard work for me.

The ultimate customisable WP was arguably Borland Sprint, I believe.
It sounded great, but I only tried it very briefly and for me, it
didn't offer enough to tempt me away from MS Word.

MS Word 5.5 is available as freeware from Microsoft now, as a
one-size-suits-all Year 2000 fix for all DOS versions of Word. I don't
know why they didn't just bit the bullet and give out Word 6, which
was the last ever version for DOS and is pretty much
feature-equivalent and UI-equivalent to MS Word 6 for Windows 3 and
classic MacOS too.

>
> After WS on the PC, I moved to Wordstar 2000.  A great product, but
> utterly incompatible with WordStar (MicroPro provided a "Star Exchange"
> utility with WS2K to handle conversions).  Different key combinations,
> options, displays entirely.  But it did handle prop spacing fonts quite
> nicely.   I still have the instructions from a third-party outfit on how
> to make WS 3.3 handle prop spacing, but it's a real kludge.

Yes, I remember it. It sorted out a lot of the idiosyncrasies of
classic WordStar, but it was no easier for a WordStar user to
transition to W*2K than it was to a rival WP -- such as the more
widely-used, widely-supported, and on the whole more powerful
WordPerfect.

Always risky to try such a big transition.

I presume folk here know of the excellent history of the app family?
http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/wordstar-history

There was also the now-nearly-forgotten WordStar Express, another
totally new app, written I believe in Modula-2.  I never heard of
anyone using the normal version, but it was bundled with certain
Amstrad PCs as WordStar 1512, and I saw quite a few people using that.

(Mainly the Amstrad PC1512, I guess, from the name! It was the first
'Strad PC clone, and a weirdly nonstandard one at that.)

Also neither file- nor keystroke-compatible, and a bit sluggish, too.

Weird weird move, given WordStar's main selling points were its
keyboard commands and its speed!

> Different WP packages had their own peculiar advantages.  North Star
> Memorite, for example, had great footnoting.

I never saw that one.

Only hardcore IBM customers used DisplayWrite. It had, naturally,
great support for IBM's (rather expensive but very solid) laser
printers, which were slightly competitive and popular around the end
of the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s. Odd spindly fonts, as I recall.

My first employers sold a lot of copies of Ashton-Tate MultiMate, as
it was the only mainstream network-aware WP for DOS LANs -- it
supported both Netware and 3Com 3+Share, which was also popular around
that time. It may have done file locking and network-drive shared
templates, but as you say, proportionally-spaced fonts were a problem.

Bad old days.

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Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/08/2016 09:20 AM, Swift Griggs wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
>> WordStar commands for that operation would be: Mark beginning of
>> block: ^K B Mark end of block: ^K K (WordStar did not allow block
>> selection with the cursor keys.)
> 
> AFAIK, original Wordstar didn't, but the Borland IDE and Joe does.
> Just hold down ctrl and start hitting cursor keys to cover the text
> you need to select. Badabing. You've got yourself a selection.

Wordstar allowed for "user routines" for various keyboard and display
functions.  I suspect you could have made any key or combination of keys
do all sorts of strange things.

After WS on the PC, I moved to Wordstar 2000.  A great product, but
utterly incompatible with WordStar (MicroPro provided a "Star Exchange"
utility with WS2K to handle conversions).  Different key combinations,
options, displays entirely.  But it did handle prop spacing fonts quite
nicely.   I still have the instructions from a third-party outfit on how
to make WS 3.3 handle prop spacing, but it's a real kludge.

Different WP packages had their own peculiar advantages.  North Star
Memorite, for example, had great footnoting.

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Liam Proven 
On 8 July 2016 at 18:20, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
>> WordStar commands for that operation would be:
>> Mark beginning of block: ^K B
>> Mark end of block: ^K K
>> (WordStar did not allow block selection with the cursor keys.)
>
> AFAIK, original Wordstar didn't, but the Borland IDE and Joe does. Just
> hold down ctrl and start hitting cursor keys to cover the text you need to
> select. Badabing. You've got yourself a selection.


That I did not know. Interesting.

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Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Liam Proven 
On 8 July 2016 at 18:15, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
>> WordStar commands are still used in some things, such as JOE.
>
> You are right and I use Joe daily, hmm, more like hourly. I'm typing this
> message in it, right now, in fact. It's my $EDITOR and default composition
> editor in Alpine, my go-to mail client.

Gmail on the web, these days. Sometimes on Mac OS X, or should I now
say macOS... :-(
... and sometimes on Linux. Dedicated client on Android.

I keep Thunderbird around, but only for backup purposes.

I don't have a favourite Linux console-mode text editor. Normally I
just use vi, with a faint grimace of distaste. I only know _very_
simple commands -- insert, append, delete, save/exit or quit. I never
even learned how to copy/paste in it. Something bizarre involving
'yank' is all I recall and I don't know how to do it.

On my own boxes, I sometimes install Tilde, but normally use whatever
the GUI's editor is -- Gedit on Unity, Leafpad on Lxde, Geany on XFCE.

If I don't have a GUI, though, plain old vi. I dislike both Nano and
Joe, although I'm perfectly able to use either, so there's no point
installing them if they're not there.

I really _really_ wish there was something like SetEdit or Tilde in
the default repos for Debian/*buntu/CentOS. EFTE is sometimes there
but it has issues, IIRC.


>> However, they went away before the GUI era and are mostly now forgotten.
>> Including by you! ;-)
>
> Some of us perhaps, but after writing a few hundred thousand lines of code
> in Borland IDEs in the 1990s, I couldn't forget the keystrokes if I wanted
> to, I think.

I can remember more functionality via WordStar keystrokes than I can
via vi ones! :-)

> I liked both of them. The coolest thing about Wordperfect was how they
> actually paid attention to the fact that white text on a blue background
> was supposedly easier on ones eyes. I believe there was some kind of
> research into this, but I'm not sure if it was the by Wordperfect Corp.

Yes, it did look better, true.

But all those arcane Ctrl-shift F5, shift-F7, alt-F11, F3, ctrl-F1
patterns -- eeuw.

When WP 5.1 caught on, at least I could use drop-downs for the stuff I
couldn't remember the f-key combos for.

I have a download of WP 6 for DOS here, waiting for me to try in a VM.

I have Word 5.5 and 6 for DOS, but they can readily and repeatably
crash DOSemu. :-(

> My recollection of that time was that, as soon as the unwashed masses saw
> that GUIs were going to be the norm on microcomputers, they were
> well-past-done with anything character based. I don't actually see that as
> 100% positive progress, though. I see it as emblematic of how "users" see
> computers, with both good and bad implications. Greater accessibility
> means more overall benefit to more people, and that's a good thing.
> However, too much over-simplification leads to a form of learned
> helplessness and a bigger chasm between the technical, and non-technical
> users.

Definitely, on all points. Yes, GUIs swept away the console stuff, and
with good reason -- there was so little standardisation among
text-mode apps. I had to memorise dozens and dozens of totally
different UIs, and almost all of them were nasty.

But, yes, it certainly contributed to the dumbing-down of software and
users both.

> ... not that M$ didn't simply co-opt the lesson from others who'd been
> doing it for a very long time. However, it's not such a bad thing to learn
> from others. They certainly "learned" plenty from MacOS.

True! But then, MacOS learned from the Lisa, and the Lisa learned from
the Xerox Star. Sadly, only the surface appearance, though -- not the
ubiquitous networking, not the OOPS dev tools.

> You are right, most did prefer it. However, at the time, I remember much
> wailing and gnashing of teeth as people who had mastered WP screamed at
> Word for trying to outsmart them and they couldn't simply delete the
> offending control character to reverse the automagically-helpy "features"
> they are always trying to shovel into Word/Office.

Yep. Me too. Both remembered, and occasionally, cursed it.

I am fully aware that my feelings towards MS Word are a form of
Stockholm Syndrome. I don't think it's a good app, just the one I now
know best.

It's for good reasons that I use the oldest versions I can.


> I personally still find Word to be an infuriating abomination no matter
> how many Paper Clips, ribbon-interfaces, or hollywood-squares-metro GUIs
> they put on it. A slime mold in a dress is still just a greasy disgusting
> fungus.

It's been decaying since Office 2007 for me. I won't use Windows
versions after 2003. On Windows, I use Word97 now, or LibreOffice.

> Boy did Wordperfect go down in flames quick, though. I won't argue that M$
> cleaned their clock in record time. It seemed like in only a couple of
> years they went from total-domination to being bought by... Corel (?!).

Yes indeed!

They missed the Windows boat,

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Swift Griggs 
On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
> WordStar commands for that operation would be:
> Mark beginning of block: ^K B
> Mark end of block: ^K K
> (WordStar did not allow block selection with the cursor keys.)

AFAIK, original Wordstar didn't, but the Borland IDE and Joe does. Just 
hold down ctrl and start hitting cursor keys to cover the text you need to 
select. Badabing. You've got yourself a selection. 

-Swift

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Swift Griggs 
On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
> WordStar commands are still used in some things, such as JOE.

You are right and I use Joe daily, hmm, more like hourly. I'm typing this 
message in it, right now, in fact. It's my $EDITOR and default composition 
editor in Alpine, my go-to mail client.

> However, they went away before the GUI era and are mostly now forgotten. 
> Including by you! ;-)

Some of us perhaps, but after writing a few hundred thousand lines of code 
in Borland IDEs in the 1990s, I couldn't forget the keystrokes if I wanted 
to, I think.

> WordPerfect replaced WordStar on DOS. It was a lot more capable and it 
> had superb printer-driver support.

I liked both of them. The coolest thing about Wordperfect was how they 
actually paid attention to the fact that white text on a blue background 
was supposedly easier on ones eyes. I believe there was some kind of 
research into this, but I'm not sure if it was the by Wordperfect Corp.

> Then Windows (and MacOS and GUIs in general) swept WordPerfect away.

My recollection of that time was that, as soon as the unwashed masses saw 
that GUIs were going to be the norm on microcomputers, they were 
well-past-done with anything character based. I don't actually see that as 
100% positive progress, though. I see it as emblematic of how "users" see 
computers, with both good and bad implications. Greater accessibility 
means more overall benefit to more people, and that's a good thing. 
However, too much over-simplification leads to a form of learned 
helplessness and a bigger chasm between the technical, and non-technical 
users.

> The printer drivers issue became irrelevant when the OS handled the 
> printers and font rendering etc.

... not that M$ didn't simply co-opt the lesson from others who'd been 
doing it for a very long time. However, it's not such a bad thing to learn 
from others. They certainly "learned" plenty from MacOS.

> and most users much preferred the GUI model of text-editing to the 
> WordPerfect embedded-control-codes model.

You are right, most did prefer it. However, at the time, I remember much 
wailing and gnashing of teeth as people who had mastered WP screamed at 
Word for trying to outsmart them and they couldn't simply delete the 
offending control character to reverse the automagically-helpy "features" 
they are always trying to shovel into Word/Office. 

I personally still find Word to be an infuriating abomination no matter 
how many Paper Clips, ribbon-interfaces, or hollywood-squares-metro GUIs 
they put on it. A slime mold in a dress is still just a greasy disgusting 
fungus.

Boy did Wordperfect go down in flames quick, though. I won't argue that M$ 
cleaned their clock in record time. It seemed like in only a couple of 
years they went from total-domination to being bought by... Corel (?!).

> Interestingly, more things seem to understand the Vi keystrokes now, at 
> least on Unix.

Hmm, IMHO, I'd say that it's still pretty equal and if there was any edge, 
it'd go to EMACS editing mode and keystrokes (especially ctrl-a and 
ctrl-e). It has a lot to do with what things like libreadline supports by 
default and what editing mode your shell defaults to. I don't personally 
like dealing with any kind of termdef/termcap/terminal-control and so I 
nearly always go looking for someone else's code who's already slogged 
through editing modes and UTF-8. 

> I cordially dislike both Vi & Emacs: I grew up with keyboards with 
> cursor and delete keys, but they didn't have META or SUPER or any of 
> that guff.

Well, I do understand were this comes from. UNIX folks were dealing with a 
sort of multi-culturalism problem. Since it runs on so many hardware 
platforms and interoperates with tons of terminal types (and DOS or 
Windows either didn't exist yet, or didn't run on those platforms), folks 
are (even still) hand-wringing a lot about terminals that have different 
cursor key mappings et al. That's always the explanation you hear around 
why VI cursor movement keys aren't (just) arrow keys, and also include 
'h', 'j', 'k', and 'l'.  

So, I don't understand why, after x86 has absolutely dominated the 
computing scene for a few decades, that there is any excuse left for 
editors or terminal emulators that screw up the cursor movement keys right 
outta the box. It's not like there are that many types of keyboard 
scancodes for cursor keys on PeeCees (and heck, even non-PC UNIX hardware 
that uses PS/2 or USB keyboards). I don't accept the excuses about 100's 
of terminal types in the 1980's. That was just too long ago to still be 
moaning about today. Most of those terminals are in landfills, too. A few 
hobbyists like me might have some or play with them, but if you are 
pimping a UNIX variant today and you can't deal (by default out of the 
box) with cursor keys: your vendor or project needs a reality check. Lame 
excuses about old terminals making it "hard" are totally worn out and only 
sound laughable in 2016.

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-08 Thread Liam Proven 
On 8 July 2016 at 04:33, Rod Smallwood  wrote:
> Ho Hum I ask understanding for seniors memory.


:-)

WordStar commands are still used in some things, such as JOE.

However, they went away before the GUI era and are mostly now
forgotten. Including by you! ;-)

WordPerfect replaced WordStar on DOS. It was a lot more capable and it
had superb printer-driver support.

Then Windows (and MacOS and GUIs in general) swept WordPerfect away.
The printer drivers issue became irrelevant when the OS handled the
printers and font rendering etc., and most users much preferred the
GUI model of text-editing to the WordPerfect embedded-control-codes
model.

Interestingly, more things seem to understand the Vi keystrokes now,
at least on Unix.

Although I'm something of an old-timer too, dating from before the PC
era and learning CP/M and VAX-VMS before I ever set hands on an IBM
anything.

I cordially dislike both Vi & Emacs: I grew up with keyboards with
cursor and delete keys, but they didn't have META or SUPER or any of
that guff.

I disliked WordStar (which I found arcane and clunky even when it was
still current and on retail sale), WordPerfect (all function-keys all
the time, needed a keyboard template or eidetic memory). I also knew
and supported MultiMate, DisplayWrite, MS Word for DOS and others. I
used LocoScript at home, which replaced The Last Word on my ZX
Spectrum.

I admit I liked LocoScript but it had the benefit of a dedicated
keyboard intended for a word-processor. MS Word was my favourite DOS
wordprocessor -- even before CUA, I found its menu structure and
editing keystrokes (select a block, _then_ format it) logical. And it
could do WYSIWYG *bold* and _underline_ and /italic/ on screen, even
on a PC text display.

But when I got my hands on early Macs and Windows 2 in my first job, I
discovered the CUA model, and I've liked it ever since. I still miss
CUA editing on the Linux command line.

There are some: http://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/42908.html

... But they're all nonstandard, not widely supported or have restrictions.

Anyway. the keystrokes you describe are the now-ubiquitous, on GUIs at
least, CUA keystrokes -- in their later incarnation, with some
cross-fertilisation from the Mac HCI guidelines. Everyone follows them
and I think that's a really good thing.

-- 
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Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Rod Smallwood 



On 08/07/2016 01:28, Liam Proven wrote:

On 7 July 2016 at 20:31, Rod Smallwood  wrote:

Try highlighting a word with shift and right arrow, then ctrlC.
Now move in your email  and type crtlV.

Yes Wordstar keyboard commands are alive and well.

Nope. Sorry. Those aren't WordStar commands.

They are CUA commands, adopted by more or less all GUIs. They're from
the IBM CUA project, part of the SAA plan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

WordStar commands for that operation would be:

Mark beginning of block: ^K B
Mark end of block: ^K K

(WordStar did not allow block selection with the cursor keys.)

Then, use the cursor keys or  to your destination position.

Then, to copy:

^K C

Or to move:

^K V

Here's a reference:

http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/wsemu-documentation/wsemu-commands-and-menus/1-wordstar-emulator-full-version-command-list



Ho Hum I ask understanding for seniors memory.

Rod

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Mouse 
>> [modern "improvements" in monitor technology]
> Lord have mercy, just give me the damn pixels on 1/3rd of the monitor
> and give me the *option* to scale it if I want.  Why is it so hard to
> understand that nobody wants to run an LCD in it's "non-native"
> resolution.  It always looks like crap!

Most people run a monitor exactly two ways: (1) in text mode during
BIOS POST and early bootup and (2) in its native resolution.  There is
very little business case for supporting letterboxing rather than
scaling.  (For the mass market.  There are niches, of course.)

I too find it discouraging.  Tyranny of the majority at its finest.

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Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Liam Proven 
On 8 July 2016 at 02:28, Liam Proven  wrote:
> Then, use the cursor keys or  to your destination position.


Sorry -- I meant to add in the WordStar character movement commands
but I forgot 'em. It has been about 25y since I last used it!

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
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Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Liam Proven 
On 7 July 2016 at 20:31, Rod Smallwood  wrote:
> Try highlighting a word with shift and right arrow, then ctrlC.
> Now move in your email  and type crtlV.
>
> Yes Wordstar keyboard commands are alive and well.

Nope. Sorry. Those aren't WordStar commands.

They are CUA commands, adopted by more or less all GUIs. They're from
the IBM CUA project, part of the SAA plan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

WordStar commands for that operation would be:

Mark beginning of block: ^K B
Mark end of block: ^K K

(WordStar did not allow block selection with the cursor keys.)

Then, use the cursor keys or  to your destination position.

Then, to copy:

^K C

Or to move:

^K V

Here's a reference:

http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/wsemu-documentation/wsemu-commands-and-menus/1-wordstar-emulator-full-version-command-list


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Noel Chiappa 
> From: Mouse

> "The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its
> continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the
> computer hardware industry." - credited to Henry Petroski

There's a reason I run considerably older software (which I prefer because
it's less bloated) on somewhat older hardware (which is cheap, used) - i.e.
hardware that's considerably newer than the software running on it - and your
quotation nails it.

The response time I get with Epsilon V8.0 (circa 1996) on an Athlon XP is
scintillating - my finger has barely started to come up on the key before the
screen reflects the command (e.g. to switch buffers). The response time is
blindingly fast.

Now, admittedly, Epsilon was fast to start with (i.e. on contemporanous
hardware), so perhaps it's not the best example. But the same is true for
other things, albeit to a lesser degree; e.g. switching windows to different
applications.

Older software on newer hardware provides a sparkling user experience, in
terms of responsiveness.

Noel

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Swift Griggs 
On Thu, 7 Jul 2016, Mouse wrote:
> I see it in monitors.  I've been repeatedly annoyed by modern
> flatscreens that refuse to even try to do what CRTs from twenty years
> ago routinely did.

I'll pile on, too. I'm always grumbling about monitors that use some kind 
of super-crap algorithm to scale the bitmap (bicubic smear-a-polation). 
Lord have mercy, just give me the damn pixels on 1/3rd of the monitor and 
give me the *option* to scale it if I want. Why is it so hard to 
understand that nobody wants to run an LCD in it's "non-native" 
resolution. It always looks like crap! 

> "The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its 
> continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the 
> computer hardware industry."  - credited to Henry Petroski by someone on 
> a mud I hang out on.

Well, there is a bright side to this, also. When you run older OSes or app 
software on new modern hardware, it's amazingly fast. I guess the key is 
to upgrade your hardware and just ignore most "advancements" in software. 
However, I'm sure most folks just head-nod at the normal pat-response: 
"But but but, you won't get security updates!" My response is that if a 
modern "IT guy" can't figure out how to put that system behind a firewall 
and properly take steps to version-lock the environment: fire him. He's a 
shill for the Evil Ones trying to sell us all tickets on the upgrade train 
with a free side of snake oil. Defense in depth means you *can* defend at 
multiple points, not just rely on the vendor to constantly give you blind 
binary patches for the OS and call that "good". Yet, when I talk about 
version locking as a set of procedures, people often don't even know what 
I'm getting at. They haven't even been introduced to the idea and only 
know the corporate refrain of hyper-upgrade-orthadoxy. It's a real 
accomplishment for the software industry, really. I can't think of any 
other instance where fat-cats are easily convinced to spend vulgar amounts 
of money on things that actually don't add squat to the bottom line. Is 
there that much peer pressure at the country club? Are the sales reps 
really *that* hot?

On a related note, even though I have an Amiga 3000, I often use UAE 
because it's just so damn fast. It's fun, sometimes to see The Last Ninja 
at 1000 FPS. :-P

-Swift

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/07/2016 02:45 PM, Mouse wrote:

> "The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is
> its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made
> by the computer hardware industry."  - credited to Henry Petroski by
> someone on a mud I hang out on.

I heard it from an Intel guy (re: the 80386).  "We work hard to design a
fast CPU and you software people piss it all away.".

Maybe a bit blunt, but conveys the idea.

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Mouse 
> The effect of bloatware:
> http://hubpages.com/technology/_86_Mac_Plus_Vs_07_AMD_DualCore_You_Wont_Believe_Who_Wins

"Wordstar on an 4.077 MHz 8088 could keep up with my typing; WinWord
under Windoze on a 300 MHz PII can't." --Seth Breidbart

You can tell how old the quote is: it cites a PII/300.

> I see it with guitar.  [...]

> I've seen how people buy $80-130k sportscars but can't drive a stick

> I've been to shoots [...]

> I see it with woodworkers [...]

I see it in monitors.  I've been repeatedly annoyed by modern
flatscreens that refuse to even try to do what CRTs from twenty years
ago routinely did.

"The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its
continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the
computer hardware industry."  - credited to Henry Petroski by someone
on a mud I hang out on.

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Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Swift Griggs 
On Thu, 7 Jul 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> To this day, I still use "joe" as my all-around text editor under Linux 
> and BSD.  It uses mostly WS key conventions.

Same here. I love Joe. I got used to WS keystrokes from Borland compiler 
suites. Incidentally, George R.R. Martin (author of the Song of Ice and 
Fire ... known to the masses as Game of Thrones) also *still* uses 
Wordstar 4.0 on a DOS machine. That feeds the same narrative that I'm 
pretty sold on, which is this (from Thulsa Doom): What is steel compared 
to the hand that wields it ? It's not the tool, it's the person. Better 
tools can (sometimes) give you better results, but usually it's just a 
matter of convenience. The individual doing the writing still has to want 
to write and be motivated to do it. The mechanics are, in general, not 
usually a showstopper (but please, $DEITY, don't make me use 'ed').

What is the riddle of steel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExpIKb0hY3E

The effect of bloatware:
http://hubpages.com/technology/_86_Mac_Plus_Vs_07_AMD_DualCore_You_Wont_Believe_Who_Wins

I see it with guitar. I have a $150 Fender acoustic that I play (badly) 
most of the time. I notice complete armatures in my guitar classes that 
come on day one with Martin guitars clad with figured Mahogany. They can't 
even tune the things! I'm NOT saying I'm Jimmy Hendrix, but UGH. It's the 
kiss of death, too. Those people ALWAYS drop out.

I noticed that everyone used to love to pirate Photoshop and Maya but then 
they couldn't figure out how to use it! Yet, I've seen others get amazing 
results with only freely available Povray and open source GIMP.

I've seen how people buy $80-130k sportscars but can't drive a stick (they 
buy automatics) or know enough to take a high speed turn on the inside. 
They'd crash their bicycle if they had a chance.

I've been to shoots where guys will have $8k AR15's with Nightforce optics 
and tricked out to the max, and I end up far outscoring them at <400yds 
with my cheap crappy Olympic Arms el-cheepo AR. A big wallet is no 
substitute for growing up redneck in Texas. Even firing a BB gun is 
practice putting rounds downrange. Those country club folks often have the 
lowest scores of anyone competing (except for the retirees who actually 
practice).

I see it with woodworkers who buy $5k in Veritas and Lee Nielson tools and 
then never use them or have any work-piece they themselves have made. They 
have beautiful garages, though! 

I see it with oil paints where folks buy super-expensive paints and they 
don't even use them, or make modern art splat-paintings with them. Why not 
buy the cheap paints that cost 1/3rd as much for something so useless. The 
masters made their own paints out of things like egg-whites and natural 
pigments. Yet, their art is worth more than anything painted with Bob Ross 
paints (not to bust on Bob, who was very cool).

There is no substitute for hard work. IMHO, that's why word processors and 
office suites don't much matter. Find one you like, and call it good. To 
misquote some Buddhist dude, "The finger that points at the moon is not the 
moon."

-Swift

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/07/2016 01:53 PM, Terry Stewart wrote:
>> To this day, I still use "joe" as my all-around text editor under
>> Linux and BSD.  It uses mostly WS key conventions.
> 
> I remember using "Runoff" (for formatting text) and "Junior" (full
> screen editor) on a PRIME.  Then there was "Mince" which I think was
> a "Junior" port to the IBM-PC?


I've used emacs on and off since the early 80s., along with some
add-ons, such as "Electric C" and "mince" )= "Mince is not emacs.).  I
never felt comfortable with it.

And I've written enough troff stuff to have forgotten most of what I
learned.

For document prep, does anyone still use Interleaf?

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Terry Stewart 
>To this day, I still use "joe" as my all-around text editor under Linux
>and BSD.  It uses mostly WS key conventions.

I remember using "Runoff" (for formatting text) and "Junior" (full screen
editor) on a PRIME.  Then there was "Mince" which I think was a "Junior"
port to the IBM-PC?

Terry (Tez)

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/07/2016 11:31 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:

> ADM3A as a terminal and Diabolo Daisy as a printer.  Forms on screen 
> application and letter quality printing. Not to mention letter
> quality word processing single sheet feed etc.


The point is that word processing predates wide use of microprocessors.

For a time, I ran a  Diablo Hitype I OEM model connected to a 3-parallel
port S100 card under WS  The OEM models are essentially dumb units with
spacing, carriage motion, etc. controlled by the host.

Even then, word processors were old.

To this day, I still use "joe" as my all-around text editor under Linux
and BSD.  It uses mostly WS key conventions.

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Rod Smallwood 



On 07/07/2016 18:57, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 07/06/2016 07:15 PM, Murray McCullough wrote:

My first word processor was from Wang called “Word Processor” and
then IBM’s “Displaywriter”. I tried “Wordstar” originally called
“Wordmaster” but way too complicated.

The big oversight here is that nobody seems to collect old wapro stuff;
Harris, Lanier, AES, Artec, Qyx, etc.

Soon, this will be a big hole in history, I suspect.

--Chuck

Wordstar of fond memory.

Try highlighting a word with shift and right arrow, then ctrlC.
Now move in your email  and type crtlV.

Yes Wordstar keyboard commands are alive and well.

Mozzila Thunderbird - Yup
MS Mail  - Yup
Notepad - Yup
Libre Office Writer - Yup

... and so on.

I used Wordstar as a programmers editor on a Northstar Horizon running 
CPM  and writing commercial code in CBASIC.
You could drop out of Wordstar compile or run and then go back with a 
couple of key strokes.


ADM3A as a terminal and Diabolo Daisy as a printer.  Forms on screen 
application and letter quality printing.

Not to mention letter quality word processing single sheet feed etc.

Those where the days!!

Rod Smallwood

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-07 Thread Chuck Guzis 
On 07/06/2016 07:15 PM, Murray McCullough wrote:
> My first word processor was from Wang called “Word Processor” and 
> then IBM’s “Displaywriter”. I tried “Wordstar” originally called 
> “Wordmaster” but way too complicated.

The big oversight here is that nobody seems to collect old wapro stuff;
Harris, Lanier, AES, Artec, Qyx, etc.

Soon, this will be a big hole in history, I suspect.

--Chuck

Re: word processor history -- interesting article (Evan Koblentz)

2016-07-06 Thread Murray McCullough 
My first word processor was from Wang called “Word Processor” and then
IBM’s “Displaywriter”. I tried “Wordstar” originally called
“Wordmaster” but way too complicated. When desktop publishing came
along WYSIWYG printing was made possible - the writer’s true
handmaiden! In the microcomputer world, classic computing, it was
“Smartwriter” on the Coleco ADAM. Those were the days!

Happy computing.

Murray