Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
yes, you're correct. MSFT is again attempting to re-write history - they ignore the facts on how they began, and all those who actually were the brains behind these machines. From: CVAlkan fobe...@enteract.com Date: Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 4:56 PM Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code, To: users@global.libreoffice.org Not sure if my recollections are correct, but I don't believe either DOS (before 2.x) or the DOS version of Word were written by Microsoft. I seem to recall that both were purchased and re-branded. Word for MS-DOS was typical of the approach Microsoft would perfect over many subsequent years. Its success (actually not all that great) was based almost entirely on marketing. In its heyday, almost all word processors for the MS-DOS / PC-DOS platform were at least as good as Word, and many were far superior. WordPerfect (4.x and later) were far more suitable for anyone actually attempting to create a document. Word, for instance, took up fully half of the available (80x25) screen space with typically intuitive menus (isn't it obvious to a new user that Esc-File-Transfer is the appropriate sequence for saving a file? - and weren't most users pretty new back then?). And as for printing, one needed to have a Microsoft approved (as opposed to supported; even then, arrogance was one of their hallmarks) printer (nothing wrong with Epson and Okidata, of course, but remember when the HP LaserJet first appeared?) to get any output. Most of its competitors supported many more devices. My recollection is that Microsoft Word's support for the LaserJet (we had both where I worked when that first appeared) came a good six months after WordPerfect's. I remember training secretaries on an IBM standalone word processor machine (can't recall the model, but it used 8 floppies); this effort went quite smoothly. When we later began introducing those PC things, I had a devil of a time training those same secretaries on Word (we fell for the OS-WP compatibility argument), it was a disaster. We then shifted gears to WordPerfect which had an even higher learning curve initially, but most caught on to its way of thinking very quickly. When WordPerfect 5.x arrived, there was even the ability to display a graphic preview (almost WYSIWYG) display of the printed output on a normal character screen - and this was available not only for DOS versions, but on a wide variety of platforms such as the then popular DEC and DG terminals. Since most other machines had standard VT-100 emulation, life was good for WordPerfect users. In those days as I recall, I only ran into a minority of businesses that used Word. There were a good number of other pretty capable word processors in use, a number of which also included database and other such modules (too primitive to call them suites, I suppose, but the idea was there. But I think the combination of WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 was far more common than Word and (uh-oh, Excel didn't come along until later). Sorry for the trip down memory lane, but I agree that this is undoubtedly some sort of publicity stunt. Call me cynical, but I can't help wondering what's up their sleeve with this. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Hi :) In general it's safe to assume that whatever Urmas writes is the exact opposite of reality. I think most people can spot the absurdities or inaccuracies. For example 1. Gary Kildall, creator of CP/M attempting to assert copyright is written as though the whole notion of copyright doesn't exist 2. as James and Italo point out wrt easy and open and has been pointed out many times on this list. Even MS Office users often have trouble reading documents that have been saved in MS formats using previous versions of MS Office. Of course it's fair to assume there might be problems opening documents saved in future versions of a program or ones saved in really ancient versions of a program. MS Office has those problems too. LibreOffice, OpenOffice and the rest seem to manage to avoid that sort of thing being a problem by using a format that 1. is fully documented, without that being excessively long (was it something like under 3k pages compared against OOXMLs 11,000?) 2. is implemented as per the documentation 3. still has the filters used for very old formats On the other hand Urmas does give some good help to people and often about fairly technical or obscure things. So, that is much appreciated. Regards from Tom :) On 7 April 2014 00:46, Jay Lozier jsloz...@gmail.com wrote: On 04/06/2014 05:04 PM, Urmas wrote: CVAlkan: When WordPerfect 5.x arrived, there was even the ability to display a graphic preview (almost WYSIWYG) display of the printed output on a normal character screen - and this was available not only for DOS versions, but on a wide variety of platforms such as the then popular DEC and DG terminals. You are trying to defend a text processor which stores text in a proprietary encoding in the obscured format. Comparing to this, MS Word which used easy and open file format was a clear winner. I am not sure of my time line, but I remember only proprietary formats for early desktop applications and every software house had their own formats. The problem occurred because no one expected the problems with file type obsolescence. I doubt you can easily find a program that will open most word processing or spreadsheets from the before 1990 and you with some difficulty find one that will convert the old formats to a current one. -- Jay Lozier jsloz...@gmail.com -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
[libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Your point is valid, but only in today's context. It's hard to remember that, back then, the idea of actually storing your document on one of those computer contraptions was somewhat left of absurd. If the document was important, or even if it needed to be retained for legal reasons, it would have been put in the traditional and reliable storage mechanism known as a file cabinet. Even back then, floppies were regularly reused after the document was done. And the idea that hard drives would be available for less than a gazillion dollars per megabyte (and what the heck was a megabyte anyway?). So, the best format was a silly and irrelevant discussion. The only things the new-fangled computer was good for (at least in terms of word processing) were permitting changes without using White-Out, automatically performing word wrap, and such things - and, remember, for secretaries and typists, these were AMAZING capabilities. And did any of them have the slightest suspicion that they were looking at what would become their replacements? When was the last time you saw a typing pool? (if you don't recall, that was where the typists went swimming during their lunch breaks). Thus, screen space was quite important. Back then, the concentration was on improving the generation and presentation of documents. So - if you were kidding, I apologize for responding seriously. We often forget that, back in the dark past, Ken Olsen (DEC) couldn't conceive of anyone ever having a computer in their home (what would he have thought about in their pocket?). And Bill Gates famously said he couldn't see any need for more than 16k of memory (he seems to have changed his mind over time). Have a great week ... -- View this message in context: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Microsoft-Revisits-the-80s-With-MS-DOS-Word-for-Windows-Source-Code-tp4103960p4104377.html Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On 04/07/2014 07:50 AM, CVAlkan wrote: Your point is valid, but only in today's context. It's hard to remember that, back then, the idea of actually storing your document on one of those computer contraptions was somewhat left of absurd. If the document was important, or even if it needed to be retained for legal reasons, it would have been put in the traditional and reliable storage mechanism known as a file cabinet. Even back then, floppies were regularly reused after the document was done. And the idea that hard drives would be available for less than a gazillion dollars per megabyte (and what the heck was a megabyte anyway?). So, the best format was a silly and irrelevant discussion. Yes, the official copies were the ones printed out not on the floppy. The only things the new-fangled computer was good for (at least in terms of word processing) were permitting changes without using White-Out, automatically performing word wrap, and such things - and, remember, for secretaries and typists, these were AMAZING capabilities. And did any of them have the slightest suspicion that they were looking at what would become their replacements? When was the last time you saw a typing pool? (if you don't recall, that was where the typists went swimming during their lunch breaks). LOL about the typing pool Also, when computer thingies became fairly common most older professionals (mostly men) were miserable typists. Into the 80's one of the most difficult skills for the military to find was typing because very few boys learned to type. So anyone who could type moderately decently became the company clerk; it was too valuable a skill to waste on being a rifleman. Thus, screen space was quite important. Back then, the concentration was on improving the generation and presentation of documents. So - if you were kidding, I apologize for responding seriously. We often forget that, back in the dark past, Ken Olsen (DEC) couldn't conceive of anyone ever having a computer in their home (what would he have thought about in their pocket?). And Bill Gates famously said he couldn't see any need for more than 16k of memory (he seems to have changed his mind over time). DEC no longer exists. I think their remains were bought by Compaq; now part of HP. Have a great week ... -- View this message in context: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Microsoft-Revisits-the-80s-With-MS-DOS-Word-for-Windows-Source-Code-tp4103960p4104377.html Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- Jay Lozier jsloz...@gmail.com -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On 04/06/2014 10:14 AM, James Knott wrote: Jim Seymour wrote: No, they didn't. Early Apple PCs ran the MOS Technologies (later: Mostek) 6502. CP/M never ran on anything but the Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80. (And only on the latter because it was a superset of the former.) Eventually, Kildall realized the 8-bit processors' days were numbered (duh) and created CP/M-86, but, by then, it was way, way too late. There was a Z80 CP/M card available for Apple computers that was made by Microsoft. There were also clones of that card available. That may be what it was, since I know the college used CP/M for a course and they used the Apples. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
HOW about taking this discussion to the discuss list. That will free up the user list for the LO stuff. I just posted this thread to let people know, but I just looked and it seems to be the dominate thread on that list instead of LO questions. I am as guilty as others, but it is either time to end the thread or shift it over to a different list. Tim L. the original poster for this thread. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Il 04/04/2014 23:56, CVAlkan ha scritto: Sorry for the trip down memory lane, but I agree that this is undoubtedly some sort of publicity stunt. Call me cynical, but I can't help wondering what's up their sleeve with this. No need to apologise. FWIW, I really enjoyed reading your post. :) Marcello -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Kracked_P_P---webmaster wrote: Maybe I got confused. I thought my 10 inch was from a DEC system. It was sure big. Maybe they used a different type. I donated it to a college teaching staff for demoing old tech, along with my samples of a punched card program, and some paper tape. No, DEC floppies were 8 too. Back when I was a computer tech, I used to maintain some VAX 11/780 systems. On them, the CPU needed to have the microcode loaded, before it could do anything. This was done by an LSI-11 (microprocessor version of the PDP-11), which loaded the microcode from a floppy and loaded it into the CPU. I hated CP/M and had to deal with an early college computer center that had IBM [brand and not clones] PC-XTs and a few of them actually had a graphics card and not the original 80x40 characters type of display. They all were double single-sided floppy 5.25 inch. The other rooms had old Apple [before Macs] and they had CP/M OS options, and the next room had DEC terminals to the mini-mainframes. While I was there a math professor brought in the new Apple computer called a Macintosh. We also a 10 inch screen portable PC-AT or XT that weighted over 40 pounds. The next college center had both DEC terminals and a few dual floppy PCs that were connected to the DEC system via a terminal emulator called Kermit, if my memory is correct. I used its upload/download abilities to save all my work for that college onto the floppies and also did some editing at home. My first PC I had at home was a clone from a kit that cost about half of the IBM prices. Those were the days of the early home PC market and the beginning of a PC in every home idea. Before them, most home computer devices were toys. I only used CP/M on a Supercalc course I took. My first computer, an IMSAI 8080 could run CP/M, *IF* you had floppy drives, which I didn't. I used audio cassettes. When I was taking a Fortran course, I used Procomm+ as a terminal emulator to connect to the school computer. I also had an XT clone. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] RE : Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Jean-Louis Oneto wrote: When Microsoft bought DRI Microsoft didn't buy DRI. They bought Q-DOS from Seattle Computer Products. Gary Kildall, creator of CP/M later took MS to court and proved that MS-DOS contained directly copied CP/M code. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Jim Seymour wrote: No, they didn't. Early Apple PCs ran the MOS Technologies (later: Mostek) 6502. CP/M never ran on anything but the Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80. (And only on the latter because it was a superset of the former.) Eventually, Kildall realized the 8-bit processors' days were numbered (duh) and created CP/M-86, but, by then, it was way, way too late. There was a Z80 CP/M card available for Apple computers that was made by Microsoft. There were also clones of that card available. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] RE : Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Jim Seymour wrote: Nor was CP/M-86 vapourware. It was short-lived, because Kildall was way too late to the game, but it did exist. IIRC, the DEC Rainbow dual-booted CP/M-86 and DOS? CP/M-86 was also one of the 3 operating systems that were initially available with the IBM PC. The third was called (IIRC) pCode or something like that. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
James Knott: Gary Kildall, creator of CP/M later took MS to court and proved that MS-DOS contained directly copied CP/M code. Gary Kildall was a kind of man who believed that you can write something once and get dividends from it indefinitely. That didn't work well. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
[libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
CVAlkan: When WordPerfect 5.x arrived, there was even the ability to display a graphic preview (almost WYSIWYG) display of the printed output on a normal character screen - and this was available not only for DOS versions, but on a wide variety of platforms such as the then popular DEC and DG terminals. You are trying to defend a text processor which stores text in a proprietary encoding in the obscured format. Comparing to this, MS Word which used easy and open file format was a clear winner. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Urmas wrote: Comparing to this, MS Word which used easy and open file format was a clear winner. Gee... I coulda sworn April 1st was last week. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On 06/04/14 23:04, Urmas wrote: You are trying to defend a text processor which stores text in a proprietary encoding in the obscured format. Comparing to this, MS Word which used easy and open file format was a clear winner. Microsoft has never used an open file format for ANY software. Not even the Microsoft's supposedly ISO document standard format is really open because it embeds proprietary binary blobs. -- Italo Vignoli - italo.vign...@gmail.com mob IT +39.348.5653829 - mob EU +39.392.7481795 sip it...@libreoffice.org - skype italovignoli GPG Key ID - 0xAAB8D5C0 DB75 1534 3FD0 EA5F 56B5 FDA6 DE82 934C AAB8 D5C0 -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On 04/06/2014 05:04 PM, Urmas wrote: CVAlkan: When WordPerfect 5.x arrived, there was even the ability to display a graphic preview (almost WYSIWYG) display of the printed output on a normal character screen - and this was available not only for DOS versions, but on a wide variety of platforms such as the then popular DEC and DG terminals. You are trying to defend a text processor which stores text in a proprietary encoding in the obscured format. Comparing to this, MS Word which used easy and open file format was a clear winner. I am not sure of my time line, but I remember only proprietary formats for early desktop applications and every software house had their own formats. The problem occurred because no one expected the problems with file type obsolescence. I doubt you can easily find a program that will open most word processing or spreadsheets from the before 1990 and you with some difficulty find one that will convert the old formats to a current one. -- Jay Lozier jsloz...@gmail.com -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On 04/04/2014 05:56 PM, CVAlkan wrote: Not sure if my recollections are correct, but I don't believe either DOS (before 2.x) or the DOS version of Word were written by Microsoft. I seem to recall that both were purchased and re-branded. Word for MS-DOS was typical of the approach Microsoft would perfect over many subsequent years. Its success (actually not all that great) was based almost entirely on marketing. In its heyday, almost all word processors for the MS-DOS / PC-DOS platform were at least as good as Word, and many were far superior. WordPerfect (4.x and later) were far more suitable for anyone actually attempting to create a document. Word, for instance, took up fully half of the available (80x25) screen space with typically intuitive menus (isn't it obvious to a new user that Esc-File-Transfer is the appropriate sequence for saving a file? - and weren't most users pretty new back then?). PC-Write had more text space and less menu space. And as for printing, one needed to have a Microsoft approved (as opposed to supported; even then, arrogance was one of their hallmarks) printer (nothing wrong with Epson and Okidata, of course, but remember when the HP LaserJet first appeared?) to get any output. Most of its competitors supported many more devices. My recollection is that Microsoft Word's support for the LaserJet (we had both where I worked when that first appeared) came a good six months after WordPerfect's. I use to write printer driver files for PC-Write. So any printer with a good manual could have a printer file made for it. Every office seemed to have ordered a different printer so I was kept busy for a month of so, along with my computer center gig. I remember training secretaries on an IBM standalone word processor machine (can't recall the model, but it used 8 floppies); this effort went quite smoothly. When we later began introducing those PC things, I had a devil of a time training those same secretaries on Word (we fell for the OS-WP compatibility argument), it was a disaster. We then shifted gears to WordPerfect which had an even higher learning curve initially, but most caught on to its way of thinking very quickly. Do not remember 8 inch ones. I remember 10 inch, and then the 5.x inch ones. [single sided and then double sided] When WordPerfect 5.x arrived, there was even the ability to display a graphic preview (almost WYSIWYG) display of the printed output on a normal character screen - and this was available not only for DOS versions, but on a wide variety of platforms such as the then popular DEC and DG terminals. Since most other machines had standard VT-100 emulation, life was good for WordPerfect users. WordPerfect and PC-Write were the standard for the places I worked till Word 95 came along. In those days as I recall, I only ran into a minority of businesses that used Word. There were a good number of other pretty capable word processors in use, a number of which also included database and other such modules (too primitive to call them suites, I suppose, but the idea was there. But I think the combination of WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 was far more common than Word and (uh-oh, Excel didn't come along until later). Sorry for the trip down memory lane, but I agree that this is undoubtedly some sort of publicity stunt. Call me cynical, but I can't help wondering what's up their sleeve with this. If we do not remember the past, we are bound to repeat it was a popular quote for a while. MS needs a good publicity stunt or two to help with their mess with Win 8.x I read an article today that they are now going to add a function where it will look more like Win7 and be better at keyboard/mouse operation. They are also going to offer Win8.x to device makers [not desktops or laptops makers though] for free, since they can get Android for free. MS really is hurting over Android's market share for these hand held devices. Well there is also a movement to port Android to the Laptop. That would really mess with MS's market share. What is up their sleeve? A billy club, knife, gun, and many other items that they can try to convince the public that they are the best to know what the market needs and what people have to have to be a happy computer device user. Their OS and office suite monopoly is over and they do not like it. -- View this message in context: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Microsoft-Revisits-the-80s-With-MS-DOS-Word-for-Windows-Source-Code-tp4103960p4104153.html Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Kracked_P_P---webmaster wrote: On 04/04/2014 05:56 PM, CVAlkan wrote: Not sure if my recollections are correct, but I don't believe either DOS (before 2.x) or the DOS version of Word were written by Microsoft. I seem to recall that both were purchased and re-branded. DOS was bought from Seattle Computer Products and it was originally intended to be a hardware test system, while waiting for CP/M-86, rather than a proper OS. Do not remember 8 inch ones. I remember 10 inch, and then the 5.x inch ones. [single sided and then double sided] The first floppies, as invented by IBM, were 8. There never were 10 floppies. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 13:57:48 -0400 James Knott james.kn...@rogers.com wrote: Kracked_P_P---webmaster wrote: On 04/04/2014 05:56 PM, CVAlkan wrote: Not sure if my recollections are correct, but I don't believe either DOS (before 2.x) or the DOS version of Word were written by Microsoft. I seem to recall that both were purchased and re-branded. DOS was bought from Seattle Computer Products and it was originally intended to be a hardware test system, while waiting for CP/M-86, rather than a proper OS. Do not remember 8 inch ones. I remember 10 inch, and then the 5.x inch ones. [single sided and then double sided] The first floppies, as invented by IBM, were 8. There never were 10 floppies. 8, 5-1/4, then 3-1/2. The first Winchester drives were 10, IIRC. DOS *was* originally designed and written by SCP, but I do not recall it being a test system. Digital Research was essentially ignoring the new Intel processors, and the people that formed SCP finally got tired of waiting for something that showed no signs of ever happening, and created what became DOS. That was half of a double-screw up by Gary Kildall, who formed and led DRI. The 2nd screw-up (this story is apocryphal) was him leaving visitors from IBM to meet with his wife, rather than him. IBM decided DRI was not serious, stopped in to see Gates, Gates bought DOS, and the rest is history. So is DRI. I still have a well-thumbed and somewhat yellowed CP/M 1.4 User's Manual on my bookshelf :) Says Distributed by Lifeboat Associates on it. Anybody remember them? Regards, Jim -- Note: My mail server employs *very* aggressive anti-spam filtering. If you reply to this email and your email is rejected, please accept my apologies and let me know via my web form at http://jimsun.LinxNet.com/contact/scform.php. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On 04/05/2014 03:05 PM, Jim Seymour wrote: On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 13:57:48 -0400 James Knott james.kn...@rogers.com wrote: Kracked_P_P---webmaster wrote: On 04/04/2014 05:56 PM, CVAlkan wrote: Not sure if my recollections are correct, but I don't believe either DOS (before 2.x) or the DOS version of Word were written by Microsoft. I seem to recall that both were purchased and re-branded. DOS was bought from Seattle Computer Products and it was originally intended to be a hardware test system, while waiting for CP/M-86, rather than a proper OS. Do not remember 8 inch ones. I remember 10 inch, and then the 5.x inch ones. [single sided and then double sided] The first floppies, as invented by IBM, were 8. There never were 10 floppies. 8, 5-1/4, then 3-1/2. The first Winchester drives were 10, IIRC. Maybe I got confused. I thought my 10 inch was from a DEC system. It was sure big. Maybe they used a different type. I donated it to a college teaching staff for demoing old tech, along with my samples of a punched card program, and some paper tape. DOS *was* originally designed and written by SCP, but I do not recall it being a test system. Digital Research was essentially ignoring the new Intel processors, and the people that formed SCP finally got tired of waiting for something that showed no signs of ever happening, and created what became DOS. That was half of a double-screw up by Gary Kildall, who formed and led DRI. The 2nd screw-up (this story is apocryphal) was him leaving visitors from IBM to meet with his wife, rather than him. IBM decided DRI was not serious, stopped in to see Gates, Gates bought DOS, and the rest is history. So is DRI. I still have a well-thumbed and somewhat yellowed CP/M 1.4 User's Manual on my bookshelf :) Says Distributed by Lifeboat Associates on it. Anybody remember them? Regards, Jim I hated CP/M and had to deal with an early college computer center that had IBM [brand and not clones] PC-XTs and a few of them actually had a graphics card and not the original 80x40 characters type of display. They all were double single-sided floppy 5.25 inch. The other rooms had old Apple [before Macs] and they had CP/M OS options, and the next room had DEC terminals to the mini-mainframes. While I was there a math professor brought in the new Apple computer called a Macintosh. We also a 10 inch screen portable PC-AT or XT that weighted over 40 pounds. The next college center had both DEC terminals and a few dual floppy PCs that were connected to the DEC system via a terminal emulator called Kermit, if my memory is correct. I used its upload/download abilities to save all my work for that college onto the floppies and also did some editing at home. My first PC I had at home was a clone from a kit that cost about half of the IBM prices. Those were the days of the early home PC market and the beginning of a PC in every home idea. Before them, most home computer devices were toys. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
[libreoffice-users] RE : Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
The first floppies where 8, single sided, single density and were lade for punch card substitute: the 80kB capacity was then equivalent to a rack of 1000 80 columns punched cards. That was in the early 1970's. Before that, there was 14 amovible HDD, with a capacity of 2.5 MB, made by several manufacturer, IBM, CDC... The DRI CP/M80 then CP/M86 were nothing but vaporware, only the MP/M86 (multitasking variant of CP/M86) never had a real existence. When Microsoft bought DRI, they were only able to add some bugs to a perfectly healthy OS. Sadly, they were a lot better in marketing, and they took over the market. You know the rest of the story :-( Best regards, Jean-Louis Oneto Envoyé depuis un mobile Samsung Message d'origine De : Jim Seymour jseym...@linxnet.com Date :05/04/2014 21:05 (GMT+01:00) A : users@global.libreoffice.org Objet : Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code, On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 13:57:48 -0400 James Knott james.kn...@rogers.com wrote: Kracked_P_P---webmaster wrote: On 04/04/2014 05:56 PM, CVAlkan wrote: Not sure if my recollections are correct, but I don't believe either DOS (before 2.x) or the DOS version of Word were written by Microsoft. I seem to recall that both were purchased and re-branded. DOS was bought from Seattle Computer Products and it was originally intended to be a hardware test system, while waiting for CP/M-86, rather than a proper OS. Do not remember 8 inch ones. I remember 10 inch, and then the 5.x inch ones. [single sided and then double sided] The first floppies, as invented by IBM, were 8. There never were 10 floppies. 8, 5-1/4, then 3-1/2. The first Winchester drives were 10, IIRC. DOS *was* originally designed and written by SCP, but I do not recall it being a test system. Digital Research was essentially ignoring the new Intel processors, and the people that formed SCP finally got tired of waiting for something that showed no signs of ever happening, and created what became DOS. That was half of a double-screw up by Gary Kildall, who formed and led DRI. The 2nd screw-up (this story is apocryphal) was him leaving visitors from IBM to meet with his wife, rather than him. IBM decided DRI was not serious, stopped in to see Gates, Gates bought DOS, and the rest is history. So is DRI. I still have a well-thumbed and somewhat yellowed CP/M 1.4 User's Manual on my bookshelf :) Says Distributed by Lifeboat Associates on it. Anybody remember them? Regards, Jim -- Note: My mail server employs *very* aggressive anti-spam filtering. If you reply to this email and your email is rejected, please accept my apologies and let me know via my web form at http://jimsun.LinxNet.com/contact/scform.php. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 16:43:46 -0400 Kracked_P_P---webmaster webmas...@krackedpress.com wrote: [snip] I hated CP/M [snip] It was nearly indistinguishable from DOS, or DOS was nearly indistinguishable from it, depending upon ones perspective. The other rooms had old Apple [before Macs] and they had CP/M OS options, ... [snip] No, they didn't. Early Apple PCs ran the MOS Technologies (later: Mostek) 6502. CP/M never ran on anything but the Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80. (And only on the latter because it was a superset of the former.) Eventually, Kildall realized the 8-bit processors' days were numbered (duh) and created CP/M-86, but, by then, it was way, way too late. The shame of Kildall's mistake was that going from the 8080 to the 8086 instruction set would have been a boringly trivial exercise, since the 8086/8088 family was essentially an 8080 on steroids. Those were the days of the early home PC market and the beginning of a PC in every home idea. Before them, most home computer devices were toys. People did some truly useful things with those toys. My toy computer ran inventory and purchasing control for the company for which I worked, at the time ;) Regards, Jim -- Note: My mail server employs *very* aggressive anti-spam filtering. If you reply to this email and your email is rejected, please accept my apologies and let me know via my web form at http://jimsun.LinxNet.com/contact/scform.php. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
[libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Thanks for all the comments - By the way, are you the same Jim Seymour who used to have a column in PC-Mag (I think that was it - along with Dvorak and others)? Frank -- View this message in context: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Microsoft-Revisits-the-80s-With-MS-DOS-Word-for-Windows-Source-Code-tp4103960p4104262.html Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] RE : Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 23:04:42 +0200 Jean-Louis Oneto jl.on...@free.fr wrote: The DRI CP/M80 then CP/M86 were nothing but vaporware, I think you must have CP/M and CP/M-86 conflated with something else. CP/M-80 was anything *but* vapourware. In the mid-70's to early 80's, 8080- and Z-80 systems ran on nothing *but* CP/M. Oh, there were a few other also-rans, but they didn't amount to much. Micropolis, for example, had its own OS (MDOS), for example. I ran both CP/M-80 1.4, CP/M 2.2 and CP/M Plus (aka: CP/M 3) operating systems, and, in fact, wrote quite a good deal of code for CP/M-80 systems, including contributing to the original XMODEM and MINICBBS projects. I ran one of the first, if not *the* first, 24x7 RCP/M systems in the state of Michigan. Nor was CP/M-86 vapourware. It was short-lived, because Kildall was way too late to the game, but it did exist. IIRC, the DEC Rainbow dual-booted CP/M-86 and DOS? only the MP/M86 (multitasking variant of CP/M86) never had a real existence. I think I ever only saw a single MP/M system in the wild. When Microsoft bought DRI, [snip] Microsoft never bought Digital Research International. (Looking...) It was acquired by Novell in 1981. Regards, Jim -- Note: My mail server employs *very* aggressive anti-spam filtering. If you reply to this email and your email is rejected, please accept my apologies and let me know via my web form at http://jimsun.LinxNet.com/contact/scform.php. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
I have to correct myself... On Sat, 5 Apr 2014 17:14:12 -0400 Jim Seymour jseym...@linxnet.com wrote: [snip] No, they didn't. Early Apple PCs ran the MOS Technologies (later: Mostek) 6502. CP/M never ran on anything but the Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80. (And only on the latter because it was a superset of the former.) Eventually, Kildall realized the 8-bit processors' days were numbered (duh) and created CP/M-86, but, by then, it was way, way too late. [snip] As I was checking my dates, I was reminded there was also a CP/M-68k. But I don't *believe* Apple ever ran CP/M-68k on their computers. Searching for it, I'm reminded of the Sage 68k system, which did, and how I wanted one of those in the *worst* possible way at the time :) Regards, Jim -- Note: My mail server employs *very* aggressive anti-spam filtering. If you reply to this email and your email is rejected, please accept my apologies and let me know via my web form at http://jimsun.LinxNet.com/contact/scform.php. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
On Sat, 5 Apr 2014 14:20:24 -0700 (PDT) CVAlkan fobe...@enteract.com wrote: Thanks for all the comments - By the way, are you the same Jim Seymour who used to have a column in PC-Mag (I think that was it - along with Dvorak and others)? Somebody *just* asked me that question, here, a couple weeks ago. No. That Jim Seymour passed on a few years ago. Regards, Jim -- Note: My mail server employs *very* aggressive anti-spam filtering. If you reply to this email and your email is rejected, please accept my apologies and let me know via my web form at http://jimsun.LinxNet.com/contact/scform.php. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
[libreoffice-users] Re: Microsoft Revisits the '80s With MS-DOS, Word for Windows Source Code,
Not sure if my recollections are correct, but I don't believe either DOS (before 2.x) or the DOS version of Word were written by Microsoft. I seem to recall that both were purchased and re-branded. Word for MS-DOS was typical of the approach Microsoft would perfect over many subsequent years. Its success (actually not all that great) was based almost entirely on marketing. In its heyday, almost all word processors for the MS-DOS / PC-DOS platform were at least as good as Word, and many were far superior. WordPerfect (4.x and later) were far more suitable for anyone actually attempting to create a document. Word, for instance, took up fully half of the available (80x25) screen space with typically intuitive menus (isn't it obvious to a new user that Esc-File-Transfer is the appropriate sequence for saving a file? - and weren't most users pretty new back then?). And as for printing, one needed to have a Microsoft approved (as opposed to supported; even then, arrogance was one of their hallmarks) printer (nothing wrong with Epson and Okidata, of course, but remember when the HP LaserJet first appeared?) to get any output. Most of its competitors supported many more devices. My recollection is that Microsoft Word's support for the LaserJet (we had both where I worked when that first appeared) came a good six months after WordPerfect's. I remember training secretaries on an IBM standalone word processor machine (can't recall the model, but it used 8 floppies); this effort went quite smoothly. When we later began introducing those PC things, I had a devil of a time training those same secretaries on Word (we fell for the OS-WP compatibility argument), it was a disaster. We then shifted gears to WordPerfect which had an even higher learning curve initially, but most caught on to its way of thinking very quickly. When WordPerfect 5.x arrived, there was even the ability to display a graphic preview (almost WYSIWYG) display of the printed output on a normal character screen - and this was available not only for DOS versions, but on a wide variety of platforms such as the then popular DEC and DG terminals. Since most other machines had standard VT-100 emulation, life was good for WordPerfect users. In those days as I recall, I only ran into a minority of businesses that used Word. There were a good number of other pretty capable word processors in use, a number of which also included database and other such modules (too primitive to call them suites, I suppose, but the idea was there. But I think the combination of WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 was far more common than Word and (uh-oh, Excel didn't come along until later). Sorry for the trip down memory lane, but I agree that this is undoubtedly some sort of publicity stunt. Call me cynical, but I can't help wondering what's up their sleeve with this. -- View this message in context: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Microsoft-Revisits-the-80s-With-MS-DOS-Word-for-Windows-Source-Code-tp4103960p4104153.html Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
