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The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

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Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#171

Post by deviaan »

bleachedsleet wrote: post #81
ataru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he doesn't want to have to create an account. Maybe he doesn't want to figure out how to disable cloud saves. Maybe he doesn't want to pay a subscription fee. Maybe he doesn't want emojis, mentions, hash tags and recommendations about what his friends are reading. Maybe he doesn't want a analytics report in his mail describing about how he used the software this week. Maybe he doesn't want "undoubtedly absolute…

Or maybe they weren’t and you’re just making an appeal to antiquity out of misplaced nostalgia and recollections about some amorphous Golden Age that never quite existed as you remember.

I think, in general, this is a good counterpoint. But the things mentioned really do suck. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact you can just use Google or Facebook to log into everything more people would complain.

The obsession with modern software has with mining every single bit of data they can is a huge step in the wrong direction. The silly "features"--like the 'what you do' or 'what your friends' do reports--are more annoying than interesting.

I don't mind, or might even enjoy, that kind of thing when I sign up for it, but it really doesn't need to be in every piece of software I use.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#172

Post by MikusR »

danpalmer wrote: post #149
simonh wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It' you're a huge fan of light brown, this is the movie for you.

It's almost like it's set in a desert.

It's set in many places. Water planets, interiors, dreams. And all of that is Brown/gray/bland.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#173

Post by deviaan »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #148
GekkePrutser wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't view autocorrect as an advancement to be honest. It causes more issues than it solves IMO. On a phone it's ok to have it because typos are so frequent but on a PC I'd never use it.

I use a combination of autocorrect and dictation on my Mac. My fingers aren't as accurate as they could be and I can't remember spelling to save my life. It's made writing easier because I don't need to worry about that.

The real solution is to just give people the choice. Everyone's workflow is different enough that there can't really be a "one-size-fits-all" program. I'd be ecstatic if we moved away from being forced to use certain software because so-and-so needs a proprietary file format that only this piece of software supports.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#174

Post by icedata »

olivertaylor wrote: post #132
slowmovintarget wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. You identified the prime characteristic for the CUI crowd: no context switching. Though Wordstar purportedly was superior for text manipulation. Robert J. Sawyer wrote an article [1] on why he still uses it. Made me want to learn it, but I realize that if I'm going to put effort into learning a tool, I'd likely want it to be Emacs instead. (I currently use Scrivener.) [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-te…

Emacs is worth it from a “creating an ideal environment” perspective, but it is a nightmare from a “stay focused” one. Tweaking your editor becomes very easy and very distracting.

I use emacs and org-mode all day long, and never tweak it unless there's a really strong reason. My goal is to keep it as close to vanilla as possible.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#175

Post by jweir »

contingencies wrote: post #94
tfandango wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I like my Kindle so much (and other e-readers are the same presumably). It does one thing very well, and not much else. I could read the same book on my phone but it's always popping up alerts and buzzing and so forth, breaking my attention.

Linux console gives me the same feeling. It's partly the font, partly the focus (no interruptions), partly the lack of latency. OSX + iTerm2 is so damn laggy vs. Linux even on worse hardware. It just sux when you have to, you know, input Chinese or open a PDF. Gotta say though, Dune was a disappointment to me, having grown up with Dune 2 on MSDOS. The old Dune had, you know, deeper characters. There's nothing like ea…

Here is the bizarre part.

Open iTerm, login into a Linux VM, run vim. It will be snappier than native on the host.

Go figure.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#176

Post by throw10920 »

causi wrote: post #4

There's something to be said for the focused nature of older technology. If you were to set me the task of writing something long-form, and told me the faster and better I did it the more I would be rewarded, I'd be doomed with a modern laptop or a smartphone. My favorite writing tool is, frankly, an IBM TransNote from 2001.

> I'd be doomed with a modern laptop

Can you not install Linux, or enable airplane mode or mute notifications on Windows?

> or a smartphone

You wouldn't want to write long-form on a soft-keyboard with a tiny screen anyway - even though, ironically, I know that you can silence notifications for sure (as opposed to a question mark for Windows 10/11).

I don't think that the problem is the technology - at least, not that technology - because it already has the ability to silence distractions. The problem seems to be with us - we're more distractable and less able to focus. Although, you can probably blame the internet and commercial social media for that!

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#177

Post by throw10920 »

icedata wrote: post #174
olivertaylor wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emacs is worth it from a “creating an ideal environment” perspective, but it is a nightmare from a “stay focused” one. Tweaking your editor becomes very easy and very distracting.

I use emacs and org-mode all day long, and never tweak it unless there's a really strong reason. My goal is to keep it as close to vanilla as possible.

I use emacs as well, and regularly get distracted tweaking it. Maybe the temptation to tweak isn't present for you - but is for a lot of other people. I think it's a personality trait.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#178

Post by throw10920 »

omarhaneef wrote: post #84

There are lots of stories about writers who are very productive using an old method: --This dune story, --Game of thrones (asoif) written on wordstar --And of course dozens of writers who still use pen and paper This is what these environments have in common: no or minimal internet to distract you

Not as a writer, but as a programmer, I can't attest that it's not just a lack of internet - it's a lack of distractions.

When I was a kid without internet or a computer, I continually got distracted from my schoolwork by a book, Legos, or just staring off into space and daydreaming.

Now, as an adult, even when I don't have access to the internet, I can get distracted by tweaking my Emacs config, playing with one of my personal programming projects, organizing my files, or playing a video game I've already downloaded.

It's not just the internet - it's distractions in general, and the thought-patterns (or personality traits) that cause us to be distracted.

However, you might have noticed a theme with my modern set of distractions - they're all on a computer, despite my library of books and my ability to stare off into space whenever I want. This reinforces the idea that technological distraction is much greater in effectiveness than (most) non-technological means.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#179

Post by jefurii »

happy_path wrote: post #37

Are we going to see old refurbished devices be sold as distraction-free machines? Does a new market for somewhat-luddite computers exist? I'd like to buy something like the freewrite [1] but cheaper, any suggestions? [1] https://getfreewrite.com/

If you're running Linux you can change some settings and boot to console instead of the GUI. The GUI is still there but you have to leave the console environment to get to it.

I'm not quite hardcore enough to actually do this though. I tend to do my personal browsing in Firefox, work browsing in Chromium, and media viewing in Chrome. By "work browsing" I mean only technical stuff directly related to my job - HN counts as personal. When I want to concentrate I just `pkill firefox` and all the distractions go away. Works pretty well most of the time.

Obviously I'm distracted right now.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#180

Post by dragonwriter »

pxc wrote: post #154
dragonwriter wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In terms of sheer productivity for an uninterrupted, expert user it's hard to beat the pre-Windows office suites. There basically aren't pre-Windows office suites. There are pre-Windows standalone productivity software products, but agglomeration of this into office suites is mostly a post-Windows phenomenon.

That's an interesting distinction. Do you think that maybe the agglomeration you describe is one of the reasons that post-Windows office tools seem to have worse productivity? I've never used old office software, but I could imagine that each office application being distinct allowed them to focus user interfaces on the exact use cases of each product, instead of trying to build on least-common-denominator metaphors…

> Do you think that maybe the agglomeration you describe is one of the reasons that post-Windows office tools seem to have worse productivity?

I think (and there were some productivity studies I remember seeing when DOS w/o Windows, Win 3.x, and MacOS were all popular that seemed to support this, IIRC) that WYSIWYG is the problem, distracting from substance with presentation continuously.

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