71–80 of 87 posts
How else would I have shrunk 12 pages of high-school physics notes to fit on the allowed 3x5" (76x127mm) index card with 0.1 pt font printed in raster mode at 600 dpi on an HP LaserJet 4? WP 5.2 for DOS. IIRC, Word for Windows at the time was inflexible in granularity of TrueType font sizes.
I know lawyers (who do a lot of very particular word processing) who kept using WordPerfect for decades after Microsoft Word had become the norm.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As other commenters have noted, "median US home price" is not a relevant measure here, where their location would have much-lower-than-median prices.
> "median US home price" is not a relevant measure here It certainly seems relevant to the discussion of "The things that were possible in 1980". Yes, it was possible to live more cheaply in the uninhabited exurbs of Utah in 1980. It's possible to do so in 2024 too! Upthread commenter was clearly evoking the idea of the US economy for low wage workers having gotten "worse" in the last 40 years. Something that's (1) c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As other commenters have noted, "median US home price" is not a relevant measure here, where their location would have much-lower-than-median prices.
> "median US home price" is not a relevant measure here It certainly seems relevant to the discussion of "The things that were possible in 1980". Yes, it was possible to live more cheaply in the uninhabited exurbs of Utah in 1980. It's possible to do so in 2024 too! Upthread commenter was clearly evoking the idea of the US economy for low wage workers having gotten "worse" in the last 40 years. Something that's (1) c…
I had an old, bulky laptop, Windows 3.11, and then WordPerfect 6. Of course, everything had to be installed from disk.
This was my technically totally limited writing setup, however I was very productive with it and enjoyed the setup.
Even on Windows 95, WordPerfect was my tool of choice. MS Word overtook only because WP crashed too often and the beneficial Grammar tool was lagging behind.
I felt sad the moment I had to let go of WP. Even thinking about it today feels crazy. I never ever again felt an emotional rift after switching to another tool. It was only this one time with WP.
I think Corel bought WP and somewhat tried to revive WP, but this came too late.
So long, and thanks for Reveal Codes .
For those who weren't there at the time: Imagine that all web editors emitted a proprietary document format that wasn't documented anywhere except in the editor that wrote a file and the viewer that interpreted it. You lived with this because that's just the way it was done. It was common to get a web page into such a state that 2/3 of the page was red, one column was RTL for some reason, and everything was in italic…
Surprising really that there really isn't a word processor that basically uses HTML.
This makes me sadder than I thought it would. My first computer [1] didn't have Microsoft Word on it, but it had WordPerfect installed with the OEM Windows. I've always had really horrid handwriting so I preferred to type out all my homework since I was twelve or so, so I had to use whatever I could to do so, and WordPerfect was there. I grew to actually really like it, and I used it for about two years until my hard…
This makes me sadder than I thought it would. My first computer [1] didn't have Microsoft Word on it, but it had WordPerfect installed with the OEM Windows. I've always had really horrid handwriting so I preferred to type out all my homework since I was twelve or so, so I had to use whatever I could to do so, and WordPerfect was there. I grew to actually really like it, and I used it for about two years until my hard…
Sorry to be very selfish. but reading your story gave me a sad flashback. I also had a similar problem writing. And I also learnt typing and LaTeX by the time I was 11. However, teachers refused to accept "computer-generated" homework saying you don't learn without writing by hand. And I was condemned to a stressful childhood.
Yeah, usually what would happen is I'd turn in 3-4 assignments with my handwriting, my teachers would see that it's completely illegible, they'd ask me about it, and in that conversation I would say "if you want I'm happy enough to type it out". To be clear, my handwriting is really, really, bad, I usually can't even read it myself. It was slightly better in high school since I was writing more often but the teachers really would have trouble. Usually for tests where I had to do things with a pen and paper, I would do my work with my illegible stuff, then very very slowly and painstakingly write the final answer as clean as I could and then circle it.
I guess I got lucky with having some teachers that were OK with it. A part of me kind of feels like I should have just worked on my penmanship but I genuinely do think that there are a lot of advantages to doing math with TeX or MathType. One thing I really like is that since copying takes no effort, there's no reason to not show every step, no matter how insignificant. I think my teachers appreciated that too; when I would make a mistake, it was never ambiguous to where the mistake happened because every step was displayed.
But what struck me reading this obituary is that he was a graduate of Brigham Young University, lived in Utah, and was a strong LGTBQ+ advocate, appearing to be a member of that community himself. I can't imagine that was easy, especially in the past (googling shows it is still condemned by the LDS church today) and he seems to have tackled it through very strong philanthropy and support.
Kudos. Kindness and support for those who need it is a greater legacy than any technology.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those who weren't there at the time: Imagine that all web editors emitted a proprietary document format that wasn't documented anywhere except in the editor that wrote a file and the viewer that interpreted it. You lived with this because that's just the way it was done. It was common to get a web page into such a state that 2/3 of the page was red, one column was RTL for some reason, and everything was in italic…
When I first saw HTML I grasped it instantly, realising it was just WP "reveal codes" you could write . Surprising really that there really isn't a word processor that basically uses HTML.