24 Nov
2002
24 Nov
'02
7:51 p.m.
Sellam Ismail wrote:
What's "real word processing"? You must
mean What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get.
In that case, sure, an 80x24 screen would be nice, but the same can be
achieved (and was, in fact) on 40x24 screens. And if we want to talk real
"real" word processing, why stop at 24 lines? Why not the requisite 60
lines to get a full page?
By your standard, no computer even today can perform "real" word
processing.
All word processing is, is a way to electronically store and edit a form
of writing, so one doesn't have to print several wrong copies to get one
that is correct. The simplest of tasks done on a computer.
Lowercase? A nice amenity, but the fact again is that
even on computers
that didn't have lowercase capability, people came up with effective ways
to get around that limitation. You seem to want to go back and compare
today's state of the art on computer technology of two decades ago. It's
the equivalent of saying that nobody could get from Point A to Point B in
any automobile before 1930 because they didn't have fuel injection, power
steering and AM/FM radio.
Yep and that's why we have gas sucking SUV's on the road rather than
small cars.
So what? People still did useful work on those
machines. I wrote a
database program to store my comic book collection on a computer with 2K
of effective memory and a rubber "chiclet" keyboard using cassette tape
for storage. Are you saying this was't real?
People on an ego trip with their latest Wintel boxes all have that same
attitude. Back in the days of a few K memory, you had to program tight,
and do just what you had to do to get the job done. By definition, my
VIC20 is a computer just like a Linux/Beowolf or Cray is.
I don't know, but I suspect you'll argue that
real work couldn't be
performed with computers of today because we don't have 4 terabytes of
main memory and a 100 Quadrabyte hard drive.
Those are needed for the latest incarnation of Windows code bloat. Real
O/S's should be minimal, like cp/m was in its day.
I have no idea what you are arguing about now. Sure,
computers still have
a way to go, but how does that justify your saying that no real work could
be done on old 9-bit computers?????
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
I stand and applaud your honesty on this thread.
Gary Hildebrand
St. Joseph, MO