6 Dec
2011
6 Dec
'11
3:38 p.m.
Out of curiosity, what is there in the way of modern software that
can read Word Perfect 5.1 (probably some 5.2 as well) for DOS
documents? The good news is that I retrieved all these files at some
point in the past from the 3.5" floppy they were on. :-)
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
6 Dec
6 Dec
3:58 p.m.
On 6 Dec 2011 at 15:38, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Out of curiosity, what is there in the way of modern
software that can
read Word Perfect 5.1 (probably some 5.2 as well) for DOS documents?
The good news is that I retrieved all these files at some point in the
past from the 3.5" floppy they were on. :-)
Don't most versions of Word have an optional filter package
available?
--Chuck
4:09 p.m.
At 05:38 PM 12/6/2011, you wrote:
Out of curiosity, what is there in the way of
modern software that can read Word Perfect 5.1
(probably some 5.2 as well) for DOS
documents? The good news is that I retrieved
all these files at some point in the past from
the 3.5" floppy they were on. :-)
Zane
WordPerfect is still out there; believe it or not
my company still uses it as its primary word
processing program. Not everyone has drunk the
microsoft kool-aid. We're moving towards
OpenOffice; all the IT types use that but still
have to support WP. Recent versions of
WordPerfect can export ("SaveAs") a variety of
formats, including RTF which should be readable
by any given word processing program.
There are several version that cost under a hunnert bucks:
http://www.ulead.com/wordperfect/setA_wpx5.html?trkid=NASEMSPfamily
One version claims to support Microsoft Office 2007 formats, for US$99.99
As to 3.5" floppy disks, my year-old 6-core AMD
monster machine has a drive that reads those ;-)
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at the same time, it is the duty of all citizens
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7 Dec
7 Dec
6:04 a.m.
On 6 December 2011 19:09, Tom <a50mhzham at gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
WordPerfect is still out there; believe it or not my company still uses it
as its primary word processing program. Not everyone has drunk the microsoft
kool-aid. We're moving towards OpenOffice; all the IT types use that but
still have to support WP. Recent versions of WordPerfect can export
("SaveAs") a variety of formats, including RTF which should be readable by
any given word processing program.
We still use WP 3.5 on PPC (which is freely available). We are loath
to move to recent Macs as we would lose it or purchase Windoze
versions). The "show-codes" feature has saved us a fair amount of
grief over the years when editing large documents. Why do the others
not have it? (Is it an IPR issue?)
7:20 a.m.
On 7 December 2011 14:04, Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
On 6 December 2011 19:09, Tom <a50mhzham at
gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
You know that you can download a free trial of WordPerfect Office for Windows?
http://apps.corel.com/lp/wpo/downloads.html
You could see if that will do the job.
I used it for a while - during my 2008 experimental couple of months
of using Vista! - and it is actually a rather nice, fast, smooth
Windows wordprocessor these days. I liked it. But OpenOffice does what
I need & I can't justify the expenditure.
MS Word does not embed control codes before and after formatting, in
the manner of WordPerfect. Formatting information is at the end of the
paragraph, which is why deleting the final carriage return of a
paragraph can result in all its formatting changing. There are no
embedded codes to show, that's why it doesn't do "show codes".
--
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Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
WordPerfect is still out there; believe it or not my company still uses it
as its primary word processing program. Not everyone has drunk the microsoft
kool-aid. We're moving towards OpenOffice; all the IT types use that but
still have to support WP. Recent versions of WordPerfect can export
("SaveAs") a variety of formats, including RTF which should be readable by
any given word processing program.
We still use WP 3.5 on PPC (which is freely available). ?We are loath
to move to recent Macs as we would lose it or purchase Windoze
versions). ?The "show-codes" feature has saved us a fair amount of
grief over the years when editing large documents. ?Why do the others
not have it? ?(Is it an IPR issue?) 
8 Dec
8 Dec
11:50 a.m.
On Wed, 7 Dec 2011, Nemo wrote:
We still use WP 3.5 on PPC (which is freely
available). We are loath
to move to recent Macs as we would lose it or purchase Windoze
versions). The "show-codes" feature has saved us a fair amount of
grief over the years when editing large documents. Why do the others
not have it? (Is it an IPR issue?)
WYSIWYG and YAFIYGI both have their uses and benefits.
Nothing beats WYSIWYG for an amateur playing with fonts;
V "I KNOW what they look like. I can get more DONE, putting in the codes
while working in text mode."
I have never been a fan of WordPervert (and they were "cut their
amplifier power cord at night" neighbors at Comdex! No, I was never the
one who cut it.)
BUT, "show codes" was a major redeeming feature!
The split screen mode, with its fake cursor, posed some trivial extra
challenges when printing out screens for Sybex books.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
12:24 p.m.
On 8 Dec 2011 at 11:50, Fred Cisin wrote:
WYSIWYG and YAFIYGI both have their uses and
benefits.
Nothing beats WYSIWYG for an amateur playing with fonts;
V "I KNOW what they look like. I can get more DONE, putting in the
codes while working in text mode."
There's still much to be said for handling things with WordStar. My
editor-of-choice on Linux is Joe. The other day, I was given a mass
of text that included tables that needed to be edited, replacing
columns and duplicating others. WordStar column mode to the rescue.
WordStar was WYSIWYG until prop fonts came along. I still have an
add-on kit for WS 3.3 (CP/M) that allows for prop spaced fonts, even
if they don't show on the screen.
There were several early text-processing packages whose formatted
output was very different from what was being displayed on the
screen. Troff wasn't even remotely the first.
I find that music notation is very similar to text layout. Actually,
it compares more accurately to calligraphy.
It wasn't all that long ago that most music scores were produced by
copper plate engraving by hand. And the result was some truly
artistic work. Even today, the troff-type Lilypond still struggles
to match the quality of the old hand-engraved scores. By the same
token, I can identify a computer-produced score from the likes of
Sibelius and Finale in a heartbeat. There's no "flow" or "style"
to
the output.
To see what I mean, take a look at the Lilypond essay:
http://lilypond.org/web/about/automated-engraving/introduction
That being said, setting a full orchestra score by text input into
Lilypond is unbelievably onerous. Most of the WYSIWYG "front end"
packages to Lilypond have been abandonded or are buggy or awkward.
--Chuck
9 Dec
9 Dec
4:48 a.m.
On Thu, 8 Dec 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
WordStar was WYSIWYG until prop fonts came along. I
still have an
add-on kit for WS 3.3 (CP/M) that allows for prop spaced fonts, even
if they don't show on the screen.
PropStar? I still have a copy of that somewhere. It worked on dot-matrix
printers, but was painful. I couldn't afford a laser printer at the time.
--
9:09 a.m.
On 9 Dec 2011 at 7:48, Steven Hirsch wrote:
On Thu, 8 Dec 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
No, this was a series of patches to WordStar. I used mine on a
daisywheel (Diablo). It turned out that WS 3.3 always had the
capability to do prop spacing, but there were errors in the
implementation, so it was turned off. I recall that what I purchased
(still have it somewhere) didn't even come wih a disk--it was a
series of instructions for patching.
When I moved to 16-bit MS-DOS, I used WS 2000 for several years. A
good product, but it was too strange to old WS users to get
accustomed to, so it was much less popular. It came with a copy of
Star Exchange, which was very useful for converting from (and to)
alien WP formats. I've used it recently for some crufty old stuff
that old conversion packages like RdocX and WordPort couldn't handle.
I have a copy of WS 7 for Windows, but have never used it.
I recall that at one time, Adobe Pagemaker was the format that nobody
could handle in any reasable way. Fortunately, we rarely see it any
more.
--Chuck
WordStar was WYSIWYG until prop fonts came along.
I still have an
add-on kit for WS 3.3 (CP/M) that allows for prop spaced fonts, even
if they don't show on the screen.
PropStar? I still have a copy of that somewhere. It worked on
dot-matrix printers, but was painful. I couldn't afford a laser
printer at the time. 
14 Dec
14 Dec
12:16 p.m.
On 12/8/2011 2:24 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 8 Dec 2011 at 11:50, Fred Cisin wrote:
I guess we're straying pretty far OT here, but I just couldn't resist
responding since music is one of the other loves of my life. Though I
read music rather slowly and poorly, I was able to detect the monotonic
spacing in the first examples before I scrolled down and read the rest.
I have a rather old copy of MusicTime I still use occasionally, and
IIRC I can go back and adjust the horizontal note spacing as I please.
I usually do that - for one thing to make the notes fit the words
better, as most things I use it for have words. I'm less sure about bar
location and bar tilt - which I find very attractive in expressing the
flow of the piece.
Mandatory computer related content: Software appearance matters - a lot!!!
(BTW, I agree that WordStar is still very useful at times. I think mine
is 4.0 and I use it under DOS or in a sorta-DOS window.)
--
Later,
Charlie C.
In God We Trust!!!
Freedom is in dire danger any time the US congress is in session...
Want to fix the post office? How about a "do not mail" list!
WYSIWYG and YAFIYGI both have their uses and
benefits.
Nothing beats WYSIWYG for an amateur playing with fonts;
V "I KNOW what they look like. I can get more DONE, putting in the
codes while working in text mode."
There's still much to be said for handling things with WordStar. My
editor-of-choice on Linux is Joe. The other day, I was given a mass
of text that included tables that needed to be edited, replacing
columns and duplicating others. WordStar column mode to the rescue.
WordStar was WYSIWYG until prop fonts came along. I still have an
add-on kit for WS 3.3 (CP/M) that allows for prop spaced fonts, even
if they don't show on the screen.
There were several early text-processing packages whose formatted
output was very different from what was being displayed on the
screen. Troff wasn't even remotely the first.
I find that music notation is very similar to text layout. Actually,
it compares more accurately to calligraphy.
It wasn't all that long ago that most music scores were produced by
copper plate engraving by hand. And the result was some truly
artistic work. Even today, the troff-type Lilypond still struggles
to match the quality of the old hand-engraved scores. By the same
token, I can identify a computer-produced score from the likes of
Sibelius and Finale in a heartbeat. There's no "flow" or "style"
to
the output.
To see what I mean, take a look at the Lilypond essay:
http://lilypond.org/web/about/automated-engraving/introduction
That being said, setting a full orchestra score by text input into
Lilypond is unbelievably onerous. Most of the WYSIWYG "front end"
packages to Lilypond have been abandonded or are buggy or awkward.
--Chuck
2:29 p.m.
On 14 Dec 2011 at 14:16, Charlie Carothers wrote:
I guess we're straying pretty far OT here, but I
just couldn't resist
responding since music is one of the other loves of my life. Though I
read music rather slowly and poorly, I was able to detect the
monotonic spacing in the first examples before I scrolled down and
read the rest.
Not so far, IMOHO. The subject of TeX was broached somewhere in this
thread, IIRC, which brought up the comparison of composition problems
in both music notation and text. Text is easy when compared to music
and it's such that handwritten music scores still abound even in new
compositions. It's also the case that writing a score by hand
ttends to take less time than punching it into a computer,
particularly if it's a complex one.
I don't think that Knuth ever brought up the subject of musical
notation, however. If he has, it would make interesting reading.
Cheers,
Chuck
5:26 p.m.
New subject: Professor Knuth, music notation - Re: Word Perfect 5.1 Documents?
On 14/12/11 5:29 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 14 Dec 2011 at 14:16, Charlie Carothers wrote:
Being an accomplished organist, he probably has a bundle of opinions,
but would need another lifetime to tackle musical setting the way he
pioneered digital typesetting. :)
--Toby
I guess we're straying pretty far OT here,
but I just couldn't resist
responding since music is one of the other loves of my life. Though I
read music rather slowly and poorly, I was able to detect the
monotonic spacing in the first examples before I scrolled down and
read the rest.
Not so far, IMOHO. The subject of TeX was broached somewhere in this
thread, IIRC, which brought up the comparison of composition problems
in both music notation and text. Text is easy when compared to music
and it's such that handwritten music scores still abound even in new
compositions. It's also the case that writing a score by hand
ttends to take less time than punching it into a computer,
particularly if it's a complex one.
I don't think that Knuth ever brought up the subject of musical
notation, however. If he has, it would make interesting reading.
Cheers,
Chuck
10 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once stated:
I don't think that Knuth ever brought up the subject of musical
notation, however. If he has, it would make interesting reading.
In both _Metamagical Themas_ and _Godel, Escher, Bach_, Douglas Hofstadter
used a program called SMUT to layout and print musical scores. SMUT was
written by Donald Byrd at Indiana University. And from the examples given,
it does an incredible job.
-spc
11:27 p.m.
On 15 Dec 2011 at 1:00, Sean Conner wrote:
used a program called SMUT to layout and print musical
scores. SMUT
was written by Donald Byrd at Indiana University. And from the
examples given, it does an incredible job.
SMUT evolved to Nightingale (Mac only and even for Classic Mac OS),
but it looks as if nothing has happened since 2007. I've never used
it, but maybe I'll pull out the appropriately-aged beige G3 and give
his freeware version a try just to see. There's virtually no
discussion of this package on the online fora, from what I can tell.
http://www.ngale.com/index_04.html
--Chuck
15 Dec
15 Dec
6:27 a.m.
New subject: Typesetting musical scores - Re: Word Perfect 5.1 Documents?
On 15/12/11 1:00 AM, Sean Conner wrote:
It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once
stated:
There's also LilyPond. http://lilypond.org/
--Toby
I don't think that Knuth ever brought up the subject of musical
notation, however. If he has, it would make interesting reading.
In both _Metamagical Themas_ and _Godel, Escher, Bach_, Douglas Hofstadter
used a program called SMUT to layout and print musical scores. SMUT was
written by Donald Byrd at Indiana University. And from the examples given,
it does an incredible job.
-spc
9:43 a.m.
New subject: Typesetting musical scores - Re: Word Perfect 5.1 Documents?
On 15 Dec 2011 at 9:27, Toby Thain wrote:
There's also LilyPond. http://lilypond.org/
I believe I mentioned that one when the thread was started. The
problem with Lilypond is that it's like troff--straight text input.
Straight text is usable for applications such as troff, as you're
essentially going from text-to-text. Try that with an orchestra
score where you have piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 3
clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba,
percussion, harp, celesta, divisi first and second violins, violas,
'celli and double-basses--all with parallel scoring (e.g. take a look
at the full score for "The Nutcracker"). "Cumbersome" doesn't
even
come close to describing the situation, particularly where there are
a lot of graphical elements involved. There's a reason that musical
notation is complicated.
To be sure, there are front-ends such as Rosegarden, but most are
either in abandonment status or not ready for prime-time. There's
been a slight move toward using MusicXML as an interchange medium, so
you could use your favorite WYSIWYG notation package, but MusicXML is
not exactly an "open" standard.
--Chuck
1:02 p.m.
New subject: Typesetting musical scores - Re: Word Perfect 5.1 Documents?
On Thu, 15 Dec 2011, Toby Thain wrote:
On 15/12/11 1:00 AM, Sean Conner wrote:
No mention of MusixTeX?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once
stated:
There's also LilyPond. http://lilypond.org/
I don't think that Knuth ever brought up the subject of musical
notation, however. If he has, it would make interesting reading.
In both _Metamagical Themas_ and _Godel, Escher, Bach_, Douglas
Hofstadter
used a program called SMUT to layout and print musical scores. SMUT was
written by Donald Byrd at Indiana University. And from the examples given,
it does an incredible job.
2:12 p.m.
New subject: Typesetting musical scores - Re: Word Perfect 5.1 Documents?
On 15 Dec 2011 at 13:02, David Griffith wrote:
The last place I saw MusixTeX used was in the Werner Icking archive.
While much of the archive's library started out with MT-trascribed
music, almost none of the later stuff did, particularly after Werner
died. Now that the WIMA contents are shared with IMSLP, I suspect
that WIMA itself may go by the wayside eventually.
I looked at MusiXTeX a long time ago and it did not seem easy to use--
and would require almost superhuman effort to support a full
orchestra score. Maybe my memory is faulty, however.
--Chuck
There's
also LilyPond. http://lilypond.org/
No mention of MusixTeX?
6 Dec
6 Dec
4:17 p.m.
At 3:38 PM -0800 12/6/11, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Out of curiosity, what is there in the way of modern
software that
can read Word Perfect 5.1 (probably some 5.2 as well) for DOS
documents? The good news is that I retrieved all these files at
some point in the past from the 3.5" floppy they were on. :-)
Zane
John pointed out that modern versions of Word (such as 2007) can do
this. It's the Mac version of Word that can no longer read the
documents.
Unfortunately it turns out I really need to read 4.2 doc's. Next up
to find one of my laptops from the early 90's, and see if I can boot
it.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
4:44 p.m.
My MS Word version from Office 2007 seems to support these documents. They
are listed on the drop down file type menu at least.
Terry Stewart (Tez)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
To: <classiccmp at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 12:38 PM
Subject: Word Perfect 5.1 Documents?
Out of curiosity, what is there in the way of modern
software that can
read Word Perfect 5.1 (probably some 5.2 as well) for DOS documents? The
good news is that I retrieved all these files at some point in the past
from the 3.5" floppy they were on. :-)
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
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19 comments
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participants (12)
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a50mhzham＠gmail.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
csquared3＠tx.rr.com -
cym224＠gmail.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
snhirsch＠gmail.com -
spc＠conman.org -
terry＠webweavers.co.nz -
toby＠telegraphics.com.au