Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

[Les]

On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 11:27 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Ric Moore wrote:
> > 
> >> Programmers haven't seen the need for control-key commands since 
> >> keyboards started including an alt key and a bunch of function keys and 
> >> everything has a mouse.
> > 
> > I think his point was that all require that "\you remove your hands from
> > the home row due to the means by which they are called."
> 
> Yes, but if you are in a hurry you would type all the text first, then 
> go back through and apply styles instead of micro-managing formatting as 
> you go.
> 
> > I used Wordstar for quite awhile during my cp/m days, and still miss
> > it. 
> 
> It was OK for its time but it didn't age very well.
That is NOT what happened.  I don't remember all the details, but the OS
intercepted some of the main command key sequences which rendered
Wordstar unusable.  They couldn't even port it to windows without
removing the command sequences and replacing them with mouse gestures,
and that made it almost identical with Word, except at that time
Wordstar had merge and variable capabilities that Word couldn't
incorporate until some patents ran out.  At the same time Microsoft
bought up some of the vendors supplying snap-ins to Wordstar, and
discontinued their production.  I don't know if there is a complete
history anywhere, and I suspect that most of it has gone away by now,
except for some arcane archives somewhere, but it was a real disservice
to the world of editing, and among its results is the prevalence of
Carpal Tunnel syndrome.

Regards,
Les H