Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Mon Apr 28 17:12:20 UTC 2008
Les 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.
If your point was that Microsoft is an abusive monopoly that deserves
better competition, then I didn't mean to argue with it.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
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