3.642 software issues; op-sys pugilism (158)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Thu, 26 Oct 89 18:11:20 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 642. Thursday, 26 Oct 1989.


(1) Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 17:57:45 EDT (7 lines)
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.636 humanists and computers, cont. (79)

(2) Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 18:11:39 EDT (22 lines)
From: unhd!psc90!jdg@uunet.UU.NET (Dr. Joel Goldfield)
Subject: "Computers & humanities"

(3) Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 23:46:04 EDT (6 lines)
From: daniel boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Re: 3.629 software? scholarly journals? (77)

(4) Date: Thu, 26 Oct 89 11:42 EDT (31 lines)
From: <BURT@BRANDEIS>
Subject: software review

(5) Date: Wednesday, 25 October 1989 2228-EST (21 lines)
From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS
Subject: Software Rental Act

(6) Date: Thu, 26 Oct 89 08:16:29 EDT (17 lines)
From: David Megginson <MEGGIN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 3.636 humanists and computers, cont. (79)

(7) Date: Thu, 26 Oct 89 08:31:55 CDT (9 lines)
From: "Kevin L. Cope" <ENCOPE@LSUVM>
Subject: The Fuss over DOS

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 17:57:45 EDT
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.636 humanists and computers, cont. (79)

Let me say 1 thing in defense of MS-DOS. The single most important
consideration for a neophyte is the user community. If everyone
is using MS-DOS computers, then that's the system to learn.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------34----
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 18:11:39 EDT
From: unhd!psc90!jdg@uunet.UU.NET (Dr. Joel Goldfield)
Subject: "Computers & humanities"

Just to help our colleague 'rapoport@mcmaster' on the subject of DOS/dos,
as one notices on Apple II... screens nowadays, there is ProDOS, DOS 3.3,
etc. So, are they pro-DOS or anti-DOS? Fortunately, the acronym (here
I am back on the subject of acronyms--thanks all for your wonderfully
humorous comments of computer guru reactions to the ANSI list I distributed)
"dos" stands for nothing stupider than "disk operating system."

May I also re-re-reiterate my request, if I may ask just one more
time, simply to repeat the request, that contributors to Humanist
indicate their *real* name & perhaps affiliation as well, especially
if they know that this vitally collegial information is not auto-
matically appended to their e-mail headers?
Merci bien.

Collegially yours,
Joel D. Goldfield
Plymouth State College (NH, USA)
J_GOLDFI@unhh.bitnet
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------14----
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 23:46:04 EDT
From: daniel boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Re: 3.629 software? scholarly journals? (77)

re: word processor and text base for spanish and french: nota bene is
the obvious solution here. it's designed for exactly such tasks.
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------35----
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 89 11:42 EDT
From: <BURT@BRANDEIS>
Subject: software review


For simple day to day wordprocessing, I'd like to put in a word for
VDE, a public domain editor/wordprocessor available for the DOS and
CP/M environments from just about every bulletin board there is. VDE
is fast--it searches and replaces and scrolls faster than most
commercial wordprocessors. It is also very simple and can be learned
in a few minutes. (It uses the Wordstar command set, but it also has
many features that older Wordstars did not have, such as macros and so
forth.) It produces clean ASCII text which can be imported into
anything or sent to a formatter. It can be easily installed for any
computer and any printer using the installation program which comes
with it. It's very small (the CP/M version is only 15K!). It can be
used just as easily for program development as for wordprocessing. The
DOS version can be reconfigured to emulate other wordprocessors, and
can do multi-file editing in windows. (The CP/M version has macros
which simulate editing two files in two windows, butt it does this
with a file-swapping macro, so that only one file is actually in
memory at a time.) I use nothing but VDE now, and I have had much
less in the way of trouble with it than I have had with the commercial
wordprocessors. Since I usually use a text-formatter as well, VDE's
limited text-formatting capacities (it does most of the basic stuff
like pagination, headers, centering, and so on, but more sophisticated
things like footnotes are beyond it) are no problem for me. It is a
relatively mature product (some versions go back to 1984), so it does
not have many bugs, and Eric Meyer, the author (and one of the grand
old men of the public domain world) comes out with new versions every
few months.
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------24----
Date: Wednesday, 25 October 1989 2228-EST
From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS
Subject: Software Rental Act

The information about the proposed Software Rental Act
arrived too late for me to try to do anything about it
on the target date (today!), but it did prompt me to
wonder what are the REAL problems with this proposal
in the long run? (In the short run, of course, gearing
up the libraries to handle these situations will not be
a pretty sight in most places with which I am familiar.)
My first impression is that this is exactly the right
direction to move in order to stabilize a situation that
is already very badly out of hand. As I have already
argued (or stated) elsewhere -- e.g. OFFLINE 24 --
we should be helping the libraries to develop as pivotal
players in the new situation involving electronic materials.
How will the proposed Bill hinder this sort of development?
Or is my hope for the role of libraries unrealistic?

Bob Kraft (CCAT)
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 89 08:16:29 EDT
From: David Megginson <MEGGIN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 3.636 humanists and computers, cont. (79)

MacIntoshes are no longer expensive for educational institutions. A
MacPlus retails for around $1299 at universities around Toronto (Canadian
Dollars, of course). Compare that to the price of an 80286 AT and
you'll find little to complain about. The _only_ reason not to use Mac
would be something like WordCruncher. It is pedantic and unfair to
force students to use MeSsyDOS, especially since line interfaces are
nearly extinct. Teaching humanities students MSDOS and Nota Bene may
be akin to teaching Medical Students the theory of the humours and the
proper application of leeches.



David Megginson <MEGGIN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------13----
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 89 08:31:55 CDT
From: "Kevin L. Cope" <ENCOPE@LSUVM>
Subject: The Fuss over DOS

A grammotist recently argues on HUMANIST that DOS is hard, time-consuming,
and perhaps not the appropriate language for novice users of humanities
computing equipment. But what is so darned hard about it? Is it learning
strange words like COPY, ERASE, or RENAME? I thought HUMANISTS would
already know words like these. KLC.