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Subject:RE: old school From:"Sam Beard" <sbeard -at- oico -dot- com> To:"Suzette Leeming" <suzette -dot- leeming -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Mon, 19 May 2008 11:18:57 -0500
Suzette,
I never worked with Wordstar, but I remember hearing about that
Ka-Boom thing. I also remember dBase III, as I was sent to a course in
it, along with PC-DOS and a word processor whose name I can't recall
off-hand, back when I was in San Antonio in the Air Force. I also
remember Wang's, which we had at our office in SA. I remember changing
out a daisy wheel on a printer to get a different font. I've also heard
of Ventura Publishing, Multiplan, and Fox Pro, although I've never used
any of them.
Also back in the Air Force, we had these machines called a Mod-28.
They had a keyboard that had only letters and numbers, a space bar, and
not much else, if I recall! They printed things out on a paper roll, but
they also made and read this paper tape that had a variety of punched
hole combinations in the tape. You could write a report on that machine,
using the a tape as a sort of template where there would be a certain
key pressed repeatedly to get a blank space that didn't advance the key
head. Then, you'd pause the tape running through, type in what you
wanted to have in that particular space, restart the tape until you got
to another place you needed to enter info, and do it all again.
Eventually, you'd get to the end of the report and you'd have a tape for
that report, as well as the "template" tape. This was necessary because
some of the reports had a VERY short time frame for reporting them and
they had to be sent with NO errors! A Mod-28 was eventually replaced by
a Mod-40, which was a computer-based system, and that was replaced by a
PC running regular software, as well as some
custom-built-for-the-government programs.
Samuel I. Beard, Jr.
Technical Writer
OI Analytical
979 690-1711 Ext. 222
sbeard -at- oico -dot- com
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sbeard=oico -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sbeard=oico -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Suzette Leeming
Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 8:22 PM
To: Lauren
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: old school
Okay - I'll date myself as well. I remember Multiplan, DBase III, Fox
Pro
and Ventura Publishing - the latter from when Xerox owned it. I've
worked on
IBM Selectric typewriters, Memorywriters, AES and Micom word processors.
I've used typetype machines, and those machines that made copies (I
forget
the name, but you used the typewriter to punch holes in the paper and
put it
on an inked drum). Offices usually had one phone for an entire
department
and women could not wear slacks.
DOS was exciting and I remember writing DOS scripts so that my PC could
boot
up with the memory configuration I needed, for work or games or
whatever. My
first computer had 2 5-1/4 in drives and 64 meg of memory and a green
screen
on the monitor. In my spare time I played text based adventure games.
It's not that I'm old, after all I'm merely 29 and a few months (264
months
to be exact).
Remember when Wordstar had that neat tutorial that started by telling
you to
press any key and then said "Ka-boom" to show users how it wouldn't
really
blow up? I always thought that was cool. And when mouse technology came
out
there were games like flyswatter to help users get used to controlling
the
mouse?
Suzette Leeming
Keswick, Ontario
On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 8:11 PM, Lauren <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net> wrote:
> AOL was around during DOS days? I learned DTP (tee hee) on DOS. I
liked
> Lotus 1-2-3, WordStar, WordPerfect 5.1 was my favorite app for a very
long
> time, but I learned WordPerfect on earlier versions. MS Word seemed a
> little quirky an ineffective to me when it came out.
>
> I'm not a dinosaur, middle-aged, yes, but not a dinosaur and I look
12,
> which only adds to the paradox that is me. Ooo, Paradox, I remember
that
> app, too...
>
> Lauren
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: techwr-l-bounces+lauren=writeco -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> > [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lauren
<techwr-l-bounces%2Blauren>=writeco.net@
> lists.techwr-l.com
> > ] On Behalf Of ActionA -at- aol -dot- com
> > Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 5:04 PM
> > To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> > Subject: Re: old school
> >
> >
> > Dave, I know exactly what you mean. I've had my AOL screen
> > name since 1989,
> > when AOL was a DOS-based application. I remember Lotus 1-2-3,
> > Supercalc, and
> > Wordstar. They were great programs.
> >
> > I don't consider myself a dinosaur. In fact, I still feel 18
> > until I look
> > into the mirror! :-)
> >
> > Nancy Adams
>
>
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Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats
or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
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Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
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