[Glastonbury] Re: Glastonbury Digest, Vol 71, Issue 3

[info at wccl.co.uk]

Tim: > I assume you're familar with this:
> http://www.tldp.org/FAQ/WordPerfect-Linux-FAQ/

I can't recall ever seeing it before, not that that means a lot as I'm so busy 
I don't surf much. I have searched once or twice for WordPerfect for Linux 
and ended up on the WordPerfect website. Perhaps I didn't look far enough in 
google list. 

Having only used MSOffice and KOffice
> previously, I find OOffice by far the most straightforward. 

My experience the same. KOffice is better for one or two things, tho' I can't 
recall offhand what - certainly it did add up columns properly using sigma! - 
- but really I haven't used KOffice much. 

> I have never 
> had a good time with Corel products, I was put off by their bloated art
> packages and they completely lost my sympathy when they sold out.

I've never had anything to do with their art packages and my one attempt to do 
so was a failure. I had no manuals, it was an old version, I couldn't make 
much sense of it as a complete novice on their stuff, and decided it wasn't 
any use to me.... but I liked immensely how they later adapated some of that 
to the WordPerfect suite and gave us heaps and heaps of clipart and 
additional fonts.

> I've been party to many of these discussions in the musical world, where it
> has been suggested that we put pressure on the makers of Cubase, Sibelius

I remember Sibelius coming out and am pleased to hear it's still around. I saw 
it presented at an Acorn show and at the time it was thought pretty awesome. 
My younger son Tom, studying music at the time at school, was certainly awed 
as it was far better than anything he'd seen before. There were fervent Acorn 
fans in this family although we didn't regrettably at the time have an Acorn 
good enough to run Sibelius for Tom - their machines were so expensive. 

I was fascinated by Acorn machines because of my "visual" approach to 
computing. I had to use an IBM PS2 at the time, drab DOS and blue screen 
stuff, AIX green screen.Doubtless the AIX was great for the command line 
workers but I wanted graphics. All I had was a low selection of garish 
Windows colours. Tim had super graphics and heaps of gradations of colours on 
his delightful little Arc and could do graphical and DTP things on it (with 
so little memory) that I could only dream of as I wrestled with blue screen  
WP5.1. Then I saw the more advanced Acorns at the Acorn shows and I really 
was awed at what they could do besides the then new MS Windows. The colours 
on the Acorn screen, the gloriously realistic photo-backdrops, etc etc. This 
was I think the start of my loathing of Windows because it seemed so ugly 
visually and never seemed to catch up with Acorn whilst Acorn was still 
prominent. 

The best thing of all was one Acorn exhibition where they had a RISC PC 
running some films, cooking a pizza, running a heater and various other 
tasks, far too much for any contemporary non-risc (as they were then) PC. And 
the big joke that PCs were electric heaters because they produced so much 
heat. I've often since referred to PCs as electric heaters. Upstairs at that 
exhibition there was a large area where kids were enjoying themselves 
smashing up old PCs with hammers etc.

My elder son still has his old Electron, Archimedes (I think he said not long 
ago he still uses it occasionally for a few things) and not so long back 
bought a RISC PC, one of those constructed in slices, rather intriguing. Not 
made by Acorn these days but clearly some other co's are still keeping the 
brand or the products going or was last I heard.

I was impressed by the revolutionary Acorn RISC, such as I understood of it as 
a non-tecchie, and how important it became eventually. I had already known 
about RISC through IBM as well - RS6000 for example which my husband has 
worked on. 

Ros Williams
Wells Computer Consultants Ltd