For KFrank Re: Future

[holmgrn@xxxxxxxx]

Ken, these are interesting threads to pursue. If only I didn't
have a 15 June book deadline! You're a smart guy, civil yet
tough.
Traits I admire. You have nerve too, raising Lazarus. I confess
to some complicated feelings that others of us might have done
what you're doing (had we thought of it); because I can imagine
several roads to real money wrought from the XyWrite engine.
Clearly, your feeling for the product, for what Dave
Erickson and those talented people accomplished, outweighed a
standard balance sheet evaluation. If these sound like delicate
ways of saying that you're nuts, well, join the crew. We'd never
be passionate or shout about our terminal program, or our mail
reader, or Excel. Who cares; they're just tools. But XyWrite is
different. It's too good, an exquisitely conceived Swiss Army
editor/manager; and we're exercised because 1) we're anxious, and
2) it -- the ethic it represents -- shouldn't be allowed to
disappear. I'm speaking seriously here; my editor is nigh to
being "me". The real question that we've all been posing to each
other for two years now (in vewy vewy qwiet voices) is, do you
have the bucks and the *vision* to pull off the miracle?
Or are we simply marking time? Because frankly, if we're going
to go down anyway, would you puh-leeze minimally leave us a
debugged XyWrite that reads long filenames? So I can squeeze
another 5-10 years out of it? Then I'll be at retirement age.
Thank you.

The exciting projects in the works sound, well, exciting.
Gets the juices flowing. I'm eager to see them.

Talk to you again in September.


P.S. Re: RelayNet. Call just about any good, big BBS (try the
Running Board down your way, in Virginia or Maryland somewhere;
or e.g. Moondog in Brooklyn, 718-692-2498). List the Conferences
-- if you find hundreds, then chances are that a proportion of
these, maybe 50%, belong to RelayNet. In amongst organic cooking
and magic, if@not() "XyWrite" often lurks -- Otherwise you
can enter a request to the SysOp to carry it. Plus, there's yet
another XyWrite discussion at 410-576-8806, hit X, 1,
R, F; expert assistance is allegedly available. Both of these
conferences are episodic -- a lotus-jewel insight once in a
while, spasms of muttering and grumbling until a thread plays
out, then ... Interstate stretches of silence.

P.S.S. That's a pretty good response to my "Development" msg.
Since I maneuvered you into not being defensive, and you can't
argue the narrow merits cause you'll lose (and possibly be out of
your depth too, I dunno), the best tack is to quote back to my
face words fashioned to have an "unhinged" quality (I rather like
that persona, its difficult to answer a patent lunatic -- but you
did good, you PASS, yours' has a similar sort of tantalizing
illogic). Still, I submit to you that I exercised restraint. I
could have thrown 20, or 50, examples your way, no one of which
matters in the least, indeed we cope with them *all* everyday --
and as you yourself so often say, we may detest Clinton but where
else can we go? It's the pattern, my friend. There _is_ a
hearing problem. Anyhow -- chow. En joie.