NB and Xy

["Myron Gochnauer" goch@xxxxxxxx]

On 5 Oct 99, at 8:55, Nathan Sivin wrote:
> ... someone might just experiment by loading your XY
> keyboard in it (after first verifying that the heading is the
> same, or changing it in a copy), and then keeping track of how
> many of the key assignments in it work.

To keep from being all thumbs I did that, only to be stumped by a
lot of calls to my MNU, DLG and U2 files. Soooo, I loaded them
all. My U2 file is the Xywwweb.u2 version 44. I haven't worked
through things systematically, but a good deal of the XyWrite
routines work as expected (or fail in obvious ways). Perhaps we
*will* be able to use NBWin as a SmartWord/XyWrite substitute.

I compared NB.kbd line by line with my (customized) Xy4.kbd, and
they were *very* similar. The only functions that Xy4 did not
recognize were RM (on Shft-Esc), BL (Alt-Shft <) and
BR (Alt-Shft >). NB.kbd uses quite a few &X style calls to XPL
programs (I presume).

On the negative side, I've managed to crash NBWin quite a few
times (with default configuration), and in the middle of a large file
(500+K) inserting text is slow and jumpy on my 486SX/33. Screen
response (e.g. paging down) is decidedly slower than wiht XyWin
[and every other Xy generation expect maybe II+].

I hope the NB offer levers SmartWord out the door by the end of
this month...

Myron