Re: XyWrite Demo on eBay

[wbass@xxxxxxxx]

Harry Binswanger wrote on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:47:41 -0700

>Wally Bass wrote on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:17:37 -0600 (MDT)

>>Harry Binswanger wrote on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:51:25 -0700

>>>The Greatest Manual Ever Written--the big one in the ring
>>>binder for Xy 3+.

>>You jest, I presume.

>Not at all.

Hm. It's amazing how differently we see the world.

In my view, that book explained what was really simple and easy to
explain, and much that people would have guessed anyway, in great and
way-too-tedious detail. But when it came to anything difficult to explain,
it didn't explain it at all. An amazing case of form over function, IMO.

Which is why no one could do half\h\h\h\h 90% of the stuff that XyWrite
*could* do, until Herbert Tyson did his book (which really was, IMO, one
of the Greatest Manual's Ever Written), and until Carl and Robert started
writing their various absolutely essential notes as to how a number of
things worked. If the manuals had been actually decent,
Tyson/Carl/Robert's stuff shouldn't have been necessary.

IMO, all of the stuff that the three ring bound manual omitted or slid
under the table, as if these things simply didn't exist (such as 3 byte
encoding of data -- which ultimately is NOT invisible, and needs to be
understood), were a good part of the reason that XyWrite didn't make it.

Wally Bass