Re: DSL, Win XP and Xy

[Peter Cassidy pcassidy@xxxxxxxx]

Are you running this straight from the DOS prompt? I am using Xy4 in
Windows2000 and it look plug ugly in full-screen mode. But in a modified
window, it looks fine. Make your Xy a window, right click on the left-hand
corner of the window, choose properties. When you get the palette,click
the Layout tab. At "Screen Buffer Size" set the width at 80 and the height
at 50. At "Window Size" set the width at 80 and the height as 40. Check
the box that says "Let system position window". Click the Font tab and
pick a font that looks good to you. In WIn2000 I choose a Raster font and
that looks nice and lean, easy on the eyes. Click OK and OK out of the
pallete. That should give you a pretty good looking screen for editorial
work without futzing with the hardware and requiring you to get new
software.

Peter

On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Lawrence Malkin wrote:

> I have run XyWrite 3+ on laptops for almost fifteen years.
> Unfortunately, more power has meant LESS clarity, and my
> experience seems to indicate that the problem lies most likely in
> the operating system.
>   If the following personal history helps solve the problem, it
> may help others. So, if anyone knows how to fool the Windows 98
> operating system in a way that will revert to a previous
> configuration, that might be the solution.
>
>   From 1987 to 1996 I ran 3+ on a Zenith laptop with a DOS 3.21
> operating system. This filled the screen with clear letters as if
> they had come from a typewriter , and the page likewise. It was
> beautiful.
>   In 1996 I upgraded to a Toshiba Satellite 100CS laptop and
> ran a DOS operating system as a parallel to Windows 95 (which
> provided the platform for conversion via MS Works in order to
> print or send by e-mail). In the full screen version, I also got
> a clear page with a good font, like a typewriter page.
>   Last November I bought a Toshiba Satellite 1800 and am now
> running it on Windoiws 98. If I understand correctly, I really am
> not running on a DOS system any more but a fake DOS in a Window.
> Inside that window, which runs 22 lines, I can use only a
> sans-serif type face which is OK but nowhere as good as before.
> The Window is also surrounded by all sorts of distracting and
> unnecessary Gatesian whistles that ring bells from time to time
> for unaccountable reasons. When I switch to full screen, the
> bells and whistles disappear, but the squashed type is almost
> indescribably ugly and very hard on the eyes. When I ask how to
> change the type or install the old DOS system, Toshiba tells me
> to get lost. So does my local computer shop nerd, who regards Dos
> 3.21 as something from the stone age and XyWrite as heiroglyphics
> at best.
>
>   I have posted this problem here a couple of times and
> received several sympathetic but essentially unsatisfactory
> answers. Gavin Budge suggested downloading Ultravision fonts but
> I was unable to find them on their German website--and, I fear,
> would not know what to do with them if I could, because the
> technical language was impenetrable. When I wrote about this in
> my newspaper, The International Herald Tribune, a former XyWrite
> user happily living in the south of France commented: He wishes
> he could turn back the clock in his computer as in the rest of
> his life, but he advised me to switch to NotaBene.
>
>   Does this history help diagnose the problem? Does anyone
> have any cure?
>   Is NotaBene the cure? Where can this program be obtained?
>
> Lawrence Malkin
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: 
> To: 
> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 8:51 AM
> Subject: Re: DSL, Win XP and Xy
>
>
> > Thanks, Irene. Sounds like the HP has to be in the running
> (Tim's post makes
> > me less worried about XP, though). The privacy issues with XP
> and the
> > backup/reinstall issues with both XP and 98 are another
> thing--but off topic
> > and, I guess, thoroughly enough rehearsed on this list in the
> past few months.
> >
> > Peter Brown
> > psjrbrown@xxxxxxxx
> >
> > In a message dated 2/7/2002 6:58:12 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> > irene@xxxxxxxx writes:
> >
> > ≪ Hewlett-Packard (1-800-613-2222) has the following laptop
> (model #F3466WT)
> > on special this week, in "limited quantities," for $1199. Like
> you, I am
> > worried about Xy 3.55 not running full-screen on XP (and other
> DOS
> > difficulties with that system) and have been looking for a new
> Win98
> > notebook. ≫
> >
> >
>