Re: DSL, Win XP and Xy

["Lawrence Malkin" malkinlit@xxxxxxxx]

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. ≫
>
>