Re: laptop ideas (kinda long post, sorry)

[Mark Garvey dutch_garvey@xxxxxxxx]

Wow...thanks for all the great responses, everybody.
VERY helpful and interesting.

I've tried--admittedly not very diligently--to run xy
in a DOS window on Win2K, but with middling results.
The window never fills the full screen (I just tried
again to make my DOS window fill the screen, and it
only goes halfway--I get full height but only half
width). And, if I'm recalling correctly, the font in
xy always looked a little weird running that
way...maybe just a personal preference thing, I'm not
remembering. If you have any suggestions for getting
the DOS window to actual "full-screen" mode (beyond
the "properties" control of the DOS window), let me
know and I'll give it another try.

Harry and Myron, I hear ya on the subject of things
like OED access, playing solitaire, doing email, and
web surfing. That's why I was about 5 minutes away
from ordering an cheapo Compaq a couple days ago.. I
keep wavering. The thing is, though, I've got two
other computers in the house for doing all that kind
of stuff--my T22 and a P4 desktop. I'm really
interested in taking a minimalist approach to this
"writing" laptop I'm looking for. I can be MIGHTILY
distracted by web access, email, etc. My writing gland
has the attention span of a toddler, apparently, and
the discipline imposed by a machine that can only do
one thing (or two, if I add my old Random House DOS
electronic dictionary) is what my writing sorely
needs. Although I will miss my Merriam-Webster
dictionaries.

I am intrigued by Joe's idea of running Win98 and
bypassing Windows through the system.ini file. Joe, if
you have instrux handy for how to do that, and if it's
not too much trouble, I would really appreciate your
sending them my way.

And Joe, I'm MOST intrigued by the list of machines
you put together. I'm going to waste a little work
time today checking those out on the web. I'm
particularly drawn to the idea of simple and rugged
(So I can prop it up on the hood of my pickup--me in
my hard hat, with a set of blue prints rolled up under
my arm..right Myron?). But seriously, all the new
laptops I've seen in my price range are so utterly
flimsy feeling that I can't see plopping down even
$500 for one. Plus they come with so much crapola
software I just don't want (The Compaq I was thinking
about ordering comes loaded with Win XP, of course. I
asked if it also came with the Win XP disk, so I could
wipe out the hard drive and just load XP. Nope--it
comes with a "recovery" disk that includes XP but also
all the other crap software that I don't want). That
mentality drives me up the wall--it's so opposed to
the purity and streamlined functionality that we all
appreciate in Xywrite.

OK, another over-long post. Thanks everyone for the
helpful thoughts and suggestions. I will repost if I
learn anything interesting in my searches.

Regards,
Mark



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