Re: complaints and suggestions

[Daniel Say say@xxxxxxxx]

" I just called this morning in order to find out a) if you are
still in " business and b) if you have made any updates in the
editor since there " are still obvious bugs. The answer to both
was yes. ----------------------------
But the changes were minor, and unlisted, sigh.
I just got my update disk yesterday from 4 to 4.016
$15 and so what.  Back to version 3.

  Have you joined the xy-list? It's a private list run out of
Pennsylvania, not by TTG the current owners of XYwrite. (They
sold off Notabene, the sister to a small New York group).
  We should forward other previous to today mail to you about
complaints.

No, I'm not official, just an enthusiast.

   Join the list and hear the outrages of OkAnnie,
Gottfried, McSwain and other firebrands. Get hints,
Write off list and get hints and free disks. (!)

         Daniel Say
         say@xxxxxxxx
 " a fancy newsletter. Just some honest information.
   -----------------
   So join the list, Below is the initial
   statement.  And other basics to start you
   off. Nathan Sivin may contact you directly

   Look at line 128 and following for how to
   join the XY-list
            Tschuss, Daniel

---------------------------- sorry, but.............
 Company: The Technology Group, Inc. (XYQUEST Division)
 Address: 36 S. Charles St., Ste. 2200
      Baltimore, MD 21201
      410-576-2040
      Direct sales: 410-576-1990
      FAX: 410-576-1968
      Tech support BBS: 410-576-1733
 Summary: Year established: 1992
      Ownership: Privately held
      President: Kenneth Frank
=====================================================

From 74603.761@compuserve.com Wed Mar 8 16:22:52 1995
Return-Path: <74603.761@compuserve.com>
Date: 08 Mar 95 09:07:44 EST
From: TTG Tech Support <74603.761@compuserve.com>
To: Steve Childress childres@MATH3.CIMS.NYU.EDU

Subject: Re: Problems With XyWrite Version 4.014

The message on the phone machine may be a little confusing. It
is a little bulky to say that "We can be reached through the list
server at..." We will change the message. Obviously since you
have subscribed to the list server you are aware that this is NOT
being run by technical support, but rather by Nathan
Sivin. We do have a CompuServe address where mail may be posted
directly to us that address is 74603,761. There is also a
discussion group on CompuServe in the PC Apps section under
WordProcessing. Our BBS is also available at
(410)576-8806.
There has been some discussion as to Tech Support's role in this
forum.
Basically, we will answer questions posted directly to our
attention and will advise on other issues when we feel it is
necessary. We will also post product updates and other
information on this service. It had been our understanding that
these user groups had been formed so that users could help one
another, and so we may not respond to every issue or matter of
concern. We do read all messages posted here and respond when
asked to.
Regards,
Kevin Duval
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++

From: "Beeson, Douglas" 
To: XyWrite User Group 
Subject: Xy3+ and Sig. Tech Support
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 95 15:01:00 EST

This is the message concerning Xywrite 3+ and Signature technical
support that is posted on the TTG bulletin board:

      XyWrite 3+/Signature Tech Support Policy

   Effective February 1, 1995 technical support for single
license users of XyWrite 3+ and Signature will be available on a
fee basis only.  Customers may pay a $15.00 fee for each
question posed at the time of their call, or may subscribe to a
6-month technical support service contract for $59.00.  XyWrite
3+ Customers may also choose to upgrade to either XyWrite 4 for
DOS or XyWrite 4 for Windows at special upgrade prices of $99.00
and $129.00 respectively. Signature Customers may upgrade to
either XyWrite 4 for DOS or XyWrite 4 for Windows at special
upgrade prices of $79.00 and $129.00 respectively. Any of these
items may be billed either to a Visa or MasterCard.

   There is no support for versions of XyWrite earlier than 3.5x.
   Multi-License users should have their system administrator
contact Karin Walker at (410)576-2040 for special pricing.

   Printers
   Many of the requests we receive are for printer drivers.
While we are no longer developing printer drivers for XyWrite 3+
and Signature, many of those already developed can be used with
today's newer printers. For the $15.00 fee you will receive the
printer driver requested, installation instructions, and help
with installation if necessary. Please note that we cannot
address customization issues such as special characters, fonts,
or paper trays under this fee. If you need help with those or
other printer functions, there will be a separate fee.

   BBS Access
   XyWrite 3+ and Signature customers, as always, may download
new printer drivers or other files from our BBS. The BBS is
available at (410)576-8806. The settings are n,8,1 and can
handle speeds up to 14.4bps.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.

Subject: Re: welcomes & farewells
To: xywrite@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 08:52:33 -0500 (EST)
Sender: owner-xywrite@ccat.sas.upenn.edu

-----------------Would you like to subscribe ? -----------------

             WELCOME TO THE
               XYWRITE
             DISCUSSION GROUP

               from

      Nathan Sivin (nsivin @ mail.sas.upenn.edu)

              1994.3.28

INTRODUCTION
============

The XyWrite Discussion Group operates from the list server at the
Center for the Computer Analysis of Texts at the University of
Pennsylvania.  It was founded and is administered by Nathan
Sivin of the Department of History and Sociology of Science at
the University (with technical help from CCAT). The Group
exists to facilitate the exchange of information, ideas, XPL
programs, solutions to problems, etc. You can post a question
for colleagues to answer, propose a topic for discussion, reply
to an earlier query, trade information, and so on.

The Group is open to you if you are able to send e-mail messages
to and receive them from Internet addresses, regardless of
whether you have a connection to an Internet account. When you
subscribe, your e-mail address is added to the distribution list
for all messages. You then receive by e-mail every message that
others address to the list (XYWRITE@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU). Every
message you send, including every direct reply to a message, is
forwarded to every other subscriber. You can suspend or end
your subscription at any time. There is no charge for any Group
activity.

In addition to forwarding messages, the Group maintains programs
and files contributed by you and other members that subscribers
can choose and download individually, as well as archives of the
messages sent to the list, prepared every month and kept for a
year or two. Such files will be maintained by our list server.
Available files are described, and detailed instructions for
downloading binary files via Anonymous FTP, are given in the
text file CATALOG.DOC. For submitting files to be kept and
distributed, see below.

GETTING INVOLVED IN THE GROUP
=============================

There are two different ways to follow and contribute to the
Group's ongoing discussions.

It is not essential to subscribe in order to take part in the
Group.  You can always send individual messages, which, if they
are addressed to the Group, will be automatically forwarded to
all subscribers. Those who receive the message can then reply
to you privately. If this is what you prefer, specify in your
message that you are not a subscriber and should be contacted
privately.

Most people who want to follow the discussions find it convenient
to sign up with our "list server", a computer which will
automatically deliver copies of all the Group's correspondence
to your Internet, Bitnet, online service, or other e-mail
address, and redistribute messages from you.

PLEASE NOTE that everything concerned with subscribing is
transacted not with the Group itself
(XYWRITE@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU) but with the list server
(LSTSRV@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU). Its sole function is to
automatically maintain mailing lists for various groups,
redistribute messages, and provide basic information about the
lists when requested.  Because the process is automatic, your
requests must be in a set form.  Any subscription requests sent
to the Group address cannot be acted upon, just as messages for
the Group will be lost if they go to the list server.

SUBSCRIBING
===========

Start your subscription by mailing to LSTSRV@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU
the following message in a single line:

subscribe xywrite

The list server ignores subject lines, so it is simplest to avoid
 providing your message with a subject. If your e-mail program
automatically appends anything (e.g., a "signature" or return
address) after the message, you can erase it. Alternatively,
you can make sure it is ignored, as it must be, by appending
"end" as an additional line.  Your message would thus be these
two lines, and what follows would not matter:

subscribe xywrite end

The list server will arrange (without human intervention) for
your subscription to go to the address from which you sent the
message. If you want it to go to a different address, say
jones@math.ukleuven.be, your message would specify the address
and the subscriber, as well as your own name in parentheses:

subscribe xywrite jones@math.ukleuven.be (Tom Jones)

As soon as your subscription is processed you will receive an
up-to-date copy of this welcoming message with complete
instructions. Whenever you want to end your subscription, send
the following one-line message, with the additions above if
necessary:

unsubscribe xywrite

OTHER BUSINESS WITH THE LIST SERVER
===================================

The list server can respond automatically and quickly (by
separate e- mail replies) to a few other useful commands, all of
which should be sent as single-line messages to LSTSRV:

To have an index of the files stored in the EAAN directory of
CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU sent to your e-mail address:

index xywrite

To have a file stored in XYWRITE@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU sent to your
e-mail address, send the full file specification as determined
from the index:

get xywrite FILESPEC

for instance get xywrite CATALOG.DOC which will get you a list
describing all downloadable files.

To find out who is on the XYWRITE list:

who xywrite

To have general introductory information for XYWRITE (that is,
the current version of this file) sent to you:

info xywrite

For information about all the lists served by the list server:

lists

TAKING PART IN THE GROUP
========================

When you want to send a message to all subscribers, just send it
as ordinary e-mail to the Internet address
XYWRITE@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU. A copy will automatically be
forwarded to all of the Group's subscribers. By the same logic,
if you use the e-mail "Reply" function to respond to incoming
mail from a member of the Group, it will automatically be
addressed back *to the entire group* (i.e. to
XYWRITE@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU, and thence to all subscribers!). If
what you have to say is not of general interest, then please
take the trouble to send it only to the sender, whose private
address you can find in the header of his or her message.

We also ask that, when you are replying and your e-mail program
asks you whether you want to quote the message to which you are
replying, that you limit your quotation. Use it only if the
point will not be clear, or if you are replying to an old
message that other subscribers will have forgotten about. If
you do quote it, edit the quotation so that you just keep the
essential part, or better yet summarize. Taking this trouble
will keep your message from being needlessly large, a
convenience for everyone.

You are welcome to contact the Group about any topic connected
with XyWrite and its uses. All messages are automatically
accepted and forwarded. The Group provides a place to post
messages, try out ideas, ask questions, etc. Please keep in
mind, however, that

1. E-mail is never a private or secure facility. If you are
concerned about who reads your messages, you may want to think
twice about sending them via e-mail. In addition, anyone may
subscribe to this list. Any message sent to the list goes to
all subscribers.

2. Most people do not read their e-mail every day, and not many
post a message when they are away from their universities, even
for an extended period. It is a good idea not to trust e-mail
for urgent matters.

3. Please be kind to other subscribers by not sending irrelevant
 materials, or materials meant only for one subscriber (unless
you are confident that they will interest a number of
subscribers). Remember that you can get the private e-mail
addresses of subscribers from the list server (and from many
other directories, using the WHOIS and FINGER commands in UNIX)
and send individual messages.

Now that junk fax is common, junk Internet is on the horizon. It
may be essential sooner or later to change this to a monitored
list, on which all subscriptions must be approved, and every
message screened before redistribution. But we would prefer to
keep it open, and will do so as long as it is not abused.

PREPARING MESSAGES AND OTHER FILES
==================================

All messages must be in ASCII text form. It is usually easier to
create them in your word processor, edit and proofread them, and
upload them than to use the crippled editor in your e-mail
package. Some programs (PC-WRITE, XYWRITE, NOTA BENE) normally
produce ASCII files; all others provide a way of saving files in
ASCII form. Since messages are transmitted via many different
computers, some of which do not use the full IBM ASCII set and
others of which use an entirely different standard, it is a good
idea to avoid ASCII characters below no. 32 and above no. 128,
such as letters with diacritics.  If your computer uses tab
characters to indent paragraphs (as WordPerfect 5.1 does), please
 avoid them, or delete them before saving the ASCII file.

If you compose your message with XyWrite, please remove all
deltas and insert hard returns at the end of each line before
sending. Avoid lines more than 65 characters long. There are
various XPL programs for the purpose, one of was posted for
anonymous ftp download in XYLNS.ZIP. If you want to keep it
simple, you can load STRIP.PRN (command: ldprn strip.prn), then
print to a file (command: printf ,filename), and finally, if
necessary, call the output file and clean it up.

The best layout to use is plain block form, in which paragraphs
are not indented and a blank line separates paragraphs. This
document is an example. This form can be read on virtually
every computer. If your computer uses tab characters to indent
paragraphs (as WordPerfect 5.1 does), please avoid them, or
delete them before saving the ASCII file.

Please check the file before sending it. The simplest way to
check a file is to use the DOS "TYPE" command, followed by a
vertical bar and the "MORE" filter command (i.e., at the DOS
prompt:

type filespec | more

but the vertical bar before "more" above may not be intact by the
time this message reaches you). That command will show you a
screenful of text at a time. Any non-standard characters will
be readily visible.

UPLOADING FILES
===============

When you send e-mail messages to the list, they are simply
redistributed. If you have a program or other file that you
would like to have stored so that people can download and use
it, special arrangements must be made to upload and store it.
Programs must be sent in binary form, zipped if they are long.
If you are unable to send binary files, the alternative is to
use XX-encoding, preferably with the utility shareware program
UUXFER. Contact me for information.

Before deciding whether and what to upload, I suggest you try
ordering one or more of the few files already posted on the
list. Note their form before deciding how to format your own
files.


IDENTIFYING AND ORDERING FILES
==============================

You can use an "index" message, as explained above, to get a list
of available files, and a "get" message to order them.

For instance, "index" will let you know that among the files
available (beginning in mid-April 1994) are

CATALOG.DOC (a description of each available file)

The first file to order is CATALOG.DOC, to help you choose
others. To order any file, note that you must use a period
between filename and filetype. Thus to order that one you use
the command:

get xywrite catalog.doc

If you know how to use "anonymous ftp", you can interactively
examine the directory and individual files and download them
yourself.

The monthly archives of discussions, which will let you catch up
with earlier activities, are compiled automatically into text
files.  They may be ordered or downloaded in the same way as
other text files.

Good luck, and have fun. If you wish to contact me directly, do
so either at

LSTSRV-OWNER@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU

or my private Internet address,

NSIVIN@MAIL.SAS.UPENN.EDU

My postal address is appended at the end of every message from
me.  Please note that it is not possible for me to answer or
even read messages every day.

-- Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-3325