Re: Out with the Old

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

Thanks to all of you who answered, publicly or in private e-mail,
yesterday's "Big Question." I am relieved, especially by Dorothy Day's
comments on GOfer. I had no idea there was anything but the old U. of
MN. Internet program. (I still remember my MEGO attack when Archie,
Veronica, and Jughead searches were explained to me. I couldn't
concentrate: all I wanted to know was what Ms. Grundy would have thought
of it all, and why, as usual, poor Betty was ignored.)

Anway, sounds as if you all are running XyWrite because of the wonderful
things it does and not out of technophobia. Most excellent. :-)

It also sounds as if for most of you (and it's true for me as well) the
presence of the command line is what still makes the program attractive.

Since comparisons were made with Word, perhaps you all won't mind a
short anecdote. Having discovered that the "th" around, say, 20th
Century was often turning up in mode superscript after conversion to
XyWrite, and thinking that perhaps academics had discovered yet another
stylebook from hell that they were adhering to, I asked one of our work
study kids, an English major. She smiled, said, "oh no. That's just the
default setting in Word 97."

Coming soon? The Bill Gates Manual of Style???

Have a good weekend and thanks again for the replies.

--
Leslie Bialler
Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx