X-URL: http://video1.washingtontimes.com/technology/2008/02/william_f_buckley_jr_and_hight.html
William F. Buckley Jr. and high-tech
The sad and, to this writer, surprising news that conservative
thinker, author, broadcaster and wordsmith-without-peer William F.
Buckley Jr. has passed from the scene at age 82 recalls his seemingly
unusual involvement with high-tech.
Long before many of us, if memory serves correctly, Mr. Buckley took
to "portable" computing, lugging either a [9]Kaypro II or [10]Osborne
1 and thus wrestling with one of the first word-processing programs
for the "mass market," [11]WordStar.
Sometime thereafter, Mr. Buckley moved to Toshiba laptops and
discovered [12]XyWrite, a program first created for MS-DOS and later
for Microsoft Windows. It was a clean, elegant and useful solution
adopted by a number of publications and, for a time, by this writer.
In 1988, "XyWrite Made Easier" appeared in print, written by David H.
Rothman of Alexandria, Va. Though it seems to me that Mr. Rothman and
Mr. Buckley had little in common politically, Mr. Rothman's work
found favor with the founder of National Review, who graced one
edition of the Rothman book with an introduction written in the usual
witty, erudite Buckley style.
Mr. Buckley's last book, whose [13]title contains a word not normally
used in a family newspaper, comprises items from "Notes & Asides," a
feature Mr. Buckley compiled for his magazine since pretty close to
its inception. That feature was described as a forerunner of today's
blogs, and perhaps it was.
-- Mark Kellner, The Washington Times
Posted on February 27, 2008 11:53 AM
References
Visible links
8. http://video1.washingtontimes.com/technology/
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kaypro.jpg
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WordStar_4_CPM.JPG
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XyWrite
13. http://www.amazon.com/Cancel-Your-Own-Goddam-Subscription/dp/0465002420/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204130006&sr=8-1