I'm slipping a bit OT here, but there are definite exceptions to your large file rule of thumb, albeit not in the realm of text editing. I work a lot with video files in recent years, where even a (somewhat compressed) .MKV file of 18 Gb. is not unheard of, and even though I mostly avoid the Blu-Ray stuff, handling the 8 Gb. that fills a dual-layer DVD (which is divided up into a structure of smaller files) is quite common to me. Some of my older or more basic video software tools will choke and die if I try to load anything of more than 9 or 10 Gb. size into them. Their development did not conceive of anything larger than a DL DVD could hold. This can be inconvenient, as I haven't come up with any workaround that I like for larger items, but I won't abandon the tools I know and like either.
Fortunately, I do not really have occasion to work with any humongous text files, so I'll keep on using Xy4, plus NB for the convenience in printing.
One other thing, also OT: I've recently been pointed towards the solution to a long vexing mystery regarding a significant but never-fixed flaw in 64-bit Win 7, which I will now pass along
to this list. In copying files to external USB, there was something like a 20 % chance that
the copied file would be corrupt -- particularly if the file was larger than a couple gigs or so in
size. I also noted this for quite some time with e-Sata, or even sometimes with copies to a
second hard drive inside the same computer. (This does not appear to happen with 32-bit W7,
though. I got tired of having to re-copy and test / compare file hashes, to be sure that the
copy or backup was good. If you want some web citations on this, I can dig them out for
you.) Obviously, a non-perfect copy of executable files would be disastrous, and if you were
making boot partition images for backup, as I often do, a non-perfect copy would likely be
worthless. The solution for this that was recommended to me is a program called TeraCopy,
which is free for private use. It copies a bunch of files from drag & drop, even
extremely large ones, then does a CRC compare between each Source and Target.
Jordan
From: Bill Troop
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2015 4:54 PM
Subject: Re: XyWrite's future - NB 10 or something different?
For myself, I am completely thrilled with the way Xy4 works with VDOS. I
would NEVER in a million years try to have a multi-MB file in any
program. It is just asking for trouble. Prudent operators always split
large fiiles, in any program, in any format on any
plartform. Disasters only happen to people who insist on large files. All
of that said, Carl, the one thing I would love in the VDOS environment is
a fully working JUMBO. - - Any news on that? It seems unfair that there
is something in VDOS which gives JUMBO trouble - - and it seems that the
VDOS people ought, if they can, to work it out.
I know this will make me unpopular, but let me repeat some traditional
advice: NEVER let a file go beyond 50 pages. In any program, on any
platform. If you do, you are begging for trouble. Remember, it is not
prosperity which is around the corner, but Nemesis.