Re: Xy + Win98--any hope?

[Nathan Sivin nsivin@xxxxxxxx]

Tabitha Powledge asks about using XY on a fast Win98 computer. There is
plenty in the archive, but I doubt you will need it. I have been using
it with WIN95 OSR2 on a last year's Dell. Win98 is just a minor upgrade
that incorporates the OSR2 changes, trivial diddling, and some hardware
innovations such as Plug 'n Play Universal Serial Bus, which apparently
doesn't work very well.

I run both XYDOS and XYWin on my machine, with essentially the same
keyboard, startup options, default document directory, etc. XyDOS is as
easy to handle as XYWin; the main advantages of the latter are excellent
more-or-less-WYSIWYG editing (but a greatly inferior draft font), and
Windows printing, which makes a legion of typefaces available.

I have never had to do anything special to make either work. If you have
problems, I suggest reading the discussion of optimizing DOS
applications in a good manual such as _Windows 95 Unleashed,_ of which a
Win98 analogue is no doubt available by now.

If you have some reason to use WordPerfect, it is not hard to make it
more satisfactory by changing key assignments to make it resemble XY. I
find it quite useful for graphics-heavy desktop publishing and for
preparing files that it will convert automatically to HTML. It lacks
many desirable functions, but one can always record or, if necessary,
write macros and assign them to keys. Some frustration is inevitable;
for instance, there is no way to change ctrl-backspace to make it delete
a word backward. But WP ain't impossible. If you crave an impossible
program, switch to Word.

Cheers,
--
Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-6304
(215) 898-7454
nsivin@xxxxxxxx