Re: Giving up on giving it up ...

["mhchoate" mhyerchoate@xxxxxxxx]

Good morning! Thanks for taking the time to write this. Encouraging. I will
save this message to refer to later. I've interspersed some comments below.

Marge
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harry Binswanger" 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2007 11:37 PM
Subject: Re: Giving up on giving it up ...
Marge,
By coincidence, I'm also 62. By non-coincidence, I also resist starting
over again to learn new software.
REPLY: Congrats on age 62. I like it. Hope you do too. My desire for
XyWrite is more than resisting starting over again. I have bought new
software. I have "learned" it. I was looking forward to the challenge and
adventure (haha) of learning something new. To say I've been disappointed
is an understatement.

However, the good news is that you are making things too hard on yourself.
REPLY: Hooray. I will refer to this message when I get in gear to do
something. Thanks.
To wit:
1. Xy runs fine on XP and, early reports are, on Vista. The most you'll
encounter in problems is tweaking things for the most pleasant colors and
cursor-speed (unless you want to work in full-screen mode: for that, no
adjustment is required).
REPLY: I will work in either mode that I lets me see the cursor easily. On
this laptop I cannot find the cursor unless I'm in full-screen mode. (In my
work I do frequent searches.) I tinkered with everything I could find to
tinker with, futilely. (As I said in my first message, I don't have a clue
why full-screen mode didn't work at first, and then after some passage of
time started working.)
2. In the next 10 years, you're not going to have problems getting older
laptops. Just buy them on eBay or at computer fairs. With tens of millions
of these having been sold, they aren't going to disappear off the planet,
and even used computers probably will work--but, if you like, buy
(cheaply) several to be safe.
REPLY: good tip. I had thought about trying to find a source of unsold
just-made-obsolete laptops. But hmm. Oh well, will worry about that later.
(The hmmm being how to I pretest if XyWrite runs, and if I can see the
cursor.)
3. Rather than mess with dual-booting and that sort of stuff, if you want
to reserve Xy for some older operating system, on an older computer (which
I don't recommend, but . . .), just get a home network (it's cheap) to
transfer stuff between them. To blow your mind: I just went to the
Start/Run thingy on my XP laptop (on which I'm typing this email) used
"Browse" to get to my wife's computer over the home network, found
EDITOR.EXE on her computer, and "opened" it (i.e., launched it). Xy opened
up on my computer. (Okay, I admit, she also is running XP, but I don't
think that matters.)

REPLY: I know nothing about "home networks" but will look into it.
4. The one modernizing slight challenge I'd recommend you meet is to try
Xy4, which is an improvement over Xy3. But that's entirely optional. It
will make your XPL programming easier, not least because it has a
"comment" facility. Anything after the string ;*; is ignored in the XPL.
So where Xy3 code looks like this:

≪...≫≪...≫≪...≫text≪...≫text≪...≫≪ex≫

in Xy4, the same code can be formatted and commented like this:

≪...≫;*;
≪...≫;*; This is a comment on what the program is doing here
;*;
≪...≫text;*; This is another comment
≪...≫text≪...≫;*;
≪ex≫
You understand that "≪...≫" is my way of indicating whatever code that
might be, including PFUNCs, and "text" indicates text that the program
"prints" to the screen when it's run.
So you can add carriage returns, blank lines (preceded by ;*;), and
comments at will.
REPLY: Interesting. Hmm. Sure could have used that feature when I was
developing my indexing programs. I did put in a lot of comments (by
branching around them) or putting them after an ≪ex≫, or maybe something
else I can't remember... but this sounds much better ....
Upgrading to Xy4. Hmmm. I guess I am a bit resistant to that idea. But I
will certainly think about it. I only recently became aware (because of this
list) that anything "XyWrite" was still available .... I thought I was
propping up a dead horse (to kinda borrow a cliche) to try to keep what I've
got running.
Thought if I was going to "develop" New Stuff I ought to do it in something
current. But haven't had the time to master anything that replaces all the
things I take for granted in XyWrite. And I hate shopping/studying
program/package features. And there is so much stuff out there!  I did buy
Access, and haven't given up on it. But I have been frustrated in finding MY
starting place. (In the past I have been fluent in Focus, and in DBase. I
expected Access to be a day's effort and I'd be off to the races.) The first
thing I wanted to do wasn't even mentioned in Access for Dummies. I then
bought a complete reference. Information overload, and no help in
deciphering the new vocabulary. What I wanted to do was not in the index in
any terms I recognized. Bought another book that finally pointed me in right
direction ( I need "programming" ) ... but still didn't tell me what I to do
to connect up with what "programming" language ... how to even begin to do
it .... But Access I haven't given up on ... just need time .... oh,
another issue... my Access is on an old (but still working) computer ... and
this laptop is so slow that I'm not about to start playing with another
thing in it, until I get my working-XyWrite environment safely isolated
and/or backup computer ready to go ... and I can't have Access on both
computers at once (grr) ....(aside to Patricia: thanks again for your
reviews/comments re databases).
Bottom line: fear not, and you need not rush to the store to buy new
laptops.

REPLY: Okay. I shall fear not. Many thanks.

Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx