Re: old XyWrite archive.

[Michael Edwards mje@xxxxxxxx]

[Avrom Fischer:]
> On September 23 Fred Weiner sadly reported that he had a recollection
> that the older Archive had been lost by the former server. I had a
> recollection that Robert was maintaining something on a server for
> Xylist. Is my recollection correct. If it is what is being maintained.
   I have largely fallen away from XyWrite, although I have remained
on the list; but it is possible I may be able to help slightly in this.
   Unable to adjust from DOS-style programs to the graphic or Windows
style programs, I originally joined this list maybe 10 years ago, having
heard that XyWrite was the best word-processing program *in the world*.
 I'm still prepared to believe that may be true (the more software
today develops, the more I hate everything about the way it does things,
and the less I trust in its reliability); but it didn't seem feasible to
me to keep using software that was increasingly becoming archaic on the
computer I was using.
   I saved all the archives up to that time on my computer, and I
believe they began with the very beginning of the list and continued up
to the time I joined the list - which was probably around 1998 or so.
They were in big, long files containing whole months or years together.
 I also kept the e-mails that arrived for the next several years; so I
continued to keep copies of all posts for several more years.
   Now we come to the problem: that computer, an older I.B.M. laptop,
has not been used for quite a few years now, and I might have difficulty
running it. The laptop's keyboard got damaged at some point almost to
the point of unusability; but I do have another one of the same model,
and, in theory at least, I may be able to swap the disks around. But I
don't know if the disk is still readable - someone told me that a laptop
disk left unused for a few years can become unreadable, although I have
no way of knowing if that is true.
   So I cannot go and retrieve those files now, and for all I know
they may be irretrievably lost. (I hope not, because, if so, then I
will have lost a huge lot of other stuff too. But that is the grim
likelihood with my computer files, as I have had problems with other
computers too.) But I did e-mail those files to another member of this
list because she lost her own copies and didn't seem to be available on
the then list-server at the time (probably 9 or 10 years ago), although
I'm not sure if they'd permanently disappeared at that time.
   Until she gives the go-ahead, I won't say who it is, because I
don't know if she would want me to identify her publicly. But if she
were willing (and still had the files) it may be possible to get them
from her. If anyone wishes to know who it is, they can e-mail me
privately about this and I will tell them who it is. Meanwhile the
member may read this and know it is she I am referring to, and may
mention it herself. And of course I suppose it's possible other members
saved those archives on their own computers too.
   Failing that, I would be perfectly happy to make the files
available myself - if they are still readable, and if I can organize
myself to look into how to read them again. And I have to say that's a
rather big "if", because I am struggling with mental health issues and
this severely impacts on my ability to keep all my computer-related
activities organized, and I have many thousands of e-mails on various
old computers (including all my older e-mail) in a state of total chaos.
 So if I were able to help one day with this, it may well be years
ahead - and (I have to say) may never happen at all, as depression
continues to plague my life with seemingly no improvement.
   But I just thought I would mention this slim possibility, for what
it's worth. I would suggest that approaching the member to whom I
e-mailed those files might be the best approach to this, at least in the
first instance. If anyone wants to follow this up, please e-mail me
privately and we'll go on from there.

             Regards,
             Michael Edwards.