CompuServe Thread

#WordPerfect

5 messages in this thread
#132696From: Jim VentolaJul 1, 1988 12:37 AM
WP is surprisingly slow the first few times you use it. ( I am used to it now.) I came to it from Easy Script and then SuperScript on the C64. To move throught a document can take measurable SECONDS, up to 10 for a very long document because WP must format everything below the cursor. There are good and valid reasons for this, which Lynn can explaing. With the others, you just move a bit or some such magic and you are there. So yes, UEDIT seems to be like lightening compared with WP. On the other hand, I am now actually getting to LIKE the speed of WP. I find I enjoy riding more when I obey the 55 mph limit, and am less tired when I get there. Or like an ADAGIO–you get in the mood. WordPerfect takes some time to load. It takes much less than I thought it did, since I used to go through the rigamoarole of making it my SYS: disk each time I wanted to use it. Now I just have all the Libs programs in Sys:libs and the problem is not as bad as it was. I think that could be explained better in the manual, but then when I first read the manual I knew next to nothing about the Amiga and probably wouldn't have understood it. //jim
#132747From: Henry ColonnaJul 1, 1988 7:22 PM
I'm not completely sure about that Jim – I know there are reasons for WordPerfect being "slower" but I think it's too slow. PEdit, with all of the fancy formatting stuff stripped out, should be lightning fast, and while it's fast, just isn't as fast as it should be. (I'm talking about the speed of the actual scroll.) I'll tell you one thing tho – I'm not complaining – you should see WordPerfect on an ST within the GEM window – I've never seen anything so slow in my entire life. It's absolutely astounding – how I used it comfortably I'm not quite sure (I sit down to it now from time to time.)
#132769From: Ben BlishJul 1, 1988 8:53 PM
Henry, you'r not just whistling dixie there…. my favorite editor was, and still is, a program called 'stylus' that ran on my 6809 based Gimix system. It did "live" formatting, on a 9600 buad (baud) terminal no less, and did it such that you _never_ waited, and moves from here -> there were instantaneous, IE, 1 update time at 9600 baud, which is pretty near instantly. IT did live formatting of all the kinds that WP does, and it did everything WP does except run on an IBM. Index, TOC, footnotes, headers, footers, math, columns, you name it – and with a 2mhz 6809 cpu driving it, you never waited. Draw your own conclusions. –Ben–
#132873From: Richard Rae/SYSOPJul 2, 1988 2:00 PM
Right, absolutely! I never used Stylus; John Alford who wrote Screditor lived here in Richmond and I was one of his distributors, so I used that. But Scredit and Stylus were like clones of each other, and having used Scredit, I don't listen to anyone who tells me what "can't be done" on a serial terminal. Amazing what you can do in 64K at 9600 baud with a 68B09. 8) Rick
#132892From: Ben BlishJul 2, 1988 4:16 PM
Yeah… and then when WP is touted as state of the art, and "fast", it kind of makes you wonder, don't it? :^) –Ben–