4 ms·
I like doing writing work (wordperfect) on my old machines (286-486 era). It's the one task that I find is actually better on these old machines. My Model-M k
by bstar77 5y ago
I like doing writing work (wordperfect) on my old machines (286-486 era). It's the one task that I find is actually better on these old machines. My Model-M keyboard is better for typing, there are less distractions and I prefer looking at a CRT when writing. It's also somewhat ceremonial booting up the machine and running WP, so that helps getting into he writing mindset.
What makes this especially convenient is that I can save files direct to a CF card and interchange it with my modern machines. CF uses the same IDE interface as a vintage hard drive, so hooking up one of these solutions with old hardware is trivially easy.
- udp 5y agoI also use a Model M. they don’t make them like that any more! I use an IDE to SD card adapter rather than CF, as SD cards are super cheap and easy to image.
- bstar77 5y agoI prefer CF cards because there's no signal conversion needed while SD card adapters needs conversion electronics. I'm not sure if the SD card adapters are any less reliable, but I've stuck to buying Startech CF adapters and have not had any issues yet. Plus, I have about 30 CF cards on hand so it's nice to still have a use for them.
- nhecker 5y agoBut they /almost/ do! I use an '86 IBM M as my daily driver, but I've bought two keyboards from https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/UKBD https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/UKBD which still makes this style of keyboard. They're not nearly as broken-in as my M is of course, and the construction differs in a few insignificant (to me) ways, but the typing experience is identical. I'd recommend giving them a look if you're in the market.
- hans_castorp 5y agoAh! Wordperfect - best word processor on DOS by far.
- bstar77 5y agoIt's what I used as a kid, so it's all I know from that era. I still have those templates on my keyboard.
- PopAlongKid 5y agoI was exposed to several word processors at the time, and choose PC-Write[0] (shareware pioneer) as my primary tool. After becoming an advanced user of vi and nroff for various tasks (programming, desktop publishing), I found PC-Write to be the best tool when migrating to the PC world. "One unusual feature of PC-Write was its implementation of free form editing: it could copy and paste a block of text anywhere." [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-Write https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-Write
- brimble 5y agoLower input latency, too, which makes for more-pleasant typing.
- bstar77 5y agoThis is actually a good point... I have a very fast 16 core PC, but typing in Google Docs often has latencies. Everything in WP is instantaneous, even on my 6mhz 286.
- Semiapies 5y agoA local app will have less latency than a networked one running in a browser.
- myth_drannon 5y agoDepends, a local app which is an Electron app....
- bombcar 5y agoReminds me of https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/ - and I've been noticing it more and more as everything (even desktop apps) become "cloud apps" - everything is sluggish, which prevents typeahead and quick access. Watching someone use the old text-based terminals you'd see at Frys or a bank vs watching them fight with a mouse-based web GUI is instructional; with the old text terminal you could enter the whole transaction as one long string of characters into the buffer, and even if it took time to load the screens, it would faithfully execute exactly as you ordered it to.
- nonamenoslogan 5y agoStill to this day all of my command lines are dark-navy-blue with white text because of WP 5.1. I go a bit darker than the original, but its been that way for nearly 30 years now.