ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (03/03/86)
I'm starting to hear this question a lot now: "If SSI provides conversion to Navy DIF (Document Interchange Format) with their "Convert" routine, why is IMS marketing a $100 WordPerfect-DIF conversion package?". The answer is simple: ours works. SSI knows about as much as can be known about writing word processors (they produce the best one on the market), but apparently little or nothing about media conversion. They simply took a literal copy of NAVDAT 17.11 (the preliminary specs for the Navy DIF standard) and wrote up a conversion routine as if it were merely a one-to-one table look up kind of thing. There are at least a hundred reasons why that won't suffice, one of which is the following: that WordPerfect requires tab stops for indenting while many other word-processors don't; a DIF formatted document coming from a DataPoint system, for instance, cannot be counted on to have tab stops set at every column on which indents occur. The difference between conversion routines which take this factor into account and ones which don't may be seen by viewing the following tabular document (actually document 1-G from the Navy's official set of DIF test documents) as it appears originally, as reproduced by the IMS WordPerfect-DIF package, and as reproduced by the SSI "Convert" routine. ............................................................. Document 1-G as it was originally created TABLE 9-3 PV WITHOUT INFLATION Cumulative Discount Discounted Discounted Year Costs Factor__ Costs_____ Costs_____ 1 $400.0 .954 $381.6 $381.6 2 2500.0 .867 2167.5 2549.1 3 600.0 .788 472.8 3021.9 4 700.0 .717 501.9 3523.8 5 700.0 .652 456.4 3980.2 The PV = $3980.2 The next step is to perform the analysis in terms of current dollars. The differential inflation rate for ADPE is -3%. Using the second year joint inflation/discount rate in Table 3 of Appendix D, the present value for the project is calculated in Table 9-4. TABLE 9-4 PV WITH -3% INFLATION FOR ADPE Cumulative Discount Discounted Discounted Year Costs Factor__ Costs_____ Costs_____ 1 $400.0 .954 $381.6 $381.6 2 500.0 .867 433.5 815.1 2 2000.0* .833* 1666.0* 2481.1 3 600.0 .788 472.8 2953.9 4 700.0 .717 501.9 3455.8 5 700.0 .652 456.4 3912.2 ........................................................... Document 1-G as reproduced (from the Datapoint version) by the IMS WordPerfect-DIF conversion routine. Notice that WordPerfect cannot handle decimal-tabs followed by a dollar sign rather than numbers, but that other than that, nothing was missed. TABLE 9-3 PV WITHOUT INFLATION Cumulative Discount Discounted Discounted Year Costs Factor__ Costs_____ Costs_____ 1 $400.0 .954 $381.6 $381.6 2 2500.0 .867 2167.5 2549.1 3 600.0 .788 472.8 3021.9 4 700.0 .717 501.9 3523.8 5 700.0 .652 456.4 3980.2 The PV = $3980.2 The next step is to perform the analysis in terms of current dollars. The differential inflation rate for ADPE is -3%. Using the second year joint inflation/discount rate in Table 3 of Appendix D, the present value for the project is calculated in Table 9-4. TABLE 9-4 PV WITH -3% INFLATION FOR ADPE Cumulative Discount Discounted Discounted Year Costs Factor__ Costs_____ Costs_____ 1 $400.0 .954 $381.6 $381.6 2 500.0 .867 433.5 815.1 2 2000.0* .833* 1666.0* 2481.1 3 600.0 .788 472.8 2953.9 4 700.0 .717 501.9 3455.8 5 700.0 .652 456.4 3912.2 ................................................................ Document 1-G (from the Datapoint version) as reproduced by the SSI "Convert" routine. E TABLE 9-3 PV WITHOUT INFLATION Cumulative Discount Discounted Discounted Year Costs Factor__ Costs_____ Costs_____ 1 $400.0 .954 $381.6 $381.6 2 2500.0 .867 2167.5 2549.1 3 600.0 .788 472.8 3021.9 4 700.0 .717 501.9 3523.8 5 700.0 .652 456.4 3980.2 The PV = $3980.2 The next step is to perform the analysis in terms of current dollars. The differential inflation rate for ADPE is -3%. Using the second year joint inflation/discount rate in Table 3 of Appendix D, the present value for the project is calculated in Table 9-4. TABLE 9-4 PV WITH -3% INFLATION FOR ADPE Cumulative Discount Discounted Discounted Year Costs Factor__ Costs_____ Costs_____ 1 $400.0 .954 $381.6 $381.6 2 500.0 .867 433.5 815.1 2 2000.0* .833* 1666.0* 2481.1 3 600.0 .788 472.8 2953.9 4 700.0 .717 501.9 3455.8 5 700.0 .652 456.4 3912.2 # ............................................................. Example three looks pretty tacky, doesn't it? The Navy DIF figures to see use in transmitting documents around the globe via phone-lines and satellites, but in order to do that, you have to be able to believe that the document will look right on the target system; the guy in Germany or New Zealand doesn't have a copy of the original document and hence won't know how to correct something like example 3 by hand. The SSI "Convert" routine, which is provided free with the WordPerfect package, should be regarded as a good faith efford on SSI's part and as an extreme example of getting what you pay for in life. As far as I know, it is the ONLY thing in the WordPerfect package which doesn't work. The only true working gateways into the world of large scale and interchangeable word-processing (via DIF) from the realm of PC word-processors are the IMS DIF conversion routines for WordPerfect and for the Mark Software WordMarc (Muse) package. The package for WordPerfect is available now and the one for the WordMarc package will be available shortly for $100/copy from Integrated MicroComputer Systems Inc. 6110 Executive Blvd., Rockville, Md. 20852 DIF Development Group Suite 750 The DIF packages for PCs should be thought of primarily as a means of integrating the PCs with larger scale office equipment; i.e. for purposes of transmitting documents from one PC word-processing system to another it is simpler (especially at $200/copy for WordPerfect) simply to have a copy of the other guy's word processor around. As a GENERAL PURPOSE word processor, WordPerfect has left the pack so far behind that, given the street or real-world price of $200, it makes no sense to fool around with the others. The WordMarc (or Muse) package is not entirely genral purpose. It lacks the huge number of features found in WordPerfect, but the handfull of extra features it DOES have are doozies, such as multiple sub/super scripts, on screen fonts including Greek and math symbols (you can make up your own Gothic or Cyrillic fonts etc.), and the fact that it runs on a large class of machines, including but not limited to the PC.