mattioli@TOOK.DEC.COM (John R. Mattioli) (01/09/90)
I'll never forget the first time I used msc v4.0 and codeview. I was
amazed by something that, once I experienced it, I decided on the spot to spend
the money and buy the compiler.
First, you need to understand how frustrating it can be for a blind
person to use an ibm pc-like computer. In this day of fancy screen output for
the simplest programs, it can be unbelievabley frustrating. These days, even
the simplest status program feels it must write it's data directly into screen
memory instead of outputting the same data via dos. I'm not talking about
system monitoring software here, just si-like stuff. By the way, SI works great
(Thanks Peter Norton for your quality work).
I use a braille terminal attached to a com port. Usually I use a ctty
command to redirect i/o to the port. Unfortunately, ctty was never one of dos's
best-working commands.
So, with all that said, imagine my surprise when I ran codeview and got
output on my braille terminal! I was amazed! Not only did it work, but it
worked really well! I payed my money, took home my new compiler, and was as
happy as a c-programming clam!
Now I've developed this habbit that might upset Microsoft or any other
software vendor but, quite frankly, I don't care. In this day of licenses that
say things like, "we think this software works, but if it doesn't work for you,
too bad." one must protect himself (especially when most software won't work for
him). So, before buying a package, I borrow someone else's copy and see if it
works with my braille terminal. If it does, I buy it, if it doesn't I save my
money and get rid of the useless software.
Now, having said all that, imagine my unhappiness when, upon running the
latest codeview it didn't seem to work at all well with my braille terminal.
What happened guys? I spent so much time telling all my blind friends
what a great product codeview was and now you're making a fool of me? Either
I'm missing something (highly possible), or this somehow slipped through the
cracks while putting together the latest version.
Whenever I do get characters out of codeview to my port, I usually wind
up lossing half of them.
Obviously, I'm not about to drop another bundle on msc for the upgrade.
Neither am I about to get myself a new assembler (masm) although I need one
badly.
In fact, what I'm going to do, if none of you netlanders can help, is
I'm going to switch to unix where, in my experience, these sorts of problems go
away.
Also, please not that I don't mean to attack Microsoft for this,
Borland's integrated environment caused me to give up on them years ago.
One thing I really like about Microsoft is that I can get all the docs
on a cd-rom and I'll be able to read them that way. Nevertheless, it doesn't
help to have docs for software you can't use. Besides, I don't have the cd-rom
drive yet.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
John Mattioli
Most improved skier (american blind skiers association 1989)
and humble to!
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Littleton, Ma. 01460davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (01/09/90)
In article <7289@shlump.nac.dec.com> mattioli@TOOK.DEC.COM (John R. Mattioli) writes: Best of luck with your problem. I try to track stuff like this, since I have a blind programming friend and my wife works with a blind person who may need to be able to use a terminal or PC. One of my cherished "war stories" is debugging a dump for my friend as he read me the octal over the phone, from braile. | John Mattioli | Most improved skier (american blind skiers association 1989) The thought of blind skiing makes my blood run cold. I admire your ability to do it mentally more than physically. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon