farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) (01/28/88)
In article <12256@orchid.waterloo.edu> egisin@orchid.waterloo.edu (Eric Gisin) writes: >In article <610@gethen.UUCP>, farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes: >> Fact one: there are, without significant doubt, more people doing word >>processing, by far, on IBM PCs or PC clones than any other system available. >Fact zero: there are more people doing X on ibm PCs than on any >other system available. So fact one almost follows naturally. I never claimed that it didn't. The point is that all of those people wouldn't have bought PC's, and the clone marketplace wouldn't have gotten as big as it has, if they weren't capable of doing effective work on them. Quantity does not automatically equate to quality; it is a fallacy, however, to claim that quantity necessarily obviates quality. >>Fact two: there are more, and better, word processing packages available >>for the PC than for any other large-market computer system. >Most PCers doing word processing use Wordstar and Wordperfect. >No-one would put up with that sort of trash on a Mac. >(though some seem to put up with on the Atari ST, I don't know why). Then why is WordPerfect for the Mac such an anticipated product? Why is it that the professional word processors that I know (people, I mean, not machines) would rather use either of those packages than any of the packages currently available for the Mac? I suggest that it is because, for most ordinary word processing needs, such as those found in your average office (which is, by the way, where a major part of the sales can be found), neither need nor want graphics and fancy fonts. They want software which works, which is easy to use for their purposes, and which runs on hardware they can afford. >>While there may well be better systems available for some specialty >>machines, nothing matches the PC for flexibility and price. >Any 68000 personal computer beats an AT class machine for price. You can get a 68000 machine for $850, complete? Aside from the Atari ST, whose word processing capabilities are fairly minimal, I'd like to know where. >>I've done word processing tasks on many machines; for all-round flexibility, >>I'll take the PC over anything else I've ever used. >Any word processor on the Mac/Amiga/I'm_not_sure_about_the_ST >is easier to use and more powerful that comparible PC products. >(you even get WYSIWYG, not 80 column by 25 row tty emulation). Name products, please. The desktop publishing products are NOT word processors, and most have the grace to admit that. The word processing software that is available on the Mac, Amiga, and ST is, for the most part, limited, clumsy, unreliable, and/or expensive. This situation is changing; Microsoft continues to improve Word, and packages like FullWrite are becoming available. For the present, however, PC-compatible hardware and software remains, essentially, THE choice for professional word processing. -- Michael J. Farren | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just {ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}! | dogmatize it! Reflect on it and re-evaluate unisoft!gethen!farren | it. You may want to change your mind someday." gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame