kkw@wam.umd.edu (Katarina Kim Wong) (03/27/91)
The results are in -- (thanks to everybody who responded :-)
Mikel Evins <mikel@apple.com>
Chris pyrros@cis.udel.edu
Kenneth K.F. Lui <tempest@ecst.csuchico.edu>
John Landwehr jland@robbie.acns.nwu.edu
Lawrence Lance Latour latour@wpi.WPI.EDU
Art Isbell <isbell@tigger.Colorado.EDU>
Erik Buck buckerim@udcps3.cps.udayton.edu
Bryce Jasmer jasmerb@ohsu.EDU
Mike Matthews matthews@lewhoosh.umd.edu
Q Does anybody know if Soft PC is shipping? Is this program going to be
good enough that for a minute I don't know I'm not using a mid-range 286
machine?
A It is shipping. I gave a demo of the program... with Windows 3.0 on
it. It was not to fun to run.... The NEXT is about 11.1 on the CPU
and 10 on the Disk... meaning for pure text display and number
crunching it is FAST!
Q I have internet access, but I am unsure about the mechanics of
uploading NeXTmail from a home slab to my VAX account.
A There are two ways to do this, one difficult...
Mail your NeXT mail to a dummy account or to yourself. Find the
resulting file(s) in the appropriate directories. These files are
uuencoded, and so can be transferred by UNIX sendmail or by other
ASCII transmission protocols. You then upload the uuencoded files to
the Internet machine and, using your mailer's file-inclusion
directive, send the file to its destination. If the receiver is a
NeXT machine, the mail will be automatically readable. Otherwise, the
receving person will have to uudecode the file by hand. The amount of
work it takes to send two letters this way is about equivalent to the
amount of work it takes to get uucp set up and working.
...and one easy...
Get dial-in access to a UNIX host whose owners are milling to provide
you a uucp account. If you are a student, you can probably get an
account on the school's machines. If you work for a company with net
access, they can do it. If neither of these routes is open to you,
you can get an account with UUNET in Arlington, VA, or with Portal
Communications in Berkeley, CA.
Q Those of you who have NeXTs, how often do you use NeXTmail, and do you
really find it to be that great?
A I use NeXT mail all of the time (like now). I just wish that everyone
else had it so I could send goofy pictures and some audible comments
as well...
I have a lot of gripes with it but I will never go back to anything
else.
One disadvantage is the large size of mail messages with sound, etc.,
so I guess I feel that using extra bandwidth than necessary should be
avoided.
Q Having myself never used WP on the NeXT, would anybody who *has* care
to comment?
A I would not pay money for it. Sure, it's neat, but it's slow
(unforgiveable on an 040 with 20 megs of RAM) and buggy.
I've used WordPerfect for the NeXT quite at bit and it's a very
flexible program. It's more powerful than WriteNow, and I really
like that I can take a 3.5" disk from an IBM with a file save by WP
5.1 (or lower) and read it DIRECTLY into WP NeXT... *all* formatting
intact (except equations, a new feature on 5.1) and no intermidiary
programs to use.
I use it all the time. There are things that Micorosft Word can do
that WriteNow can't, but I got WriteNow for free with my NeXT, and
it's fine for 95% of all the writing I do. WriteNow is not adequate
for very large efforts (say, 200+ pages), but either WordPerfect or a
combination of WriteNow and FrameMaker would be.
-- Katarina Kim Wong
kkw@cscwam.umd.edu