gsm@gsm001.uucp (Geoffrey S. Mendelson) (02/07/91)
I'm curious about the studies that "show" that ms-dos users are better writers than Mac users. I use Word Perfect 5.0 on the P.C. for 90% of my word processing. It is a good solid word processor. It has many features including an excelent spelling checker. As you may guess, I am not using it now. Using Word Perfect, it is difficult to produce a document that does not "look good", or contains spelling errors. I wonder if using "there" as a possesive (instead of "their") is counted as a gramatical or a spelling error? Not having used, or even seen, the Mac version of word perfect, I wonder if it is as good as the ms-dos version. I have seen both the Apple IIgs and Amiga versions. They lack many features of the ms-dos version, but for general writing, term papers, and business corespondence, everything needed is there. Is what we are seeing a comparison between word perfect and other word processors? I am not trying to start a "flame war" over which word processor is better. Or is what we are seeing a comparison of their "user support" structure; i.e. Ms-dos and therefore word perfect is better supported by the staff and teachers? In my experince, just about any computer will do for word processing. Wang made a fortune on a simple Z80 based system. Wordstar (especially the CP/M version) has the dubious distinction of being the "world's most pirated program". UNIX was used on a system with a 5 megabyte hard disk as a departmental word processing system. Roff and all of it's progeny were based on runoff, a text formater available on a system that only had typewriter terminals. I think what the study really shows is that while Macs and Pcs are available at that site, if you expect support, use the pc. My eight year old son was able to learn enough word perfect to do his written homework with about an hour of instruction. He probably could of learned MacWrite in that time too, but since I was able to put a pc-xt clone together from spare parts, he got that. (No flames about child-abuse, please) Geoff. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Geoffrey S. Mendelson | Computer Software Consulting | Dr. | | (215) 242-8712 | IBM Mainframes, Unix, PCs, Macs | Who | | uunet!gsm001!gsm | | Fan too!|
kaplan@scooby.cs.umass.edu (Alan Kaplan) (02/07/91)
For whatever this is worth, I recently called WordPerfect. They
informed me that their new version of WordPerfect for Mac (i.e.,
version 2.0) lies somewhere in between MS-DOS version 5.0 and 5.1.
AK
--
Regards,
Alan
kaplan@cs.umass.edujkain@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Jeff Kain) (02/07/91)
kaplan@scooby.cs.umass.edu (Alan Kaplan) writes: >For whatever this is worth, I recently called WordPerfect. They >informed me that their new version of WordPerfect for Mac (i.e., >version 2.0) lies somewhere in between MS-DOS version 5.0 and 5.1. Today must be WordPerfect day or something... Anyway, the new version (2.0 for the Mac) is a fantastic program. The integrated drawing/graphics is great, the macro language is the best available, and it (finally) can claim a legitimate Macintosh interface. Anyone wanna buy a copy of MSWord? Jeff