I got my first PC in '85. It came with WordStar (no WYSIWYG, no on-screen menu, confusing control codes from its days on older mainframes; a real PITA). After memorizing many of the WS control codes I was given a copy of EasyWriter (similiar limitations, but the codes made sense) so I never used WS. Without WYSIWYG, I had to count characters on-screen and then subtract the number of control codes (such as the characters used to start/stop bold, italics, etc.) in order to figure out where things would end up on the printed page. The results I got were good enough to create forms that were used in our Superior Courts.

Later my office, the Behavorial Sciences section of our local Health Dept., had to buy PCs. The idiot Director ignored my advice and bought 20 MacPlus because his friend, who works for NASA, said, "That's what we use". I offered that his friend's job probably did not involve word processing or intense number-crunching, and then I asked, "Ever hear of the Challenger?" He countered with Apple's claims re ease of use.

About six-weeks later I learned that a consultant was hired to teach everyone how to use the Macs (so much for "ease of use"). Meanwhile, the agencies that were using the nine (cheaper) IBM clones that I had purchased said that they needed no assistance, even though some of them had never used any computer. Soon I was hearing complaints among the Mac users that they were going blind while trying to read lengthy documents displayed in grey type on a light blue background.

I managed to stop the Dept from purchasing WP when I heard the Director say, "It's the most popular". I showed him a cartoon from a Mac magazine that read, "Word Perfect for PC and Werd Pirfekt for Mac are ready to ship". I also informed him that when I sold televisions Admiral advertised that theirs was, "The most expensive television in America and darn well worth it". In truth, theirs was not the most expensive (I called it "Cadillac advertising").

I began using Word in '87 and soon discovered its powerful (for a document processor) macro programming. I was able to write a macro that would read an address and then look up and type into the document the correct ZIP code for any address in San Francisco, in less than three seconds (on a 12 mHz PC with 1 MB of RAM).

I was not aware of Word's exif-like hidden info. That could be as troublesome as when a televised PC "expert" posted her cropped image on the program's website. She had forgotten that a thumbnail of the original image (in which she was topless) was still present in the exif. She immediately lost her well-paying job.

I currently use Open Office. And I admit to missing the days of DOS and elegant coding to save precious disk space and RAM. Nowadays coding is sloppy and almost every software program is bloated as it tries to be the only program you'll ever use. I've thought of writing to M$ to advise them that we don't buy PCs in order to play with OS bells and whistles. I did tell Bill G, regarding Windows, if I had wanted an Apple I would have bought one.

I also actually liked BASICs line numbers. For you youngsters, sequential programming is like
100 WHILE horse=ready
110 DO connect buggy
120