Re: Apple and the Holy War

[bctimes@hotmail.com (Forrest)]

Somewhere, pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote:

>Why the 78 chars/line limit?

Because that's what RJLissner picked.  The last two characters were reserved 
for spaces and return characters.

>Wordstar allowed up to 255 characters
>per line -- yes, it had horisontal scrolling.

So did Apple Writer (you know, the one Don Lancaster used to kick out 
PostScript to his LaserWriter).  Also WordPerfect IIe, IIRC.
It was a very irritating feature ("It's time to play Find The Cursor!") and I 
tried to avoid using it whenever possible.  The only sensible way to use 255 
characters on a line is to use a display that can accommodate them all at 
once.

>> That notwithstanding, if there's a more usable, more useful, better designed 
>> and more efficient general-purpose application than AW5.1 around I don't know
>> what it is.
> 
>Pick any word processor which allows more than 78 chars/line.....  I
>would certainly not call a word processor imposing such a 78-char
>limit as "most usable, most useful, best designed".....

Never used AppleWorks, have you?  But then it was designed for the 
typical home user.  Greatest 8-bit application ever written for that market.  
Things like WordPerfect Office and MSO have muscles on their muscles, but 
don't approach the clean utility of AW.  And to think people are rediscovering 
the merits of VisiCalc...
[ http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg080399.htm ]