Re: AWGS 1.1 (was: Re: general ? on 2gs)

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...

>AWGS seems to be an either/or kind of thing.  Either it will
>crash continuously on you or it won't practically ever crash
>on you at all.  I would like to determine WHY it crashes on
>some people and why it does not on others.  The RamFAST
>driver was just a guess.

    Well I've used it on a totally stock system (1.25 MB w/
3.5 floppy drives), running clean copies of System 5.02 or
System 6.0.1 with no INITs/DAs added. I think we can rule
out hardware configurations and software conflicts. It is
obvious it is the program itself which is buggy.

    That dialog box that is specific to AppleWorks GS is
proof of that, the one that tells you to press the restart
button. AWGS *itself* gets mucked up and tells you it must
be restarted without allowing you to save your work (it is
not a GS/OS error). Hmm, perhaps doing a lot of editing in
your document triggers it. Have you just typed endlessly
from beginning to end and did all your corrections later, or
do you back track, cut and paste and move around blocks of
text? I've also noticed doing a spell-check can bomb it.

>Thinking about it, there must be more than one version of AWGS 1.1.
>Perhaps some kind of fix that did not justify a revision number
>update to 1.2.  How else can one program crash so much on some
>people but practically never crash on others.

    Very unlikely. Claris would have noted it, or we would
have heard about this years ago. Since you claim to have a
stable version of AWGS, compare it with mine and let us know
if there are any differences between the file information (or
anyone else out there reading this with AppleWorks GS 1.1).

Name:          Type: Size:  Modification:    Creation:

APPLEWORKS.GS   $B3  1587   23-OCT-89 14:24  23-OCT-89 14:24

    The only other existing versions released, to my knowledge,
are the original v1.0 after Claris bought AWGS from Styleware,
and the v1.0v2 bug fix update soon after.

>>    I won't comment on the rest of the modules (mostly due to
>>the fact I've never used them) but I must stress and issue a
>>firm warning that there ARE serious bugs in the word processor
>>module which make the program unreliable. If you do decide to
>>use it, you should definitely save your documents every other
>>minute or so.
>
>When using AWGS, I typically save every 10 minutes or so as
>with any other program on any other computer from Muckintosh
>to Wintel to A2.

    I would make an exception to the rule with AWGS, and save
every other minute or so to be on the safe side. There have
been too many reports of *identical* problems from *different*
people. The word processing module is NOT stable (if it has
been for you, you've been very fortunate). It's rather like
someone who boosts they don't wear seat belts in cars yet
have never been injured. Does this mean its safe to follow? :)
If your going to drive AWGS, take precautions. ;)

    Sadly, Claris and Scantron Quality Computers have given
up on AppleWorks GS and it will most likely never get any
kind of update. In fact once Alltech runs out of stock,
chances are the program won't even be commercial available
anymore. I'm not losing any sleep over it though, as there
are better alternatives to use (both on the GS and other
computers).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca