Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[beans-on-toast]

And never in all my born days have I ever seen a more useless language, typographically speaking, than HTML. grump grump grump

A problem with HTML is that there are a lot of add-ons and libraries that add confusion.

I used to compose documents in TeX. Then they introduced LaTeX. There were no high level editors at the time, you wrote TeX code, much like BBCode used on some web sites. TeX allowed for massaging code at a low level, including fonts. The end result was well above what you could accomplish with the old standard, an IBM Selectric. But using TeX and a laser printer involved a lot of hair pulling.

I still sometimes resort to PostScript, another pain, when I want to do diagrams that I can’t seem to manage otherwise.

 

[Passinwind]

And never in all my born days have I ever seen a more useless language, typographically speaking, than HTML. grump grump grump

Word (ermm, sorry).

My nephew convinced me to do a new HTML5 website that would be "mobile friendly." I'm not, why the heck should my website be? And in a fit of grand irony, the same nephew sent me this graphic to use on said clickbait:

 

[Jeff Scott]

I'll most likely be eating tofu in a few hours................

I'm here and they are not. Just saying.

Yes, because they are too busy gigging to be posting on TB.

Looking at the binary text reminds me of the early days of digital printers when halftoning was used. I worked on techniques for better representations of digital images. Spacing individual pixels as well as those grouped in patterns. It's funny, our eyes perform low and high pass filtering in these type of images. The filters that we use in audio are based on nature.

As you would know, newspapers used the techniques dating back to the 1800's. It was an amazing technology for them at the time. Years later it was adapter for computers.

You would have a great time meeting a friend of mine who worked at Kodak until they shuttered the photography side of the business.

 

[spiritbass]

 

[GwenOnBass]

A problem with HTML is that there are a lot of add-ons and libraries that add confusion.

I used to compose documents in TeX. Then they introduced LaTeX. There were no high level editors at the time, you wrote TeX code, much like BBCode used on some web sites. TeX allowed for massaging code at a low level, including fonts. The end result was well above what you could accomplish with the old standard, an IBM Selectric. But using TeX and a laser printer involved a lot of hair pulling.

I still sometimes resort to PostScript, another pain, when I want to do diagrams that I can’t seem to manage otherwise.

When we gave typographic freedom to the Philistines, they proclaimed XyWrite as their God-King.

 

[beans-on-toast]

When we gave typographic freedom to the Philistines, they proclaimed XyWrite as their God-King.

No writer or editor should have to endure using a microsoft product.

 

[sharkbait130]

I'll most likely be eating tofu in a few hours................

Yes, because they are too busy gigging to be posting on TB.


Oh to suffer the slings and arrows of a truthful statement. How doth it hurt me. Meh.

 

[GwenOnBass]

No writer or editor should have to endure using a microsoft product.

Going to rate this as mostly true.

MS-Word can do some pretty amazing stuff with proper application of VBA but it's a lot of programming time as well as moderately ugly work. Woody of the former Woody's Office Watch wrote the programmer's bible for VBA and MS-Word integration. It did not save me any cursing, but it made my curse periods shorter.

 

[alaskaleftybass]

No writer or editor should have to endure using a microsoft product.

I work with about 150 users. We are on Office 365. It's taken that long (from Word 1.0 to Office 365) to get half as good as WordPerfect. The older legal community still prefers WordPerfect and it's not dead. But Micro$oft finally wised up and added legal pleading templates to their Template Collection but still don't have Reveal Codes, which makes any true wordsmith unhappy. Reveal Codes was one of the greatest features of word processing.

Me? I could almost get away with using WordPad, I'm pretty basic as most of my work is mechanical and technical. Anyone remember WordStar?

 

[GwenOnBass]

There's always the back end that comes after the computer has its way with it. In the Old World tongues, it is known as the raster image processor, or RIP for short. And it talks in octal. No RIP, no film to shoot, no printed material. And a RIP can be a fussy thing, it may not like to follow certain directions.

Happily for me, as in these modern, now-a-go-go days I walked out of that pop stand. Feel a great deal better for it.

Here's what holds my attention now

 

[beans-on-toast]

Anyone remember WordStar?

Yes, I used it on CP/M machines with 8” floppy drives.

 

[alaskaleftybass]

Yes, I used it on CP/M machines with 8” floppy drives.

In the early 90's I remember the 8" floppies for the IBM AS/400 series mainframe. The City used monochrome terminals that were green and black. No mice there!

 

[SoulReflection]

In the early 90's I remember the 8" floppies for the IBM AS/400 series mainframe. The City used monochrome terminals that were green and black. No mice there!

IBM PC for me with a whopping 10 MB Hard Drive, amber monitor...never want to go back .

 

[GwenOnBass]

And a 10 MB hardrive was huge. That's when software was still written, before the advent of fatware.

 

[SoulReflection]

That little, flashing cursor is saying "Your wish is my command". Now, if I could just remember what that command was...!

 

[alaskaleftybass]

That little, flashing cursor is saying "Your wish is my command". Now, if I could just remember what that command was...!

I cheated and consulted Dr. Google on this one, but I remember using it:
DEVICE=C:\Windows\HIMEM.SYS

 

[SoulReflection]

I cheated and consulted Dr. Google on this one, but I remember using it:
DEVICE=C:\Windows\HIMEM.SYS

Yep, it was so much fun back then...I recall a long-time legal secretary coming back from vacation only to find her trusty Wang Word Processor had been replaced with a PC. The PC had a note saying that training started the next Monday. She retired the next day. Back in my office, I gave my new IBM PC to accounting and bought a state of the art (at the time) Apple Macintosh... point and click with Mac-write and Mac-paint with an Imagewriter printer. Wow!

 

[GwenOnBass]

... a note saying that training started the next Monday. She retired the next day.

^ management strategy.

 

[alaskaleftybass]

Yep, it was so much fun back then...I recall a long-time legal secretary coming back from vacation only to find her trusty Wang Word Processor had been replaced with a PC. The PC had a note saying that training started the next Monday. She retired the next day. Back in my office, I gave my new IBM PC to accounting and bought a state of the art (at the time) Apple Macintosh... point and click with Mac-write and Mac-paint with an Imagewriter printer. Wow!

I own an iPhone and iPad. I bought wife Carey a MacBook 12 Retina, and learned the OS so I could teach her. The build quality is like comparing a Yugo to a Mercedes as far as MS vs. Apple, Apple being the clear winner. But for myself, I've been working in MS for 30 years and it's provided me gainful employment for all those years. I bought a little 12.5" Dell Latitude for $299 with free shipping and it works well for me. It's a business refurb so it looks brand new.

I remember in the late 90's seeing Wang and Unisys systems in government. I understand Mr. Wang ended up retiring richer than God or somebody...

 

[GwenOnBass]

My Unisys pension fund is a treasure