Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM!wmb
From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Basis On-line
Message-ID: <9012061505.AA20223@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 6 Dec 90 02:27:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: Mitch Bradley <wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV>
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 23

My mind boggles at the amount of trouble people seem to be willing to go
to in order to save $10 on a copy of Basis.  In fact, it's probably not a
net savings of $10, because it probably costs more than $10 to print the
file.  Of course, it may be that somebody else is paying for the printer
paper/ink/toner/maintenance and the electronic transmission costs.

Considering how much work was required to transport the Basis source
code from the PC version of MS Word to the Mac version of MS Word, I
would suspect that it would take at least several hours to get a clean
translation to some other format.  A competent programmer's time is probably
worth $50 minimum (burdened cost), which translates to say a couple of
hundred dollars per translation format.  Amortize that over the (probably
small) number of people who want that particular format.  $10 starts to
look pretty cheap, not even considering the >$10 cost of actually printing it.

If you want it in a hurry, you can send the money in advance, and get the
document within a few days of when it is ready.  Of course, it will cost
another $10 for overseas airmail, but it's still a good deal.

The "searching" problem is greatly alleviated by the excellent concordance
that comes with each Basis (kudos to Greg Bailey).

Mitch


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