Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!orchid!egisin
From: egisin@orchid.waterloo.edu (Eric Gisin)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: The GNU Manifesto
Message-ID: <12256@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Date: 25 Jan 88 02:34:39 GMT
References: <9591@tekecs.TEK.COM> <328@splut.UUCP> <3144@briar.Philips.Com> <610@gethen.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 34

In article <610@gethen.UUCP>, farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes:
> In article <2228@gryphon.CTS.COM> tsmith@gryphon.CTS.COM (Tim Smith) writes:
> [on the IBM PC]
> >But suffice it to say the the keyboard, the display hardware, and the
> >WP software available are, to put it succinctly, miserable. This is not
> >an idiosyncratic, cranky opinion. It is one shared by many, many people who
> >have had to use this piece of sh*t to do word-processing.
> 
> No, it's an idiosyncratic, cranky opinion.  Fact one:  there are, without
> significant doubt, more people doing word processing, by far, on IBM PCs

Fact zero: there are more people doing X on ibm PCs than on any
other system available. So fact one almost follows naturally.

> or PC clones than any other system available.  Fact two:  there are more,
we don't need quantity, we need quality.

> and better, word processing packages available for the PC than for any
> other large-market computer system.  While there may well be better
> systems available for some specialty machines, nothing matches the PC

Most PCers doing word processing use Wordstar and Wordperfect.
No-one would put up with that sort of trash on a Mac.
(though some seem to put up with on the Atari ST, I don't know why).

> for flexibility and price.  I've done word processing tasks on many
Any 68000 personal computer beats an AT class machine for price.

> machines; for all-round flexibility, I'll take the PC over anything
> else I've ever used.

Any word processor on the Mac/Amiga/I'm_not_sure_about_the_ST
is easier to use and more powerful that comparible PC products.
(you even get WYSIWYG, not 80 column by 25 row tty emulation).