Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!haven!decuac!shlump.dec.com!delni.dec.com
From: goldstein@delni.dec.com (Fred Goldstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: WordPerfect slowdown
Message-ID: <2372@shlump.dec.com>
Date: 11 May 89 21:30:52 GMT
Sender: guest@shlump.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 31

In article <3274@cs.dal.ca>, silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert) writes...
>Can anyone shed light on the drastic slowdown that I sometimes get with
>WordPerfect, which WP programmers claim is a TOS problem.  The symptoms
>are an incredible delay, sometimes 5 min. to respond to a single
>keystroke or mouse press.  It can strike any time, and then all you can
>do is take 5 or 10 minutes to save your work and reboot, which usually
>brings the system up OK.  WP says the problem usually happens after the
>machine has been on for a while, but I just had it happen last night
>when I started the system cold.  They claim it happens with other
>software, but I have seen it only with WP.

I wish I could give you more help but I will confirm that you're not
alone!  That "slow mode" bug is one of the most annoying ones in
WP Atari 8/1/88 release.  If you notice, it also acts sort of as if
the mouse button were held down; moving the mouse causes it to move the 
cursor, the slider bar, etc.  This leads me to believe that it's 
fundamentaly a GEM problem.  But since I've never seen it with any
other program, and it happens OFTEN with WP, it is more likely to be
an error in how WP uses GEM.

I presume you're running the 8/1/88 release, not the brand new one
(which I haven't got yet).  If it still happens in the new one,
we're in trouble.  If it has been fixed there, then we have no excuse 
not to send in the $10!  (Actually, I do have an excuse; I reported the 
bug last fall, among many others.  They claim bug reports get free 
fixes, and I did get the 8/1/88 for free after complaining about the 
4/10 version, but I'm not pressing my luck.  If the DO debug this
program, it'll be wonderful.  As it is, it's a tease.)

If any net_folks have seen this effect on any OTHER program than WP,
I'd be curious to hear about it...