🚀 go-pugleaf

We used Wordstar under C/PM (CP/M?) till it was found that staff
wanted floating footnotes. The Computer Centre did a survey, and this
was a major requirement. So they looked at wat was available and
selected NB v.1. It has just been released, and this must have ben in
the early 80s.

I ran under DOS v 2, I seem to remember, and came on five 5.25"
floppies. It could not handle +1M extended memory, and we used a
RAM drive as far as I can remember in upper memory.... I think.

If you were unlucky, you did not have a twin-floppy PC and so you
could not put a designated system disk in B: for the overflow files.
This was ended, I think, with v. 3, which could handle a hard drive.

v. 1 was HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE. But it was better
than Wordstar. I remember that making directories was a nightmare.
There was a sort of grid affair which you had to move round, and it
was easy to make mistakes.

I remember the beginnings of joy in v. 2, and v. 3 was sensible.

Even now that I've left Exeter - for all practical pruposes - I still
use NB4.5a maniacally in Parliament, which is a WfW/WP environment.
They come wandering round to see how I make those beautifully
complete footnotes for authorities; how I get all those quotations
(years of an Orbis collection - there's bound to be something
accumulated in there!). Then they gasp - "But you use
___DOS____????!!"

I smile mysteriously and murmer "excreta tauri cerebrum
vincit......"

The trouble is, one day they'll find out the truth about me -
it's not me that writes those marvellous papers, but the computer..