🚀 go-pugleaf

>From POURNE@MIT-MC Sun Jun 20 00:25:39 1982
From:    Nathaniel Mishkin <Mishkin at YALE>
    Subject: Commercial Wordprocessors

    Do these commercial systems  have advantages I just didn't recognize?

	They do not have many advantages you didn't notice; but what
you saw was NOT the best class of small system editors available.
	The best small system editors store text as a stream and
format it as you desire; they will show you "what you get" on the
screen first if you ask for it, but you certainly need not print only
what you will have.
	Do understand that most small systems have fairly limited
printers; only a few can do true proportional spacing, although most
will do about 48 motions to the inch.  This tends to limit the
fanciness of the printout.

    Date:  15 June 1982 23:25 edt
    From:  Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS

    THe thing to realize about commericial word processors is that
    they assume that the operator is trained on them and works full
    time using them.

	I guess I do not understand what a "commercial word processor" is.
I know that my Congressional friends got a Lexisoft system, which they DO
NOT assume will be used full time; indeed the thing is shared among many
staffers.  It was originally intended that the secretariy use it exclusively
until the staff officers discovered how much easier it was to write papers
on it than on typers.  I am no great fan of the lexisoft software compared
to some others such as WRITE, but it does seem popular with them.
	Is "word processor" to be taken as "dedicated word processor" ie a
crippled computer that doesn't know it can do anything else?