Re: Mildly OT: dBASE IV

Alvin wrote :

> Wordperfect was simlar. Once the leader but too slow to market with
> their windows version, again MS-Word wasn't perfect either but at least
> it was there.

I think there were a couple of problems with WordPerfect for Windows (having been unfortunate enough to use the bl**dy thing myself). The first problem was that it was an awful piece of software - big, clunky, and slow. Using WPWin on a machine with 2Mb of memory was interesting stress test of the hard disk. Anything else that may have happened (like, typing) was a bonus.

But the big selling point of WP was the printer drivers. The printer drivers for WP in the pre-Windows days were far better than anything else available, and printer manufacturers were keen to provide new WP drivers for new models. When Windows 3 splashed down, with something approaching a common printer configuration for all apps, it became an additional effort to support WPWin that the manufacturers weren't keen on. So, almost at a stroke, WPWin lost the big advantage WP had had over the rest. WPWin's own intrinsic problems then did the rest.

Do I sound like I hated WPWin ? That's good, because I did !

• Tony