[ale] Introduction and info about myself

Lightner, Jeff JLightner at water.com
Mon Oct 29 17:35:42 EDT 2012 

Actually IBM didn't create Symphony (at least not the one I remember).   Lotus had created Symphony as an extension of capabilities found in to Lotus 123 long before IBM bought them.   (In fact I'm pretty sure IBM was only able to buy Lotus later because it was on its way down due to the M$ habit of giving away Office - notice how M$ doesn't give it away any longer?)

123 would do 3 functions: Spreadsheet, Charting/graphing,  and rudimentary database operations.

Symphony added word processing and communications to the above.   I could use it instead of Procom or other serial connection tools to connect to my UNIX system back in the mid 80s.

I had a boss back then that loved Supercalc.   I used to tell others that Supercalc was a communist attempt to reduce America's technological superiority to annoy him.   One day he said "Supercalc can do anything Lotus can".   I showed him how to login to UNIX using Symphony and never heard him make that claim again.   (Of course I didn't mention that my preferred Lotus 123 did NOT allow for serial connections like that.)  :-)

The one thing I couldn't figure out was why when they made Symphony they made the calc button F8 instead of F9 as it had always been on Lotus 123.

Ami Pro was a much later product and may have been an outgrowth of the word processing originally introduced in Symphony.   I never used Ami Pro so can't say.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jim Kinney
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 3:55 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] Introduction and info about myself

about 3 years ago, I tossed that Corel Linux box in the trash. Knew I would never use it again. So far, I've been right!

Ditto on ApplixWare. Found the book still on my bookshelf this morning.

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 3:32 PM, Beddingfield, Allen <allen at ua.edu> wrote:
> Ah, I remember the Linux version of WP well.  That was back in the 
> late 90s when Corel was still dabbling in the Linux field (anyone 
> remember their distro "Corel Linux?").  I was a heavy user of Lotus 
> Approach in the 90s . . . I could get more done in five minutes with 
> Approach than I could in five hours with Access or Paradox.  It is 
> such a shame that it had a similar fate to AmiPro.
> Allen B.
> --
> Allen Beddingfield
> Systems Engineer
> The University of Alabama
>
>
>
>
> On 10/29/12 2:23 PM, "Jim Kinney" <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>there was a version of WP for Linux for a while. Corel killed that one 
>>first. I spent countless hours using that as an intermediary between 
>>old Mac wordperfect and new windows word. It was all we had that would 
>>talk both well enough to convert docs without leaving a smoking pile 
>>of bits.
>>
>>I really liked Lotus AmiPro. GUI, 3 floppies only, didn't crash, easy, 
>>clean,then it went with Lotus straight to the deepest pit of hell - 
>>acquisition by IBM. To think that the pile of feces that is symphony 
>>used to be that simple, always worked well AmiPro as a tear-jerker.
>>almost like shooting the dog in Old Yeller.
>>
>>On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Beddingfield, Allen <allen at ua.edu> wrote:
>>> Now I will defend the graphical version of WordPerfect to this day.  
>>>I still find the current version of WP (unfortunately only available 
>>>for
>>>Windows) to be much more intuitive and easy to use than Word or 
>>>LibreOffice Writer.  The only problem is that aside from a few law 
>>>offices, there aren't many people using it anymore...  Corel managed 
>>>to ride that one all the way to the ground and to start digging...
>>> --
>>> Allen Beddingfield
>>> Systems Engineer
>>> The University of Alabama
>>>
>>> From: Rich Faulkner 
>>> <rfaulkner at Tux86.org<mailto:rfaulkner at Tux86.org>>
>>> Reply-To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts 
>>> <ale at ale.org<mailto:ale at ale.org>>
>>> Date: Monday, October 29, 2012 1:52 PM
>>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org<mailto:ale at ale.org>>
>>> Subject: Re: [ale] Introduction and info about myself
>>>
>>> Wordperfect?  Yeah, but Wordstar was better!!!
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, 2012-10-29 at 18:34 +0000, Lightner, Jeff wrote:
>>>
>>> Wordstar.   Ahem... you're - uh - age is showing   :p
>>>
>>> My start in computers was working on a PC with DOS 2.0 with Lotus 123
>>>version 1A.   Back in those days even the format command assumed you
>>>meant "the current drive" so if you typed "format" rather than 
>>>"format A:" after inserting a floppy it would happily overwrite the 
>>>C: drive you'd started the format command from.  Back then we didn't 
>>>even have "D'oh!" to express our feelings as it was pre-Simpsons.
>>>
>>> I remember when I first used Wordperfect on Novel version 2 and how 
>>>its big selling point was that you could hide or display formatting 
>>>codes at will so it was an improvement over Wordstar which until then 
>>>had been the killer word processing app.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: ale-bounces at ale.org<mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org>
>>>[mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Beddingfield, Allen
>>> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 2:20 PM
>>> To: simontek at gmail.com<mailto:simontek at gmail.com>; Atlanta Linux 
>>>Enthusiasts
>>> Subject: Re: [ale] Introduction and info about myself
>>>
>>> I suppose I fall into the vi category, since I have only used emacs 
>>>onceŠwell, I opened it once, and then I spent all of the time it was 
>>>open trying to figure out how to get out of it :D  Figuring out the 
>>>pid at another terminal and killing it works nicely, BTW.
>>> As for nano/pico - my nickname for them is "The line-wrapping config 
>>>file mangler!"  They work great a long as no one opens a complex 
>>>config file with really long lines.  I'm also partial to joe, since I 
>>>used to be a WordStar fanatic, and most of the key sequences match up 
>>>- especially when you open it with "jstar"
>>>
>>> --
>>> Allen Beddingfield
>>> Systems Engineer
>>> The University of Alabama
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/29/12 12:17 PM, "simontek at gmail.com<mailto:simontek at gmail.com>"
>>><simontek at gmail.com<mailto:simontek at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I use vi myself. A lot of people I know use nano, only 2 people I 
>>>>know use emacs. I figure if I have to use a manual just to exit the 
>>>>program, I don't need it.
>>>>Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>>>>
>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: Rich Faulkner 
>>>><rfaulkner at tux86.org<mailto:rfaulkner at tux86.org>>
>>>>Sender: ale-bounces at ale.org<mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org>
>>>>Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:09:45
>>>>To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts<ale at ale.org<mailto:ale at ale.org>>
>>>>Reply-To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts 
>>>><ale at ale.org<mailto:ale at ale.org>>
>>>>Subject: Re: [ale] Introduction and info about myself
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
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>>>
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>>
>>
>>--
>>--
>>James P. Kinney III
>>
>>Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you 
>>gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his 
>>own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
>>- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
>>
>>http://electjimkinney.org
>>http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>>
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>
>
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--
--
James P. Kinney III

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain

http://electjimkinney.org
http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/

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