RE: [Leica] Kaypro and Atex and Xy, Oh My!

["bdcolen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Those old, thick, Atex keyboards were a real pleasure to work on...but
wait, then why do I have chronic RSI? :-)

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Bill
Harting
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 11:09 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] Kaypro and Atex and Xy, Oh My!


Hi Peter,

I always thought the Atex keyboards, especially the old style editing
keyboards, were terrific -- they had a typewriter-like touch that seemed
natural to me, but apparently were not so to some others. The larger
picture of what became of the lawsuits was that the proprietary hardware
began to disappear -- where I worked PCs replaced all but editors'
terminals, which was partly a result of newspaper economics, partly a
result of style, and importantly, partly a result of the commoditization
of computers. Word and its brothers may be "powerful" but they are
awkward editing programs, but this meant little to info services
departments that had to support their quaint architecture.

bh
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Klein" <pklein@2alpha.net>
To: <leica-users-digest@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 12:08 PM
Subject: [Leica] Kaypro and Atex and Xy, Oh My!


> Ah, those were the days!  When I started working in computers in the 
> early 80s, PCs were not very affordable, and neither was software.  
> For my personal use, I picked up a used Kaypro bundled with, among 
> many other things, WordStar, and was in hog heaven.  The Kaypro was a 
> beautiful, industrial-strength machine.
>
> I rapidly got into search and replace arcana and began augmenting 
> WordStar with ProKey macros. Even today, I still use a text editor 
> (TSE) that has the basic WordStar Ctrl-key commands, and I programmed 
> some of the two-key commands in--they're just in my fingers.
>
> I later went to work for Quicksoft, which made PC-Write.  The 
> text-hacking skills I'd aquired on they Kaypro with WordStar became 
> very useful when translated into PC-Write.  Brit Hume (now of CNN, 
> then of ABC) and Jim Mitchell of WHAS-TV in Louisville used to call me

> frequently for tips on massaging all manner of alien files into 
> usability.
>
> I then graduated to XyWrite III Plus, which was essentially Atex for 
> the PC.  I liked it so much that I was still using it for my own 
> writing three years ago. XyWrite was probably the best program for a 
> text hound ever written. It had a powerful programming and macro 
> language called XPL that was as arcane as Marc James Small's recent 
> treatises on auto electronics, and I say that with the deepest respect

> to both.  What you could *do* with XPL!  I wrote programs to turn 
> XyWrite files into Ventura Publisher files and back again, and created

> a sort of DosKey command recaller-editor for the XyWrite command line.
>
> I was saddened to read that in the early 1990s(?)there were a number 
> of carpal-tunnel related lawsuits against Atex.  There were 
> accusations that the keyboard was very bad, ergonomically, and it had 
> lead to many injuries.  Does anyone know what the outcome of those 
> suits were?
>
> XyWrite is dead, as far as I know, having been bought and ruined by 
> IBM, and then sold to The Technology Group, where Ver. 4 was somewhat 
> repaired. Too bad. There are still a substantial number of writers and

> journalists who use it, and its academic brother NotaBene.  But 
> knowing XyWrite won't get you a job any more :-( Reaction to it today 
> is sorta like Kyle's story of rockgrrrl model and the film camera.  
> Sic transit gloria mundi.
>
> --Peter
>
> Bill Harting wrote:
> > As you were leaving in 1990, I was just beginning to paginate with 
> > Atex, after 12 or 13 years of editing with it. Creaky it was, but it

> > was a fine editing and production system.
>
>
> B.D. wrote:
> > It seemed so, well, 'modern' at the time...that being 1980...It 
> > seemed pretty damn creaky by the time I left in 1990, but then I 
> > wasn't involved in pagination or any of the fancy stuff, and for 
> > writing and line-editing, it worked just fine - when it 
> > worked....(Of course if I never again here the words "the system's 
> > down," it will be too soon.
> :-)
>
>
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