Re: I remember Lotus 1-2-3 and Word Perfect in the DOS days
Yeah, really, the DOS days. In Lotus 123, and Wordperfect you could figure out how the macros worked,
simply by trial and error. Because their macro languages were devised with the customer in mind. When you told the cursor to go from here to there, it would do it.
Then came Word and Excel, and those days were over. The cursor cursed you, because neither relative or absolute addresses made any difference. No amount of trial and error could overcome the macro languages in Word and Excel, as there was neither reason, logic or instructions. As much as possible it was devised so un-intuitive to make it impossible to work with. Those are my true memories, and they are true because they are based on feelings, and you can't argue with feelings.
Just imagine, in DOS 3 or 4 or 5 or 6.22 one could install or upgrade an operating system without having
to re-install every other application. You could install any application, and the idea that Microsoft needed
to know what that application was, and why, and wherefore thou werest running it, was completely unthinkable. Then came Windows 1, then 2 then 3.1 and tadaa, the windows registry made sure that
there were so many more ways for any program to malfunction. What was before a library of different and separate software applications, became now a Rube Goldberg machine of interdependent yet inscrutable logic. Before, if a program malfunctioned, you could re-install and be done in 20 minutes. THEN, if the windows registry became corrupted, everything had to be redone, from scratch. What great progress! It meant fully employment for even the least informed computer person, but absurdly horrendous expenses for businesses large and small. Yes, back then, if you merely had the patience of waiting for a computer to go thru install after install, that was enough to be considered one of the few, the proud, the very patient IT people. 1+1 = 10 was magic.
Sorry, I get carried away with nostalgia. It's easy to see why some people think that the past was better
than it was. Because it's already gone, and there is no chance it'll come back again, at least not on this
planet, not this galaxy.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
