it’s usually possible to get the look you want if you’ve used
Perfect Writer for many years and know some tricks they don’t
mention in either the old or the new manuals)—if you want some
_real_ customization, tough noogies.
◾ You can still start printing by referencing page and section
numbers, but if you want to start with footnote 125, you’re in for
a major pain.
The new Perfect is more powerful than the old one, but not by as
much as its creators fondly think. After spending two days
evaluating the new Perfect for this article, I went home and spent
several happy hours with the old Perfect. Oh, I admit I thought now
and then, I wish I could cut to the end of the paragraph, or, I wish
I could delete the word behind the cursor instead of only the word
in front of it—and the old Perfect Writer is indeed slower than the
new one (by maybe 5 percent?)—but on the whole I found I preferred
two keystrokes to five and three keystrokes to six.
Many of the improvements of the new Perfect Writer fall into the
category of kludge: lots of flashing lights and ringing bells and
chrome and racing stripes and wow, look at that dashboard! Perfect
Writer is still the best word-processing program I’ve ever run
across, but for those of you who don’t want to give up your 64K
non-IBM PCs, don’t worry: you’re not missing enough to make spending
all that money worthwhile.
BACKUP V ❑ “3-D” Versus Mail-Order Software—and How to Shop
How to pick the right disk?
People like Dusty Park know how to improve the odds. Park was at the top
of his class at a computer school, worked as a customer support man at
MicroPro, then joined a mail-order house called 800 Software in a
similar job.[102] I phoned him there when my mail-order copy of WordStar
didn’t work on my machine. It was a common industry problem, this
incompatibility. _Theoretically_—which doesn’t mean that much—my Kaypro
could read disks in the electronic format of the Xerox 820. Yet my
machine in this respect seemed functionally illiterate.
Footnote 102:
Since writing this section, I’ve learned that Park has left 800
Software for another company.
Park told me on the phone that many other Kaypro owners were suffering
similar difficulties, that if need be he’d send me another disk set up
for my computer. Step by step he went over the WordStar installation
procedure with me.
As it happened, I succeeded without him—by having WordStar
electronically piped over to the Kaypro from another machine when my
micro wouldn’t reach the disk. Park had been ready with patience and
empathy. I took it for granted that he would suggest buying by mail in
many instances; but what advice, based on his MicroPro days and other
experiences, did he offer about buying “3-D,” as he called it—buying in
the flesh from a store, in other words?
“The best place to go if you’re buying software retail,” he said, “is to
someone who’s doing a training seminar in the same program you’re
buying. That way you’ve got it aced, because the person who’s doing the
class is going to know the program well.
“You don’t have to take the class, but at least you know that there’s
somebody there who could be asked a question.”
Not that a dealer has to know _every_ wrinkle of a program to teach it.
But you’ve still got a head start if you do choose a store with classes.
Just be sure that the instructor isn’t a circuit rider, so to speak—that
he isn’t flying out of town to another store as soon as he completes a
series of classes. You want him around to answer your questions later
on.
This principle would especially hold true when buying software from
franchised stores. Some stores may be excellent. Others, however, as
Park pointed out, “may be a bunch of small businessmen who used to sell
shoes and bought into a franchise at an exorbitant price.”
Offering, obviously, a mail-order perspective, Park said that the
computer-store managers he knew didn’t always know their software lines
because there were so many products to keep track of. “It takes too much
time,” he said. “There’s too many things to do in a 3-D store to handle
that. Mostly you’re showing people hardware.”
His opinions rang true. Trying out WordStar with Osbornes, I’d run
across sales reps who couldn’t show me how to make printouts of the
letters on the tiny black-and-white screen. Some sales reps were
“terminally” dumb. Others were bright and helpful but too busy selling
too many machines to pick up the basics of WordStar and other heavy-duty
programs. WordStar wasn’t _that_ hard to master, however. I wondered how
stores could counsel customers if they couldn’t even train sales reps.
I asked Park about mail-order software.
croPro,” he said, “I told people, ‘Don’t buy by mail. The dealers are
the ones who can answer your questions. You have a real, live, 3-D
person.’” MicroPro had instructed Park and five colleagues to try to
duck the time-consuming questions from businessmen and others using
computers and to refer them back to their dealers. And yet Park and the
others had actually ended up spending half their time responding to the
pleas of “end users.” And many were the customers of mail-order houses.
But now, Park said, some mail-order people were competing not only with
low prices but also with technical support; 800 Software had even hired
a software guru from the University of California at Davis to evaluate
programs it was going to sell and support. I myself had paid $250 for
WordStar, or about half the $495 list price; however, after talking to
Park, I felt I was in better hands than I would have been at the typical
computer stores I’d visited.
I got everything I paid for; 800 didn’t pull any cheap tricks like
sending the software without a manual, which, in fact, some mail-order
houses may do. This isn’t an endorsement of 800 Software. It shows,
though, that at times you can successfully bypass the wretched support
and high prices that many stores inflict on software shoppers.
“Save by ordering some software by mail,” advises _CPA Micro Report_,
“but only if the package is easy to install and easy to use. If you’ll
need training before you can use it or if the package must be configured
for a hard disk, buy through your local dealer. Word processors and
spreadsheets are examples of software you can safely buy through the
mail. General accounting, client write-up systems and communications
software should be purchased through a dealer.”
It’s good advice, basically. Park says few people call him about
spreadsheets, that they’re easier to unravel than many programs. So
what’s the most trouble? Data bases, sometimes. “But word processors
definitely take the cake.
“You’ve got to deal a lot with special features on printers, like
boldfacing and underlining and whether the software will let them work
right,” Park says. He suggests the obvious—that before buying new
software, you find out how it will run with your printer and computer.
Of course, as stated earlier, you’ll ideally select your hardware
_after_ you’ve chosen your general range of software. Park says most
people don’t fully “realize the implications” of the software they’re
ordering “because they haven’t thought of it yet.” There’s the old
problem, of course. How do you know you’ll like the software until
you’ve tried it at leisure? And then you normally can’t get your money
back. Before you order by mail, give serious thought to asking someone
locally for a “3-D” demonstration.
A very leisurely tryout, in fact, is a good idea no matter how you’re
buying, mail or “3-D,” and ideally you’ll have someone with you—a clerk,
a secretary, anyone who’ll actually be using the system.
You might even want to bring along your accountant or somebody else
working with the information that comes out of your computer system. At
the very least, show him the software manual before you buy the program.
Don’t take the software seller’s word that the software will keep the
IRS or the SEC happy. Instead, trust the accountant or lawyer you use in
your business. If he’s uncomfortable with computers, ask him to
recommend someone in his profession whom he could work with. You don’t
have to fire him. Just get him the backup he’ll need.
A computerwise accountant, for instance, can tell you if a general
ledger package has a good =audit trail=—a way to keep track of what was
done on the computer system to make the records come out the way they
did. A computer-literate lawyer or accountant can also make certain that
the software is reasonably crook-proof.
Follow the same rule as with hardware. Find someone already using the
program you want to buy. Is he happy with it?
The nearer his work is to yours, the better. The best authority on
accounting software, for instance, isn’t a computer guru: it’s an
accountant. But beware. Some people may have chosen their programs
without considering the alternatives, and they might have done better
using a different system. Ideally, your fellow accountant, lawyer,
doctor, whatever, did plenty of shopping before making up his mind.
Also, remember how subjective software is. Even if someone is in your
field, he may think differently and do his job differently.
Of course you might read reviews in computer magazines, but be careful.
I recall how glowingly some of them described early versions of Select;
how they said it was superb for heavy-duty writing, even though, quite
clearly, it was a bona fide kludge.
“How could the reviewers be so wrong?” I asked a computer salesman, a
good one, who had sold a number of copies of the Spellbinder program to
Kaypro buyers unhappy with the early Select.
He replied, “Advertising. They did a lot of advertising in the
magazines. That’s probably why.”
Well, maybe. More likely, however, the reviewers simply were writers
unfamiliar with alternatives like WordStar or computer experts
unfamiliar with the needs of most writers. Your best bet is to read the
magazine reviews, and this book, knowing that the ultimate authority on
your software needs is _you_.
BACKUP VI ❑ “Easy” Data Bases:
Another View (Mensa
Member Versus
InfoStar)
Charlie Bowie, one of the stars in Chapter 6, “Three Software Stories,”
breezed through the dBASE II program. But not everyone will find all
data bases so easy. Mary Matthews didn’t. And you can’t call her stupid.
She is, after all, a Perfect Writer guru/Sibyl. Also—I’m sneaking this
in behind her back—her IQ is high enough for her to belong to the Mensa
group for bright people. She’s a Smith College alumna, a human
dictionary, now working as publications director at a prestigious prep
school. I thought that InfoStar—well reviewed in a major micro
magazine—would be a cinch for her to learn and use in listing the traits
of a good data base.
Well, back comes this essay telling me that she banged her head against
InfoStar for a week and almost committed hara-kiri. You can interpret
that as a failing either of Mary or of the program. I’ll blame the
software and documentation.
(Of course she’s full of bilge in her Perfect Writer review when she
knocks my beloved WordStar.)
Mary, please note, has nice things to say about InfoStar’s power; she
says it might even be worth the torture. And a consultant can simplify
the program for you. Still, if _Mary_ is having trouble befriending
InfoStar, what about average people who must master powerful data-base
software?
They’ll succeed only if they have time and buckle down. They mustn’t
swallow the manufacturers’ cant that the programs are “simple”—at least
not if the software’s like InfoStar. Oh, well, at least they can console
themselves that their business competitors may also be suffering.
And once learned, programs like InfoStar (as Mary’s essay shows) can
indeed make life easier.
Her observations:
There are a number of data-base programs on the market for personal
computers, with new entries coming in daily. The MicroPro people—parents
of the famous (or infamous) WordStar—have come out with a dandy of their
own: InfoStar, which can sit up, roll over, and whistle Dixie.
What does one look for in a data-base program? To a certain extent, of
course, it depends on what one wants. Someone who wants to put a Rolodex
file on to the computer is going to need a lot less by way of power and
versatility than is the owner of a small business who wants to use the
data base to keep track of clients, orders, and inventory.
The first thing to think about is how much data the program can handle
without going off its nut or slowing down so much that you could walk to
Waukeegan and back while your program is processing any entry. Here are
some terms and ideas to keep in mind:
◻ The =data base=, or =data file=, contains all your entries. InfoStar
allows any number of data files per diskette; others allow only one.
Score one for InfoStar.
◻ The =data record= covers _all_ the information you store for each
entry into your data base. How big will your program allow each data
record to be? How many data records will your program allow before it
seizes up and refuses to accept any more? Will the program warn you
that as of X moment its files are full and it won’t accept any more
records? (I once spent two days trying to figure out why Perfect Filer
was giving me back nothing but garbage before I thought to check and
see whether my diskette was full.)
InfoStar will allow you a maximum of 65,535 data records per file. By
way of comparison, Perfect Filer will accept as many data records as
the diskette will hold—about a thousand if your diskettes will hold
200K of memory and you’ve filled up your data entry screen with lots
and lots of data fields; probably a skillion if you only have one
one-character data field and a lot of disk capacity. The new program
dBASE III will allow over a billion records or _two_ billion
characters in a file—again, up to the limit of your disk space.
◻ The =data fields= are the building blocks to your data record. Some
obvious attributes a data field may have are that it is alphabetic
(letters only); numeric (numbers only); or alphanumeric
(okay, you guessed it). That’s about all the simplest data base
programs allow—but here’s where InfoStar is an absolute champ. Some of
the attributes InfoStar will allow:
1. The field may only contain certain numbers and/or letters—for
example, if you’re typing in a state abbreviation and type “IT” when
you mean “IN,” InfoStar will stop you and tell you that’s not
acceptable. (It does this by checking what is called an authority
file and comparing the authority’s contents with your input.
Handy-dandy!)
2. The field will _enter itself_ based on your previous entries. For
example, you can enter that your customer wants 47 of your code
number W889AA (widgets), two entries; and InfoStar can look up the
price of widgets, multiply that by 47, look up the sales tax for
the state you inputted earlier, multiply your subtotal by the
amount of sales tax, and all by itself enter the name of the
product, the subtotal, the amount of the sales tax, and the
total—zip-zip-zip-zip, four entries, all done by the computer
rather than by you and all done in a flash. The first time I tried
it, I was startled into yelling, “Wa-hoo!”
3. The field can be a constant. For example, if your data record
contains years, you can tell InfoStar to enter “198” automatically,
and you only have to enter “4,” “5,” or whatever.
4. The field can automatically shift cases for you. For example, you
can type in “new york, ny,” and InfoStar will insert into the data
record “New York, NY.”
5. The field can insist that whatever you type in is identical two
times in a row or it won’t save the data record—useful if you deal
with complex numbers that _have_ to be right.
6. The field can be required—something that you _have_ to enter, or
InfoStar won’t let you go on.
Oh, and these are only examples! I guess I’m just a simple country
girl, but I was amazed and thrilled by all that InfoStar could do
with its data fields.
◻ How big are your data fields allowed to be? How many fields are you
allowed to have? InfoStar allows you a maximum of 245 fields per
record, and a maximum of 255 characters per field—it comes out to a
maximum of 62,475 characters per data record. (Perfect Filer, again by
way of comparison, theoretically allows 70 fields with a combined
total of 1,024 characters. On the other hand, the one time I tried to
test this limit with Perfect Filer, the program went comatose on me.)
I do wonder whether an InfoStar data record that was 61K in size might
mean you would get fewer than 64K data records into your data base. On
the other hand, who could imagine a 61K data record on a personal
computer? It is, after all, about the same size as a 60-page letter to
your Aunt Millie, and how often do you write 60-page letters to your
Aunt Millie?
◻ Once you have data in your data base, the =sort keys= determine how
you can get the data out again. Do you want to get the information out
in alphabetical order by name? Numerical order by ZIP code or phone
number? Some combination of the two? (For example, you might, if the
information is in your data records, want to sort your friends by who
is left-handed, who gave you a Christmas card last year, when their
birthdays are, or all of the above.) How many sort keys will the data
base allow? What kinds? How long does it take the program to do a
sort?
To take a primitive example, Perfect Filer allows you up to five
sort keys (alphabetical order by sister’s name, for example; numerical
order by ZIP code; both; numeric order by phone number; all three; and
so on). Perfect Filer will also generate up to twenty subsets from
which to sort. (Left-handed Republicans, female plumbers, all those
who owe you more than three dollars—you name it.) And it will also let
you have up to 40 list format fields—that is, it will allow you to
generate up to 40 different kinds of list (all left-handed female
plumbers who live on the West Coast). InfoStar, on the other hand,
will allow you 32 sort fields, which is a few more than 5; but it
doesn’t have any subsets per se and doesn’t seem to allow you more
than one list format. On the other hand, the range of “logical
expressions” it allows is amazing, and provided you understand BASIC
(InfoStar’s data are written in CBASIC) fairly well, you can attain
heights of efficiency Perfect Filer couldn’t even dream of (more on
this immediately).
◻ What kinds of =calculations= will your program do, and when does it do
them? Some programs will allow you to add, subtract, multiply, divide,
and other even more abstruse calculations, and all at the data entry
stage. The best of these allow serial calculations. For example, take
A and multiply it by B; then divide the result by C; then add it to D.
A program known as DB Master allows calculations for only two fields
at a time: A plus B equals C. D plus E equals F. C plus F equals G.
Other programs will only allow you to specify that certain relations
between data exist, and then only at the report-generating stage.
Perfect Filer, for example, will allow you to specify that you only
want your report to contain the people whose ZIP codes are between
20815 and 21903—but it won’t do any arithmetic at all. InfoStar, on
the other hand, can do algebraic and numeric calculations and impose
such logical conditions as “include this record if it meets X
criterion”; “do this calculation unless the data field is Y”; “do this
if conditions X _and_ Y _OR_ conditions P _or_ Q exist.” Zowie!
◻ What sort of “=overhead=” does the program demand? That is, what do
you need to be stored on your diskette in addition to your data
records? One trade-off might be that the more sort keys, subsets, list
formats, and/or logical expressions you have, the less space you have
for your data records. Unlike Perfect Filer, InfoStar creates an index
file for every data file that you create. An InfoStar index file
contains only the field values of your sort key(s) and addresses for
each of your data records, but even so, with a lot of sort keys and
with a nice, big data base, the index file is not going to be tiny.
Playing with InfoStar—after a week hunched over the keyboard, I still
can’t say I’ve learned it—was, in order, daunting, boring, thrilling,
mystifying, frustrating, and annoying. The program comes with four
(count em, _four_) diskettes and three instructional tomes of a size
and heaviness guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of a neophyte.
We’re talking half again as big as the compact edition of the Oxford
English Dictionary. We’re talking three three-ring binders crammed to
capacity with information. Daunting.
The program comes complete with three on-line tutorials—one
introductory tutorial that assumes that the person using it has never
been near a computer before, one tutorial for data entry, and one
tutorial for generating “quick reports.” All three are pretty to look
at, slow as molasses to try to go through, and simpleminded in the
extreme. The first one, for example, draws you a picture of a computer
terminal on its screen just in case you’re suffering from selective
blindness and can’t see the terminal you’re running the program on. My
advice to those who buy InfoStar and who’ve ever even _seen_ a
computer before is not to bother with the tutorials—certainly not with
the first one!—but to go straight to the training manual and start
plowing your way through. It shouldn’t take more than a hundred years.
When I started playing with some of the data bases that InfoStar
provides for its customers, I was excited. No, I was _thrilled_. I’ve
never seen anything like some of the things InfoStar can do, and
watching six fields fill up all by themselves after Id inputted one
number made me chortle with glee.
InfoStar uses most of the same commands that WordStar does, which is
convenient if you happen to _like_ control commands. I first began to
get annoyed when I discovered that InfoStar does not use arrow keys.
If you want to move your cursor, it’s =CTRL-D=, =CTRL-S=, =CTRL-E=,
=CTRL-X=—the same commands WordStar uses and a major-league annoyance.
Nor have any Function keys been assigned any values. And every single,
solitary time you use InfoStar you have to go through at least four
help screens—like it or not. Grrr!
I first ran into trouble when I began trying to define my own data
record. Drawing the screen is easy; but what does one do when one is
trying to assign attributes and runs up against prompts like, “Field
derived? Processing order? Copy attributes of field? Pad field? Batch
verify? Range check? Edit mask? Entry/content control character
codes?” I’ll tell you what I did: I read the training manual. I read
the reference manual. I tried native cunning. I tried pounding my fist
through the keyboard. I tried crying. InfoStar’s hype says, “On-screen
menus give you options in plain English ... while a series of help
screens guides you through each procedure.” Yeah; and I am Marie of
Romania.
The same sort of thing happened when I started fiddling with the
generation of reports. As promised, InfoStar “enables you to create
and print a report in sixty seconds.” The report prints all the data
in the given file. Here’s what the report for the file I’d tried to
construct looked like:
B:MMPLAY REPORT
B:MMPLAY REPORT
B:MMPLAY REPORT
10/21/84
10/21/84
10/21/84
FIELD #001 FIELD #002 FIELD #003 FIELD #004
FIELD #005 FIELD #006
FIELD #007 FIELD #008
____ ____ ____ ____ _____ _____ _____ _____
____ ____ ____ _____
____ ____ _______ ____
mwm Mary W. Matthews
4823 Willett Parkway Chevy Chase
MD 20815
ec Ed Corrigan
Pirmasens American School New York
NY 09189
I hope you get the idea. I’m too depressed to go on. So much for the
“quick report” that you can create in only sixty seconds.