response 117 of 193:

Mar 18 15:45 UTC 1999

Toshiba P341 will not print downloadable characters unless you buy another
component from your dealer (1985 model).  JIm may be able to rearrange the
Cyrillic keyboard so that the ASCII codes match Win-1251, and maybe also match
the standard Russian keyboard.  Sounds difficult to me.

response 119 of 193:

Mar 25 05:36 UTC 1999

Hey Greg !
Need some help from you on Linux. In fact any one can help. I am a kind of
newbie as far as Linux is concerned though i hadread about it and worked for
a while at my Institute (IIT Delhi) on it. Now i'm working and we don't use
it here. How can i get a so called Free version? Is there any thing free at
all about it ? If ys, would downloading it be huge problem ?

response 121 of 193:

Mar 26 07:24 UTC 1999

Thanks Larsn. Actually i have a very ambitious plan, the very first step of
which is getting the OS.(Linux). Some time back a Grexer named Silent
Trystero wondered as to wheteher it is at all such a bad idea for telnetters
from India to set up a system like Grex in India. There was a bit of a
discussion s well. Now it doesn't mean that i'm going to do it taking it as
some kind of a challenge. No i simply do not have that much expertise on it.
But i just want to learn how systems based on Linux work such wonders. Thanks
for the info .

response 123 of 193:

Mar 26 23:15 UTC 1999

We eventually figured out, with help from jelly conf, that unix would create
more problems than it would solve, and are working on improving WP5.1.  Kentn
helped us determine that we were missing a file needed to create macros (to
get around the two-level menus).  Jim found a spellchecker that does not work
in WP5.1 but will work on it if you call the WP5.1 file a DOS file and ignore
the commands (garbage).  It shows you all the typos and capitalized words on
a page and you can choose which ones to correct.   We can use it with his
little editor, that lets you page down one screen at a time instead of the
54 lines of WP.  We will put this all together after the Netscape project is
delivered (and maybe even cut my hair and fix my shoes and start eating
again more than once a day).  That reminds me,time for lunch now.

response 125 of 193:

May 16 15:00 UTC 1999

Jim is working on a better word count program for WP5.1/DOS.  WP counts as
words anything starting with a letter that includes letters and numbers and
apostrophes (I think).  My translation agencies pay per word for words that
have numbers but no letters in them, and for 30 years or so I have been
counting the numbers by hand, up to 300 per document.  This turned out to be
not so simple.  First, to get rid of printer commands etc., he converts to
ASCII file.  Then writes something so as not to count lines full of spaces
as words.  Then we categorize ASCII characters as word-characters or spacers.
Words include:  letters (including diacritic letters and Greek letters);
numbers, the period and comma (as found in 123.456 and 123,456 - but also
email address and URLs, so that keesan@grex.cyberspace.org comes out as two
not four words). Apostrophe.  And anything else which is not treated as a
spacer:  !#$%^&*<>

Spacers are {}[]()_-+=|\/;:"@    
Thus [seal:] is one word not two.

Please give us your ideas on the above, i. e., can you find common examples
in which < > are spacers and should not be treated as words?  
I. e., is 123 < 456 two or three words?

Is the degree sign a spacer or a word-character, as in 25oC (where the o would
actually be a little raised o)?  Would you call this one or two words or even
three words?  Jim is counting all the extended ASCII characters (degree signs,
alphas, accented vowels) as word-characters.  Are there any that should be
counted as spacers?  Extended ASCII includes more math symbols - which of
these are spacers and which are word-characters?  (I don't generally translate
box characters, thank goodness!).  What to do with the square root and the
square signs?  Is the divided by sign a word?  (Will any of my translation
agencies care if the word count is five too high?  I think not, but Jim is
a stickler for detail.  I think I have just opened a can of 128 worms.)

Is x used as a multiplication sign a word?  (Is it worth writing a program
to distinguish x from other one-letter words?)

I am starting to understand why WP wrote an imperfect word counting program.

Jim says WP5.1 puts form feeds into DOS files and they get counted as words
if they appear by themselves and they had to be subtracted.

response 127 of 193:

May 16 18:10 UTC 1999

The caret sign is fixed.  It was a signal that a command followed, as was the
| sign.  Now they count as word-character and separator, respectively.
= is a separator.  two to the minus fifth is one word, says Jim.  4:20 is two
words unless he puts in a lot more programming time.
The big snafu now is that this program is written in 4DOS and whenever I shell
from WP to DOS (for instance to use grex) I go out of 4DOS and have to go back
into it by exiting WP to use the counting program.
Jim thinks this would run faster written in Assembler language.
A line of hyphens counts as one word for some reason, something to do with
the final character on a line being a spacer and getting counted. ??
We counted my $400 translation that I did while Jim was putting the finishing
touches on this program, and it added $20 worth of words (numbers).  In about
five minutes less than it would take me by hand, and more accurately (despite
a few 4:20s and the like).
I do not mind if long mathematical equations get counted as more than one
word, they take a lot of extra time to type anyway.
Do programmers ever get paid by the word?  I have to know that Russian expands
30% into English, Macedonian about 12% (it has prepositions and the verbs are
more like English in having several parts).  French shrinks.  When translating
computer software there is often a problem fitting in French where the English
programmer has not left enough space for a longer phrase.

response 129 of 193:

Jun 30 10:43 UTC 1999

That explains bloated software!

response 131 of 193:

Jul 3 19:46 UTC 1999

Jim rigged things up so all I have to do is exit to DOS, type 4, then Y, then
it counts for me and plays a little tune at the end, the exact tune depending
on the total word count.  Then I EXIT twice back to WP.

I am now on a 386DX/33 with cache and this program runs really fast, only
about 30 sec total to get a word count in most cases.

How does the speed of a 386DX/33 with cache compare with a 486SX/25?  I ask
because we are looking for something to trade to someone with a 386 computer
that he does not need the features of, just internet use.  Also I would like
to explain to the person who we may offer the 386 to that it probably runs
about as fast as the 486.  (He was expecting a 486 but it will take rather
a long time to get going, it came without working hard disks).
The 386 has 8M RAM, would it run Netscape as fast as a 486/25 with 6M?
Is the math coprocessor involved in running Netscape?  We have one that we
could install in the 386, if it would help.  He also wants to play games,
would a coprocessor help with that?

response 133 of 193:

Jul 5 14:50 UTC 1999

Sounds like the 386DX with coprocessor and 8M RAM is actually a better machine
for the kid who wants Netscape and new games, than is the 486SX/25 that his
cousin got to type papers and do some internet on.  I did not want him to 
feel cheated and can now give him an explanation of the advantages of the
coprocessor and extra RAM.  Neither kid is likely to upgrade anything.
The 386 also has a faster CD-ROM drive and comes loaded with Win3.1 games.

It is fun to customize computers for specific purposes.  THanks for the info.

response 135 of 193:

Jul 23 01:04 UTC 1999

The problem may be that the machine has a 1X CD-ROM.  Are there many games
that will not work on 1x?  Bill is still attempting to get a 4x CD-ROM driver
working in another computer.
We suggested that the kid try out his games on his sister's computer, which
also has a 1x Cd-ROM drive.  And if they do not work, wait for us to come up
with something better.

response 137 of 193:

Jul 23 21:05 UTC 1999

They seem to play audio CDs better than newer drives, though.  Go fig.

response 139 of 193:

Jul 26 00:54 UTC 1999

Yes, but CD-ROM drives have been getting steadily cheaper over the years. 
As far as I can tell, there's two areas they've sacrificed to do this.  1)
Durability.  Older drives lasted about forever.  Newer ones use
permanent-magnet spindle motors, not brushless ones, and don't last all that
long before the brushes or cheap bearings wear out.  2) Shielding.  The
audio playback circuits in newer drives aren't well designed or well
shielded, so digital 'noise' leaks into the audio.

A friend of mine once had a 40x CD-ROM that could barely play audio CDs at
all.  They'd used such a cheap spindle motor that it couldn't reliably spin
at 1x speed.  Instead it'd constantly spin up to 40x and back down, filling
and emptying its buffer.  It couldn't stream video properly for the same
reason -- it'd spin up to 40x until its buffer was full, then immediately
spin down.  Problem was, it took it longer to spin up again than it took the
computer to empty the buffer, so video playback would skip.

response 141 of 193:

Jul 26 15:46 UTC 1999

Sound cards are mostly good for games and for playing little noises in
Windows.  I use mine a lot for listening to MP3s and RealAudio, too, but
neither of those are viable on a 386-class machine.