Every by-God one of them...gone.

Did you keep a pen & paper?

Sorry about that, Scott.

You've got the beginnings of a good story, though. Guy deletes all his word processing software, and then, that night (that NIGHT!) they enact their revenge. First, it's just his computer on the fritz. He takes it to the Russians on the corner, no biggie. But then it gets weird. He dreams of flashing cursors. He can spell nothing correctly on the office memos (in a world without spell check...). The boss uses track changes to scold him about his depleting performance. A humongous paperclip keeps peaking out behind the hedge. He figures the only way to regain sanity is to go to the Russians and buy some new software. This new thing is called Werks 3.0. At first it works swimmingly, but things change. It becomes clear that the program (warm up devil chuckle) seems to HAVE A MIND OF ITS OWN! Stories are written, bizarre stories, that the writer never remembers writing and all that. Etc. etc.

You can have it if you want.

But a caveat: didn't Stephen King do something like this once with a typewriter?

There's something really simple and pure about just plain text, isn't there? I bought a used AlphaSmart 3000 recently and have been sort of reveling in just . . . typing. No formatting, no worrying about program blips or auto anything. Just words.

But I do keep my faithful WordPerfect on the computer, so I can upload the lovely plain text and thereafter get it ready to actually send to someone (like our editor.)

Good luck with it. Hope it works out for you.

Cathy C said:

There's something really simple and pure about just plain text, isn't there? I bought a used AlphaSmart 3000 recently and have been sort of reveling in just . . . typing. No formatting, no worrying about program blips or auto anything. Just words.

Click to expand...

I LOVE my AlphaSmart. I don't have a laptop so it used to be that if I was on vacation I would be relegated to pen and paper. Not a good choice for me because it's really hard for me to keep up with my thoughts writing by hand.

And I use it around the house too, if I want to write out back or just in another part of the house rather than my office.

...there are really that many writing programs...?

-amazed-

Writer14 said:

...there are really that many writing programs...?

-amazed-

Click to expand...

Yup. And then you start getting over into the ones that are for Mac only, so there have to be dozens out there, if not hundreds.

And I also <3 my Alphasmart Neo.

Boy oh boy...I love my..
Microsoft Word 2000 Premium

Boy does it suck ^_^

It drives my family up the wall. I spend money on a brand new copy of MS Word every few years. I have a brand new copy of Word 2007 right now. And the first thing I do when I install it is...turn every ****ing feature OFF.

Don't tell me when I spell something wrong, I'll figure it out. Don't correct my grammar. I do not want to know my Shrapnel-Fletcher Reading Level or my Passive Sentence Percentage. I want you, computer, to be a typewriter with a TV screen attached.

Skelly, you're my hero. The luddites support you in PMs! Or they would. If they were online.

WPs

I admire your courage. One of the reasons I do first drafts in longhand is to keep distractions to a minimum.

But I'd never dump my word processors. Once the first draft is done, a good word processor saves me hundreds of hours per year. And on those occasions when deadlines force me to write first drafts on a computer, plain text just doesn't cut it.

I've got my Word minimized pretty well. All I need is center and tab, essentially. Grammar check off. Spell check off. No red or green lines as I type. No changing things as I go. (HATE that.) No capitalizing the first letter of lines as I type. All of that, ALL of that -- off.

Really, I don't see how anyone works with any of that stuff on.

PeeDee said:

It drives my family up the wall. I spend money on a brand new copy of MS Word every few years. I have a brand new copy of Word 2007 right now. And the first thing I do when I install it is...turn every ****ing feature OFF.

Don't tell me when I spell something wrong, I'll figure it out. Don't correct my grammar. I do not want to know my Shrapnel-Fletcher Reading Level or my Passive Sentence Percentage. I want you, computer, to be a typewriter with a TV screen attached.

Skelly, you're my hero. The luddites support you in PMs! Or they would. If they were online.

Click to expand...

Will Lavender said:

I've got my Word minimized pretty well. All I need is center and tab, essentially. Grammar check off. Spell check off. No red or green lines as I type. No changing things as I go. (HATE that.) No capitalizing the first letter of lines as I type. All of that, ALL of that -- off.

Really, I don't see how anyone works with any of that stuff on.

Click to expand...

But...but...it's...WORD. From Microsoft! Who only has your best interests at heart and knows what's best for you!

Oh, yeah. I turn off every single automated formatting feature I possibly can, too. I'll tell it when I'm ready for a spell check, then kew.

Microsoft is Mother, Microsoft is Father. Trust Microsoft.

If I wasn't used to MS Word (and if it had an italics feature) then I think maybe I'd write in something like DarkRoom full time at this point.

(actually, I think Skelly has moved me to spend the day composing with something less fancy)

Wow. I had no idea I was so bland. I just use MS Word and don't even think about it. I just type the story, not worrying about formats (except that I set my font and spacing at the very beginning). The spell-check and grammar-check don't bother me. I make those decisions as I go.

So what's the purpose of all these other wp programs? I've never even heard of most of them and don't understand why there's even a market for them. Seriously, educate me here.

If I knew, I would be a wiser man. I use MS WOrd because...I used MS Word early on when I switched to computers (from a nice typewriter) and got used to it.

jodiodi said:

So what's the purpose of all these other wp programs?

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Not everybody has a PC or Mac platform computer, or they might have an older machine without sufficient memory/RAM to load a massive program like Word or WordPerfect. Some of the "text-only" programs don't take up much space on the drive and function just as well for straight typing. I can't think of the last time I've used the Tools tab in either program. It might as well not be there.

I used a Brother Word Processor when I first started typing.

Oh, how I miss you Brother! How one page took forty-seven minutes to print! How all your fonts were piss-yellow! How you could do nothing but type and save! How you accepted, when everyone else had gone to hard disks, the old-fashioned "floppy," the only thing on earth that feels exactly as it sounds! How you would print only three pages before your ribbon needed to be spayed and neutered!

Oh, good times. 1993, come back.

Look at the bright side: You could have used your Brother Word Processor to stun burgelers. Or kill them.

(burglers)

(burgalers)

(Gawd....)

PeeDee said:

Look at the bright side: You could have used your Brother Word Processor to stun burgelers. Or kill them.

(burglers)

(burgalers)

(Gawd....)

Click to expand...

A good dose of spell check will fix you right up.

Mother Microsoft s you.

Burglar! GAWD! *brain fart*

King's "Word Processor of the Gods"! That's what I was thinking of. Anybody read it?

Oh yeah! Good story! I remember that one.