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Subject:Re: Funny quote From:Ad absurdum per aspera <JTCHEW -at- LBL -dot- GOV> Date:Wed, 12 Jan 1994 18:08:09 GMT
Bill Gates his ownself has told a pretty funny story whose
conceit is that all household appliances work like computers--
making breakfast involves running TOASTER.COM and so forth.
I tend to be forgiving of computer manuals (for length,
anyway). We ask so much more of software than we used to!
When I first got a PC, its function was to spit out manuscripts;
it was basically a better typewriter. Everything else on the
path toward a publication was done by hand. Now, if I wanted,
I could write, illustrate, and lay out a quite complicated
technical document on my computer and squirt it over the
network to a printer that goes pockety-queek and emits a book.
Intermediate printouts are needed only for the convenience of
reviewers and as as a sop for my distrust of certain stages of
the process. Small wonder that the manuals are thick these days.
Joe
"Just another personal opinion from the People's Republic of Berkeley"