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  • From: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [BL] Word Processors Scenario w/ BL3-50
  • Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 04:48:54 -0400

Trying to decide what is best for a particular scenario and could use
some feedback here.
A particular senior citizen lady I know well has been using WordStar
4.0 for DOS since the late 1980's solely for word-processing and
printing. Nothing else; a Luddite. She refused to install
WordPerfect for DOS and Windows, MS-Word for Windows, Windows 95/98,
Linux...... etcetera and still has the same low-end Pentium I PC from
this period. She begrudgingly made the switch from 5.25" to 3.5"
floppies less than a dozen years ago, but still will not use the
perfectly-working 24X CD-ROM drive that is installed nor will she go
online for any means (e.g., web, email)!!

I have a super low-grade near-identical replacement PC for her. It is
a Pentium 133MHz CPU with 32MG SRAM and a 1.6GB hdd. This already has
DOS 6.2 and WS4.0 already installed via floppies only, onto a 500MB
"C:" partition and a 1GB "D:" data partition.

Question here is whether it would be better carrying out the above on
a larger 6GB+ hdd (i.e., faster, more reliable) and setting up a a)
dual-boot DOS/BL3 system with WS4.O on the DOS partition and BL3
running from the loop file on "C:" -or- b) a wiping out DOS altogether
and running WS4.0 from dosemu in a fully-installed BL3 ??
In a), DOS, WS4.0, and printing is identical to what she has now, with
the addition to having the ability of a BL3 failsafe in case something
goes bad in the future. Disadvantage is that within the native DOS
itself, cannot setup paging/swapping for memory usage, so physical
WYSIWYG as far as memory goes. (Yes, know about DOS 6.2 memory
management with SMARTDRV, DOSHIGH, LOADHIGH and other DOS parameters
in autoexec.bat and config.sys, but know that problems have been
reported with these even in this forum!!)

In b), can squeeze some optimum performance with native BL3 and paging
(swap partition) out of the low-end hardware specs for WS4.0 in
dosemu. Another possible benefit of BL3 is to somehow coax this lady
to use JOE with ncurses in as identical a fashion to WordStar on DOS
as possible. Disadvantages are possible intermittent WS failures when
running on dosemu and user confusion when using JOE for the first
several times.

The end-result will likely be a turnkey solution whichever a) and b)
is used, but could definitely use feedback on all of this.
Thanks in advance.
-itfactor36




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