NEW Shaper Origin Stuff!

[Leon]

No, I did not build anything.

BUT new accessories and software for Origin!

https://www.shapertools.com/en-us/plate

https://www.shapertools.com/en-us/studio


Coming in September!

[k...@notreal.com]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2022 09:39:02 -0500, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet>
wrote:

>No, I did not build anything.
>
>BUT new accessories and software for Origin!
>
>https://www.shapertools.com/en-us/plate

ISTM that the workstation will do everything this does. At $375
(workstation is $500) it seems to be on the expensive side. Is it
restricted to their components?

>https://www.shapertools.com/en-us/studio

I'm not so interested in rental software.

[Leon]

I'm not either but there is a free version.

[Bob Davis]

I am pretty satisfied with Afinity Designer, but I always give new software a look, rental or single purchase. If it saves me time or makes a particular phase much easier, I am interested. As I look at the software I use regularly, the "rental" software is almost always the best maintained with the best customer support, so I pay the price.

[k...@notreal.com]

For a professional it makes sense. Many corporations are held hostage
by Microsoft Office but there is no way I'd pay a yearly fee for it. A
few hundred for a permanent licence, maybe. Otherwise, I'm happy with
Libre Office. It has its strangeness (probably because it's the same
but different) but I can get around it.

[DerbyDad03]

Sometimes that "strangeness" can be an issue when sharing LO docs with users of
other apps, especially if any editing needs to be done by multiple users with differing
versions of the differing apps.

At least it used to be that way when I had to deal that issue. Maybe collaboration and
compound document sharing between apps/versions has improved. Compound
documents was the biggest problem we had to deal with.

(shamelessly stolen from documentfoundation.org)

Microsoft Office compatibility
Non-compound documents from Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint that are properly
formatted using style sheets and proper paragraph and page breaks, rather than using
spaces and carriage returns and lots of manual formatting, will generally look and work
well under LibreOffice. LibreOffice does not support simultaneous collaborative editing
with Microsoft Office users, nor does it support compound documents, which are
documents where one document is embedded in within another, such as an Excel table
embedded within a Word document.

[k...@notreal.com]

The documents are compatible. The strangeness is in the UI.
Operations are "hidden" in strange places. If one is using both,
efficiency can be a problem. I've used Excel so long there was(is) a
learning curve.

>
>At least it used to be that way when I had to deal that issue. Maybe collaboration and
>compound document sharing between apps/versions has improved. Compound
>documents was the biggest problem we had to deal with.
>
>(shamelessly stolen from documentfoundation.org)
>
>Microsoft Office compatibility
>Non-compound documents from Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint that are properly
>formatted using style sheets and proper paragraph and page breaks, rather than using
>spaces and carriage returns and lots of manual formatting, will generally look and work
>well under LibreOffice. LibreOffice does not support simultaneous collaborative editing
>with Microsoft Office users, nor does it support compound documents, which are
>documents where one document is embedded in within another, such as an Excel table
>embedded within a Word document.

Dynamic cross-application pages are a problem. I don't see this as a
necessity for home use. For business use, sure, absolutely. Even a
slightly different UI would be a huge productivity problem. If Libra
was 100% compatible, Microsoft would make sure it's broken in the next
release. No point is chasing a ghost.

[DerbyDad03]

There is a "mid-point" (call it what you want) between home use and business use.

Volunteer organizations, youth sports leagues, even book clubs. Heck, I've run into
issues planning a family vacation because some of us had MS, some had LO, some
had PC's, some had Macs. Collaborative editing is typically where problems arise,
at least in my experience.

[Leon]

LOL, I used 123 long before Excel existed. I began learning Excel
about 5~6 years ago.

[DerbyDad03]

We used VisiCalc until 123 showed up and kicked VisiCalc to the curb.

Lotus Notes was the first PC based email/calendaring software I used...once
we were off the IBM main frame of course.

The scientists and engineers were the first to have their IBM 3278 terminals
replaced with IBM PC's. Once management saw that, they all wanted PC's too.
So PC's were purchased, 3278 emulator cards were installed and they used the
PC's as 3278 terminals. ;-)

[k...@notreal.com]

On Sat, 3 Sep 2022 10:52:07 -0700 (PDT), DerbyDad03

I worked for IBM as a design engineer in the mainframe division. I
always had the latest terminals/PCs because I ordered them for the
function (three or four departments). No one else wanted the job but
it wasn't a big deal. I ordered them so *I* could get the latest. If
I had to do a little paperwork for everyone else, so be it.

I started out with the first 3277. Then put a Tektronix 19" vector
graphics unit on it. Then a 3278, 3279, and all generations of PCs as
they came out. We always got a few allocated to us, as they were first
introduced. I got #1 and my boss got #2 (grease the office politics
;-). Ours were then hand-me-downs to other engineers. That was in the
mid-70s to mid-'80s.

I never used 123 and Visicalc just a little. I didn't have much use
for them. We were using terminals and PCs for design entry and
simulation and didn't do anything financial or document based. All
communication was by email, even in the '70s.

Much later I realized that I could use Excel as a very powerful design
tool. It could take quite complex equations and run them on a lot of
data in short time. The only problem was that equation entry was a
pain and getting it working was worse. Once it was right, it was an
amazing tool for design. The results were really easy to format to see
the results in graphic form. It became quite a powerful tool. Since
I've retired, no one is buying Excel for me and I don't need its power
(but it is there in Libra Calc).

[Leon]

When was that? IIRC my dad used 123 at work on his PC in 1986, I
started using it in 1987~1988.

[DerbyDad03]

Early 80's. 84-ish? PC's were just beginning to be deployed, but we had Apples before
that.

I think it was 123 where you would enter a number for a calculation and then sit back and
watch the cells change one by one as the results of the input worked it's way through
the sheet.

> >
> > Lotus Notes was the first PC based email/calendaring software I used...once
> > we were off the IBM main frame of course.
> >
> > The scientists and engineers were the first to have their IBM 3278 terminals
> > replaced with IBM PC's. Once management saw that, they all wanted PC's too.
> > So PC's were purchased, 3278 emulator cards were installed and they used the
> > PC's as 3278 terminals. ;-)

Early 80's. 84-ish? PC's were just beginning to be deployed, but we had Apples before
that.

I think it was 123 where you would enter a number for a calculation and then sit back and
watch the cells change one by one as the results of the input worked it's way through
the sheet.

[k...@notreal.com]

On Sat, 3 Sep 2022 19:45:10 -0700 (PDT), DerbyDad03

The PC came out in 1981. I had one at home by March of '82.

[DerbyDad03]

Our first word processors were Radio Shack TRS-80's (Trash 80). They had big time
static problems. Users would wipe out the 8" floppies in the expansion drive bays just
by touching the keyboard. In the worst cases, a user would touch the keyboard and the
daisy wheel printer would spit out a character.

I was doing hardware support for a while. Before we would install a TRS-80 we would
open the keyboard and add a grounding wire from the circuit board to the plastic case. It
helped somewhat, but not 100%. There were a few other modifications that were required
but I don't recall what they were. Once we realized how bad the systems were, we worked
with our purchasing department to have all units (hundreds of them) shipped directly to
our shop for "repairs" before the end user ever saw them.

There were some buildings that were so bad that we would connect a grounding strap
to the sprinkler system and hang it down next to the TRS-80. At the end we attached
those Velcro grounding bracelets that people used when installing memory modules, etc.
The users would put the bracelet on their wrist before they touched any part of the system.

The engineering of the 3 drive expansion bay was so bad that we had to figure out which
case screws to leave off so that all three drives would consistently work. They'd work
fine until we put the case on and then start to act weird. Eventually we used the minimum
number of screws and left them slightly loose.

[Leon]

LOL. Probably and most likely because of a slow processor and or
complicated code.

My ATT 6300 procesed at 10 MHz. In 1986 that was relatively fast.