The Hard Software Decision

One day recently a smiling student of mine inquired, “Do you know about computer dating?” “Probably not,” I responded, sens­ing a possible opportunity for the extracur­ricular development of my bachelor status, “what does it involve?” “Well,” said the stu­dent, his smile broadening, “if you don’t know about computers, it dates you!”

Over the last five years rapid growth in the microcomputer industry and related infor­mation services has ushered in a revolution­ary period of hardware and software devel­opment. On college campuses the era of the centralized computer center, run exclusively by and for mathematicians, is all but over, and historians, both students and faculty alike, are now gaining access to the new technology. Indeed, this transformation has blurred the normal distinction between home and office, since many of the first enthusiastic users of personal computers were lawyers, writers, and small-business owners doing much of their work at home.

To make good use of a computer you only need to know which keys to press, just as one needn’t know how to repair an automobile in order to drive it. But to get full value for money spent at a car dealer’s showroom, you really should know something of what goes on under the hood and precisely where to kick the tires. Likewise, a basic understand­ing of microcomputer hardware and soft­ware can be of considerable benefit to histori­ans.

The principal merit of the computer is its ability to process large quantities of data really fast. In doing this it uses two kinds of memory: ROM (read only memory), where part or all of the computer’s operating sys­tem permanently resides, and RAM (random access memory), which the computer erases and reuses like a blackboard whenever neces­sary. At the heart of the computer’s central processing unit (CPU) is its microprocessor chip. The size of that silicon chip, rated in “bits” (binary digits), is what determines how much memory, rated in “kilobytes” (1K = 1,024 characters), the computer can address. Most desktop micros being marketed today use either the Zilog Z-80 microprocessor, the Intel 8088, or the Motorola 68000. The Z-80, an 8-bit chip, can only use 64K of memory, whereas the 68000, a 16-bit microprocessor found in the Apple Lisa and Radio Shack Model 16 computers, can theoretically ad­dress as much as 16 megabytes of memory. Between these two extremes lies the 8088 used (sometimes along with the 8087, a rapid number cruncher) by the IBM Personal Computer and its clones. Also a 16-bit chip, it will directly address 512K of RAM, and a greatly improved version, the 80286, offer­ing memory management and multitasking capabilities, will likely appear in such machines in the near future.

Armed with this information, some under­standing of what it implies, and a budget, the historian can in principle decide which mi­crocomputer to use. Contrary to popular belief, however, you would be well advised to choose the software first before deciding on the computer to use with it. The logic behind such advice is easily explained. Like buying an automobile, purchasing a micro and its associated hardware, disk drives, printer, and so forth, involves a major financial investment. But unlike the automobile, com­puter hardware alone won’t necessarily get you where you want to go. If the programs needed to accomplish your particular appli­cations are not, or will not soon become available, that expensive microcomputer you just bought is little better than an expensive paperweight.

Now it’s quite true that a lot of reliable and relatively inexpensive software has been writ­ten for use on Z-80 based micros, but their 64K limit on usable memory made it inevitable that sooner or later the lucrative business market would be dominated by more powerful machines. A secure feeling comes from knowing that the manufacturer you choose can be relied on to both service and upgrade the technology of their product, and few corporate executives are willing to risk a “best buy” computer just for its short-term price advantage. Indeed, over the last year most computer programmers developing software for sophisticated professional appli­cations have sought compatibility with the IBM PC and the DOS (Disk Operating Sys­tem) designed for it by MicroSoft Corp. The unquestioned durability of “big blue” means those firms that have identified with the standard established by IBM have something extra going for them. Accordingly, all the programs discussed below in terms of their potential interest to historians have been tested on an Eagle PC, which in my judgment is the best of the IBM-compatible microcomputers.

 

Applications Software

Applications software includes word proces­sors, special text-editing tools, math spread­sheets, data-base managers, and statistical packages. Note that all product names are trademarks, and names of manufacturers are in parentheses. Most software is available from discount houses at prices considerably below the manufacturer’s list, and any dollar figures cited below are merely for reference purposes.

Word processors offer tremendous advan­tages over the ordinary typewriter in terms of formatting, editing, and printing docu­ments. Revising what you have written no longer need be a burden. While no knowl­edge of computer languages is necessary to use such a program, the typical word-proces­sor user must be familiar with more than a dozen of probably over one hundred differ­ent commands available in the program. Thus, in choosing word-processing software, it is important to have a checklist of desirable features.

One should verify that the user manual is clear, indexed, and easy to use. For example, the program should offer one or more menus of functions from which to choose, and preferably an optional Help command. Is it easy to move the cursor from the begin­ning to the end of a document? Can letters, words, phrases, and even whole lines be inserted easily? Can one move blocks of text? Is there a flexible search-and-replace fea­ture, can separate files be linked together for editing or printing, and can data be moved to and from other files not created by a word processor? Will the program automatically realign and right-justify text, and does it accommodate your special needs, such as printing foreign characters? Does it work with several different printers and can printing be customized for the type font of your choice? Can different printing formats be specified in the same document and does the software allow you to change from single to double-spacing? Can the program be transferred to the high-volume data storage devices such as hard disk likely to become widely used in the near future? In short, does the program have all the special features you need or would like to have available?

Including the software that comes “bundled” with some micros as a special deal, there already are over fifty word-processing programs commercially available for use on IBM PC compatible computers. Four of these are of particular interest to historians since they offer those features most likely to gladden the heart of the academic writer: the automatic generation of footnotes, tables of contents, and indexes.

The FinalWord (Mark of the Unicorn) is a sophisticated program that will do just about anything one can want from a word processor, since it provides the user over two hundred different commands with which to manipulate text. While scholars will find the narrative style of the thick manual somewhat condescending, those at first intimidated by the program should have little difficulty customizing it to their individual needs. The FinalWord handles text files of up to 248K in size, has extensive protection from loss due to computer malfunction, and makes possible the simultaneous editing of two different documents.

PowerText 2.0 (Beaman Porter), available as a fast Pascal “runtime” package, offers a number of special features, including an automatic newspaper style column facility, and the automatic numbering and indentation of schedules and outlines up to nine subheadings deep. Beaman Porter provides a problem solution hot line for users and will custom configure your printer driver on request. PowerSpell 2.0, a separately available text proofreading utility that can be accessed from within the program, offers a 6,000-word base vocabulary and the ability to create other dictionaries of up to 100,000 words.

WordPerfect (Satellite Software International) offers a number of special features, including a built-in math function, dual document editing ability, and optional spelling checker and data-sort utility. WordPerfect proved very easy to learn to use on the Eagle PC, and its menu-driven function key command produces footnotes that will split perfectly across pages if necessary.

Alphabetically the last but by no means least of the four is WordStar 3.3 (MicroPro). Produced by a company formed in the early days of microcomputers (1978), it was the first really good “what you see is what you get” screen-oriented word processor, and has remained ever since the unquestioned standard for comparison. It’s certainly not the easiest program to learn to use, but the installation tutorial and cross-referenced manuals that come with the newest version make it a very versatile, powerful and reliable program, beside which it is available in six different human languages! In a special package labeled WordStar Professional, the basic word processor comes bundled with two otherwise separately available options, MailMerge, used to produce customized form letters for mass mailings, and StarIndex, a utility for creating an index, table of contents, or list of figures.

WordStar itself will not generate footnotes, but that feature can be had with the use of Footnote (ProTem), which inserts numbers and notes in an already created WordStar document and insures that they split correct­ly across page breaks. Bibliography, another program from ProTem, will compare citations in a manuscript with keynames of entries in a library file and construct a bibliography of all entries cited—a feature I have not found available in any stand·alone word processor.

The efficiency of WordStar, and for that matter the efficiency of virtually any pro­gram, can be greatly enhanced with a $75 utility called ProKey (Rosesoft), which allows the user to customize potentially tricky control character combinations. As many as 100 keystrokes can be converted into one single entry macro that will streamline otherwise complicated functions. One possible use of the program with a word processor would be for formatting text from boilerplate documents.

As slick as it is, basic word processing sometimes just isn’t enough to get the job done in a way that is both fast and thorough. Editing your own words can be the most boring and potentially unproductive part of writing. A spelling checker or proofreading program does the hard part of comparing your text word by word against its own vocabulary of several thousand verified entries. Words not in the program’s dictionary are flagged as possible errors, and the user then may evaluate the resulting list and correct it in some manner. Internal checkers, such as those that work with PowerText and WordPerfect, show you the word in context and permit interactive editing. Most IBM PC compatible spelling checkers allow a user to add words to the program vocabulary, but one must be careful to get the spelling right when doing this. Proofreading programs should catch general typos such as extra or transposed letters, gaffes like “irregardless” or “ain’t,” doubled-up words, and incorrect plurals. The speed and accuracy of the pro­gram is determined by its internal structure, and one is well advised to try a test document to see if the product is worth its price, which can be anywhere from $30 to over $400.

. . . if the programs needed to accomplish your particular applications are not available, that microcomputer you just bought is little better than an expensive paperweight

In addition to the spelling checkers already mentioned, two others are particularly recommended due to their very reasonable cost. Proofreader (Aspen Software) is sold as a stand-alone utility that can be customized for use within several different word processors. It is also available as one of the five programs that make up Peachtext 5000 (Peachtree). The other “best buy” right now is Spell-It (Bersurk Systems), a $30 utility compatible with WordStar and many other word processors. Its basic 41,000 word vocabulary can be augmented with 4,500-word special application dictionaries that can be “packed” to reduce their size on the disk.

A particularly useful text-editing utility of a different sort is Aspen Software’s Grammatik, which will analyze sentence structure, find cliché phrases and long sentences, and point out possible errors in grammar and punctuation—things no spelling checker will mention. And then there’s the Random House Electronic Thesaurus (Dictronics), also sold as a component of Peachtext 5000. While it can’t handle plurals or verb suffixes, and is somewhat small in size (being based on a pocket thesaurus), the program is nonetheless impressive. By hitting a single control key, any word in your text can become the target for a search of its data base, and if located, the program will automatically substitute for it the synonym of your choice from a list displayed at the top of the screen. This can be a very useful tool for the creative writer.

Along with word processors, calculation spreadsheets are the most popular micro­computer application programs, offering in their speed and versatility an electronic replacement for pencil and calculator in solving number problems. The different “calc” packages can instantly recompute and dis­play the values in their rows and columns and save the results on a floppy disk as a template for later reuse. This makes it easy to get answers to “what if” questions and analyze the impact of decisions before implementation. Offering features not readily available on mainframe computers,  they have become a favorite microcomputer tool of businessmen. Historians will find them useful for recording student grades and doing numerical chores such as budgets and cost estimates. For those like myself who are basically incompetent at higher math and find the manuals provided with such programs too difficult to digest, tearing apart a template prepared by someone else can prove a useful way of learning how to exploit these very useful programs.

Three of the calc programs can be highly recommended. MultiPlan (Microsoft) eases the process by accepting English words in preparing the spreadsheet. An excellent manual and detailed tutorials make it easy to use, and its special functions include an alphabetic/numerical sort routine, automatic pagination of printed reports and the ability to link different worksheets. Target Financial Modeling (Comshare) is another straightforward and easy-to-use package offering an online HELP command, automatic forward referencing, and the ability to create models that prompt for data during calculation. And there’s also VisiCalc IV (VisiCorp), the original model copied at least to some degree by all of the other calc programs. The latest version, augmented with a utility called StretchCalc, provides innovations such as keystroke macros and a multiple configuration graphing ability that will ensure its continued use.

The regular stand-alone math spreadsheet programs do have one drawback, in that the user must manually enter not only the forms for any calculation functions, but also all the data involved. If you want to define your data separately, create specialized screens to speed its entry into the computer, and utilize rapid sorting and searching procedures, you will need what is known as a Data Base Management System (DBMS). In fact, anything that can be recorded, ordered, and cataloged is a data base in itself.

Bridging the existing gap between the calc program and the DBMS is 1-2-3 (Lotus), currently the best-selling program for IBM PC compatibles. In addition to offering a larger worksheet than VisiCalc, multiple re­gression functions, HELP screens, and re­markable data-management capabilities, 1-2-3 can simultaneously display a graph of the results on a second color monitor. “What-if” changes to the spreadsheet or data base are also instantly reflected in the graphic display. Flattery is not without its purpose, and Lotus will soon face stiff competition from some up-and-coming imitators, such as SuperCalc3 (Sorcim), which promises extra features such as individually variable column widths and calendar/date calculations.

Due to the memory limits faced by 1-2-3 and its clones, the ordinary sort of DBMS (without an integrated spreadsheet) is still far from being outmoded, and several excellent ones are available. InfoStar (MicroPro), from the makers of WordStar, is composed of DataStar and ReportStar. Designed for use by nonprogrammers, this package offers de­tailed HELP messages, allows the user to draw data entry screens with the cursor, and provides versatile reporting capabilities. A similar but far more simple product, pfs:Re­port (Software Publishing Corp.), designed to work with pfs:File, can be mastered by the complete novice in about three hours. As an alternative “best buy,” CreataBase (PCSoftware) offers features that will meet the needs of most users and at a considerably better price than its competition. When aug­mented with TurboFile (Creative Computing Applications), which will create standard BA­SIC programs, up to 10 VisiFile (VisiCorp) data files can be read or written simulta­neously. The line numbers normally re­quired when programming in BASIC be­come optional when creating new application programs with Turbo File.

dBaseII (Ashton-Tate), a $700 item orig­inally designed to run on 64K machines, is still considered by many programmers to be the best DBMS. With it one can create elabo­rate screen entry and statistical routines that permit a wide variety of SPSS-like opera­tions, albeit restricted in size to 64 variables per data set. The difficulty that most people have experienced in trying to use the pro­gram has created an entire secondary market of dBaseII add-ons. Now its dominating position has been challenged by R:Base4000 (Microrim), a program that is extremely easy to use, far more powerful (40 files available concurrently as compared with 2  for dBaseII, and 400 maximum fields per data base as against 32 for dBaseII). Selling for about $200 less than its predecessor, and with the ability to integrate with MicroSoft’s MicroPlan spreadsheet, R:Base4000 appears to be a strong contender for DBMS domi­nance.

Those historians who first learned how to manipulate a data base on a mainframe or minicomputer probably used—with the help of a consultant—statistical programs such as SPSS or SAS to do their “number crunching” of original source material like census infor­mation, election returns, or economic data. They will now find many of the same applica­tions available on the micro with Abstat 3 (Anderson-Bell), a program that lets the user enter, edit, transform, and statistically ana­lyze his data. Compatible with dBaseII and adhering to its limit of no more than 64 variables, the program offers many important features, including descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, cross-tabulation and Chi-square, analysis of variance, probability functions, correlation, regression analysis, and graphing features. Requiring prior knowledge of statistics, the program is also available in an 8087 coprocessor dependent version that offers considerably faster com­putation times.

With the exception of contingency tables and integration with dBaseII files, all the features of Abstat, and a lot of others into the bargain, are offered by The Statistician (Quant Systems). Easy to use, it features several additional types of nonparametric statistics, random variate generation as well as time­ series forecasting, and offers five regression procedures, including all subsets, backward­ elimination, stepwise, and ridge-regression procedures. Permitting twice as many obser­vations as Abstat, and producing a scatterplot with clearly labeled matrices, The Statistician is recommended to those seeking SPSS fea­tures on a micro.

Systems Software

Utilizing the floppy disk as its principal means of permanent program and data stor­age, the current generation of desktop mi­cros cannot operate without a disk-operating system. One widely accepted DOS, the UCSD (Pascal) p-System, will run on most computers regardless of whether they have an 8- or 16-bit microprocessor. Yet another 8-bit single-user DOS, CP/M (Control Program Monitor [Digital Research]), which has been up­graded to run on IBM PC compatibles as CP/M-86, and an even better implementation will soon be generally available as Concurrent CP/M, able to run several programs simulta­neously and switch instantly from one to another. Western Electric’s UNIX system sports even more impressive features, but is unlikely to become widely used on the IBM PC and its clones. In fact, the majority of the applications programs mentioned above have been written for use under MicroSoft’s MS-DOS, PC DOS 1.1, or PC DOS 2.0, and there is no reason to expect any great change in that situation.

What is missing in the latter operating systems can be made up for by such items as Rosesoft’s Prokey, which allows you to cus­tomize a lot of application software, and Memory/Shift {North American Business Sys­tems), with which the user can run as many as nine different programs simultaneously, transferring data from program to program and eventually to disk. Yet another excellent utility called CopyIIPC will back up virtually any copy-protected software and thereby avoid risk to unique copies of expensive programs. The one type of utility not yet perfected for use on IBM PC compatibles is the sort of program that will let one recover data from floppy disks that have been “crashed” during one of the blessedly infre­quent malfunctions that micro users inevita­bly experience. The prototype of what is needed is a program written for the Radio Shack 8-bit computers called Super Utility Plus, which will reformat a diskette without erasing the data on it.

And, finally, a word about vendor selec­tion, all-important to all those who later on will want to obtain improved versions of the programs they have spent so much time learning to use. The principal software houses mentioned above, particularly Digital Research, Lotus, Micropro, and MicroSoft, regularly improve and add to their product line. And enhanced versions of a number of other fine programs not reviewed above, especially word processors such as Peachtext (Peachtree), pfs:Word (Software Publishing), and VisiWord (VisiCorp), should be available soon. As each of these vendors has created an entire family of software capable of working interactively, one should by no means write off a program as inadequate without first examining its close relatives. The frugal academic should evaluate the public domain software that is readily available-such “freeware” programs as PC-File and PC-Talk III perform up to the standard of commer­cial programs selling for hundreds of dollars.

The last part of this series (to appear in the January 1984 Perspectives) will include a dis­cussion of available hardware and program­ming languages, and consider a number of the ways historians can adapt computers to the uses of the profession.