[rescue] New acquisition... (AIX)

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> You know the funny thing is, I found business correspondence looked
> better and was generally more useful back in the days of daisy-wheel
> printers.

Just like email looks better in monospace fonts without formatting.
There's something cold and professional about correspondence without
frills.  Something that says, oh I dunno, "business" about it?

> Even monospace typewritter output was better than most of the
> "chartjunk" type stuff that we see today.

Very, very true.  However, I think there's a reason for all that.  When
you have typewriter output, or WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS output, you have
text.  That's it.  No distractions.  You have the point, in black-on-
white, as formal as can be.

When you dress it in color, primp it up, and toss a silly hat on it, you
have distractions.  What's the last piece of business correspondence you
got from a company where the whole point of it was to say something very
quietly[0] while being wholly distracting about something else?

I think plain text output is just too honest for business in the 21st
century.

ObRescue:  Since getting the computer room halfway set-up, I should see
about getting that old daisy-wheel printer of mine working.  I can use
it to print criticals from syslog until I get the DEC lineprinter
working.  Speaking of which, what's that Winchester connector on it all
about?  Does it really talk plain ol' v.35, and at what speed?

[0] ie: the fine print.
-- 
Jonathan Patschke  ) "Being on the Internet is not the same as being
Elgin, TX         (   famous.  That's like calling Cheetos 'dinner'."
USA                )                                    --Metal Steve