Writing book on Atari.

[Bill Loguidice]

And to answer your earlier comments, I would be much happier to get rid of my cell phone and many other modern conveniences in favor of privacy and not being distracted. I often leave my phone at home, just not to be bothered. I'm perfectly happy with buying hard-copy movies than streaming, too, etc. What you find to be modern conveniences I find to be further intrusion into my life with distractions and far less privacy. Sometimes old ways are better ways.

 

The philosophical difference is understood and I did acknowledge that in one of my earlier comments. Certainly for me, I've always embraced the new, while still loving the old, acknowledging that neither approach is without issues. I truly hope I never stop embracing the new and can continue to realistically acknowledge any concerns or potential issues without being stymied by them.

[thetick1]

And to answer your earlier comments, I would be much happier to get rid of my cell phone and many other modern conveniences in favor of privacy and not being distracted. I often leave my phone at home, just not to be bothered. I'm perfectly happy with buying hard-copy movies than streaming, too, etc. What you find to be modern conveniences I find to be further intrusion into my life with distractions and far less privacy. Sometimes old ways are better ways.

 

And my great grandfather never owned a car and he died in 1976! A car was just too much expense and trouble for him when he already had horses on the farm. He was 95 years old .. living by himself (granddad visited him daily) and would ride a horse a few miles into town to pick up supplies.

 

My dad in his late 70's never had a credit card and never had a loan in his entire life. He consideres it irresponsible to have loan. He got his first flip cell phone about 3 years ago and only because my brother bought it and pays the bill.

 

Old stubborn people tend to like life as it was when they were 20. We like what we learned.

Edited February 7, 2018 by thetick1

[Gunstar]

 

And my great grandfather never owned a car and he died in 1976! A car was just too much expense and trouble for him when he already had horses on the farm.

Old stubborn people tend to like life was when they were 20. We like what we learned.

The Amish and others feel the same way and they seem to be getting through life just fine too.

[Bill Loguidice]

The Amish and others feel the same way and they seem to be getting through life just fine too.

 

Indeed, some people idealize stone age cultures and others consider such societies as dead end aberrations. It's all in one's perspective. Complete resistance is not necessarily a good solution to inevitable change.

[thetick1]

The Amish and others feel the same way and they seem to be getting through life just fine too.

 

I know all too well. I have Amish cousins. My great grandfather left the Amish community as a young boy because he loved an "English" woman. He held many but not all of the Amish ways.

 

In case you don't know the Amish are leaving at a much higher rate now. Also the inbreeding is reaching a much more dangerous state with the smaller number of Amish. It is doubtful if Amish still exist in another 2 to 3 generations.

Edited February 7, 2018 by thetick1

[Gunstar]

 

Indeed, some people idealize stone age cultures and others consider such societies as dead end aberrations. It's all in one's perspective. Complete resistance is not necessarily a good solution to inevitable change.

True, they are an extreme example. But I'm perfectly fine still using old tech and old vehicles, etc, until they don't work anymore. Complete resistance also isn't necessarily a bad thing either, but then, I'm not resisting, I'm protecting. I use all the modern tech, but I do not ever use it for vital stuff that I don't want others to get their hands on, private, government, whatever. It puts to much at stake for me when there are corrupt people in the world. A government changes hands constantly, and you never know for the better or the worse, and while things might be fine today, tomorrow is unknown. I use it all, but I'm careful what I use it for and how much of my personal life I expose to it. Modern tech can be very convenient to us, but it's also very convenient to keep track of and control you, should the wrong people have the power. Obviously I'm giving reasons other than why I use an 8-bit to write, that's for fun and not trusting my Windows computer, and not more there.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Gunstar

[DavidMil]

 

Now I take my Atari Flashback Portable to the can!

 

Man, now that is hard corpes!

 

David

[flashjazzcat]

Well I probably should do that sometimes since I've had it pointed out in the past that my grammar usage is stupid .

Far from it, but as we've seen, spelling checkers can't catch everything, and in the broader sense I actually think that the increasing reliance on spelling and grammar checkers (coupled with a deliberate absence of punctuation in URLs) has coincided with a steady decrease in the quality of professional writing, at least when it comes to Internet content. "Professional" writers (should) realise that such tools are little more than a convenient means of correcting common typos, but one gets the impression that little copy now passes before the eyes of a human proof reader, and that even when copy is scrutinised, the scrutineer sometimes doesn't know what they're looking for. I mentioned before that I used to run plain TextPro files through the AW+ Proofreader. I then used to print hard copies, read them, mark up further errors, and then correct them in TextPro. Eventually a second pair of eyes got to read them.

 

In the broader sense, it's remarkable that almost everyone in the Western World has access to sophisticated automatic proofing tools in the palm of their hand, and standards of literacy continue to decline. Click-bait websites abound with screenshots of instant messages which resemble the result of repeatedly channelling the first auto-correct suggestion which appears on the screen.

 

Of course the above has nothing to do with the largely bogus hardware reliability issue (I returned a brand new HP PC keyboard the other day which died on its ass after an hour's use, while my 1200XL's thirty-five year old keyboard still works after I spent an hour repairing a defect which took a couple of decades to cause malfunction), but if the discussion is to be expanded to encompass "newer is generally better", then it's probably relevant with regard to all but disciplined professional authors.

 

[Gunstar]

That is so true. I've bought many an e-book and I can't believe the horrendous lack of editing in them and total lack of research. I was reading a western taking place in the 19th century and there was stuff in it that hadn't even been invented until the 20th! @ everyone, if you self-publish a book, PLEASE make sure a real person edits it for you.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Gunstar

[Lord Thag]

I enjoy writing on my Atari. It's a good distraction free solution, and it's certainly reliable if you set it up right. The best compromise that I have come up with is using The Last Word on a Side2 cart with an SIO2PC cable to my Win 10 tablet, that mirrors a directory on the tablet as a 'disk' on the Atari. It's simple, I get the awesome keyboard and distraction free benefits of the Atari, and my work is saved to a folder on modern equipment that is backed up to the cloud. Best of both worlds.

[Matej]

So I am buying Atari XL! Also will 2x UNO...