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the "Word 5.1 Plus Ten" phenomenon

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When I was in Redmond last week, I ran into one of our newest developers. We chatted about all things Microsoft, MacBU, and Apple. With the launch of Office 2008 coming, we talked about Macworld Expo [1] and what it's like to work in our booth. I ticked off some of the most common things that he'll hear from our users when he's at Macworld. My favourite is what we call the "Word 5.1 Plus Ten" phenomenon.

There are people who insist that Word 5.1 was the pinnacle of word processors, and everything that has been done since then has been nothing more than bloat. They tell us that we should update it to run under OS X (and now they want it as a Universal Binary). Oh, but while we're in there updating the code, could we please add their ten favourite features? As the ever-insightful Rick points out, 'by the time you add up all the “Plus’s” you come to something that’s not all that far away from Word 2004, which is how we got here in the first place'.

I tend to think that the Word 5.1 Plus Ten phenomenon is mostly nostalgia for a computing world that was simpler. It's the geek equivalent of 'when I was your age ... '

[1] A note to Mac-folk everywhere: It puts my teeth on edge to see someone type MAC instead of Mac. But it also annoys me to no end to see people type MacWorld instead of Macworld. So stop it, all of you.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2007
    No mention of MicroSoft? (That must bug you more than MacWorld.)

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2007
    I honestly can't remember the last time I saw MicroSoft in print.  Micro$oft or M$, sure, but not MicroSoft.  MacWorld annoys me more than M$ does.  The latter is an affectation (rather an odd one, I've always thought, but that's a discussion for another post), the former is an error.

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2007
    Yes, for goodness sake's let's stamp out PowerPoint's interCap

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2007
    FTFF is a lot like that too.  A lot of people want the System 7 Finder updated to Mac OS X -- but oh by the way, please bring us Finder Tabs and staggered icon grids, keep the spring loaded folders, and add integrated backup and automation tools please...

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2007
    One thing I don't miss about WP 5.1?  The screen burn.   It took me ages to feel comfortable with Word when I switched (1997, fwiw).  Actually, it was 1998 when they switched my machine at work.   I am a MACFELON - I'm really absentminded about the capitalisation - I'll try and remember now....

  • Anonymous
    October 02, 2007
    Sure, I'll stop it, but I thought the Macworld thing was an offshoot of the magazine MacWorld. Isn't it? Whatever... I've only been using the Macintosh for twenty years etc. etc. so what do I know? And Word 5.1 WAS a fine product, because (in my world of work) it was concerned with little more than getting words down, usually in preparation for layout in QuarkXPress. I never used it at home: WriteNow was the greatest word processor, IMO. I still have a Mac 512k boot disk with WriteNow on it.

  • Anonymous
    October 02, 2007
    doughlaundry - Yes, it's from the magazine, which also uses a lower-case w.  I dunno if it's always been a lower-case w.  The guy in the office across from mine has a copy of the magazine from 1998, and it's using a lower-case w there.  Someone with a better memory (or stack of magazines) than I have will have to bail me out here.

  • Anonymous
    January 03, 2008
    a day-by-day breakdown of MWSF