{"id":2276,"date":"2004-02-26T17:15:25","date_gmt":"2004-02-27T09:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/02\/27\/an-insiders-view-of-ms-word-60\/"},"modified":"2019-12-09T16:33:55","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T00:33:55","slug":"an-insiders-view-of-ms-word-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/02\/26\/an-insiders-view-of-ms-word-60\/","title":{"rendered":"An insider&#8217;s view of MS Word 6.0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:11653,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.lowendmac.com\\\/compact\\\/classic.shtml&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20080808135336\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.lowendmac.com\\\/compact\\\/classic.shtml&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 18:16:08&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 18:16:08&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11654,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.microsoft.com\\\/mac\\\/products\\\/officex\\\/officex.aspx?pid=officex&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20040402141855\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.microsoft.com:80\\\/mac\\\/products\\\/officex\\\/officex.aspx?pid=officex&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 18:16:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 18:16:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11033,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.barebones.com\\\/products\\\/bbedit\\\/index.shtml&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20080626101643\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.barebones.com:80\\\/products\\\/bbedit\\\/index.shtml&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.barebones.com\\\/products\\\/bbedit\\\/index.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 18:14:51&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-14 22:08:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-14 22:08:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:8657,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.kung-foo.tv\\\/ecto&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260310150329\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.kung-foo.tv\\\/ecto&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 22:22:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 22:22:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11655,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/weblogs.asp.net\\\/Rick_Schaut\\\/archive\\\/2004\\\/02\\\/26\\\/80193.aspx&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20040630082459\\\/http:\\\/\\\/weblogs.asp.net:80\\\/Rick_Schaut\\\/archive\\\/2004\\\/02\\\/26\\\/80193.aspx&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 18:16:17&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 18:16:17&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11656,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/radio.weblogs.com\\\/0001011\\\/2004\\\/02\\\/25.html#a6662&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Microsoft Word for the Mac versions 4 and 5 were my introductions to Word, and in the opinion of myself and many other people, were the pinnacle of Microsoft&#8217;s Mac programming.<\/p>\n<p>I had a single 1.4Mb floppy disc on my first Mac (a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lowendmac.com\/compact\/classic.shtml\" title=\"Mac Classic\">Mac Classic<\/a>) that had the MS Word program and every paper I wrote for school that year, and it ran quite happily in the 1Mb of RAM that my lil&#8217; Classic had in it. Word 5, while not that small, was the perfect combination of features and usability, adding useful functions without becoming too much of a memory, space, or speed hog.<\/p>\n<p>Then came Word 6.<\/p>\n<p>Huge. Bloated. A memory hog. Dog-slow. And a truly <em>hideous<\/em> interface that only a Windows user could love (or even feel at home in).<\/p>\n<p>Things have improved since then, thankfully &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/mac\/products\/officex\/officex.aspx?pid=officex\" title=\"Office v. X for Mac\">Word (and Office) for Mac OS X<\/a> is actually useable, though I tend not to bother unless I have a really pressing need (such as getting into old archived documents laying around on my system), as the majority of my writing these days is either coding my site in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barebones.com\/products\/bbedit\/index.shtml\" title=\"BBEdit\">BBEdit<\/a> or posting via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kung-foo.tv\/ecto\/\" title=\"Ecto\">Ecto<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it was quite interesting to find this look at <a href=\"http:\/\/weblogs.asp.net\/Rick_Schaut\/archive\/2004\/02\/26\/80193.aspx\" title=\"Buggin' My Life Away: Mac Word 6.0\">the creation of MS Word 6<\/a> from Rick Schaut, one of the people on the team for Word 6.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Shipping a crappy product is a lot like beating your head against the wall.\u00a0 It really does feel good when you ship a great product as a follow-up, and it really does motivate you to spend some time trying to figure out how not to ship a crappy product again.<\/p>\n<p>  Mac Word 6.0 was a crappy product.\u00a0 And, we spent some time trying to figure out how not to do that again.\u00a0 In the process, we learned a few things, not the least of which was the meaning of the term &#8220;Mac-like.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/radio.weblogs.com\/0001011\/2004\/02\/25.html#a6662\" title=\"Behind Mac Word 6.0 (1992ish)\">Scoble<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><strong>iTunes:<\/strong> &#8220;Homey Don&#8217;t Play Dat&#8221; by Bonnie &#8216;n&#8217; Clyde from the album <em>Terminator X and the Valley of the Jeep Beats<\/em> (1991, 4:12).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft Word for the Mac versions 4 and 5 were my introductions to Word, and in the opinion of myself and many other people, were the pinnacle of Microsoft&#8217;s Mac programming. Then came Word 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043,2038],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-2276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-tech","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}