[GreenKeys] Release: HeavyMetal 3.1.002

[George B. Hutchison]

All - - -

Just lookjing at the GUI for the new Heavy Metal, it looks nice.

Looking at the GUI for Ham Radio Deluxe, it looks nice.

However, it appears that you have to have a college degree in order 
to make either play with any expectation of success.

Jack has just reported that the new behomoth is showing some flaws. 
God help poor Javier when he starts getting complaints.

IMHO these are less than user friendly arrangements.

Even MMTTY has a considerable number of options that take some 
delving into in order to understand just what is going on. I like 
MMTTY because you can port it out to an RS-232 port and drive a 
teletype with it. It has a drawback in that the RS-232 port is 
certainly not in synchronization with what is on the screen.

So, praise be to the wonders of a large multi-function application, 
but, the old phrase "KISS", (keep it simple, stupid) makes any 
application that is basically a small combination of features far 
more desirable than the jumbo jobs due to the fact that it is a lot 
easier to unravel the problem with a narrow focused application than 
one of them does-all-including-slice-bread jobs that take a ream of 
paper to print out all of the how-to-do-its.

I was amazed to find that The ITTY Mailer falls into the category of 
the bewildering.

When I am running full bore I have an "ITTY" version of the mailer 
as well as a "National" version of the mailer running, as well as a 
somewhat persnickity program for the WLO News Input. I can crank out 
ten or more stories per hour to each channel with my "awkward" 
set-up.

It JUST WORKS!!

And for those who use linux, MacDonald's, or other systems, good for 
you. Just bear in mind that the Windows systems, as sometimes trying 
they may be, are still the internationally best supported.

ITTY has been tailored around DOS and the various Windows versions 
that have popped up as Mr. Gates and Crew work feverishly to make 
another 100 billion bucks so they can have foundations for drilling 
water wells on Mt Everest.

The Windows stuff does work. And you have to feel blessed that 
amongst us we have a genius such as Bill Bytheway, in whose 
professional life 6000 lines of code was nothing. He has worked on 
systems so sophisticated that it makes Windows look like a wimp.

Thanks to Bill Buzbee, Javier, John Nagle, and Bill B. that this 
small group is privelaged to have such talent willing to build 
applications so that the unwashed such as myself can have some more 
bells and whistles to dink around with.

I just urge them to try and keep their efforts in the 1 or so 
megabyte range, so the wee folk will have some chance of being able 
to make their products manageable, relatively fault free, and 
something to brag about.

A nickle's worth from W7TTY