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GAZETTE
OCTOBER 1991
A one time "ageing, computer illiterate, country solicitor" tells of how his life was
transformed by...
.
My Love Affair With Joyce
Imagine if you will an ageing,
computer illiterate, country solicitor
in 1985, with rapidly rising over-
heads, an equally rapidly receding
hairline, who had progressed
through the. sixties when mem-
orials had to be hand written with
a fountain pen on parchment, when
photocopiers were only, and could
only be, used by the FBI, when a
commissioner for oath's fee was
5/=d, when the best agricultural
land in the country was selling for
two hundred and forty pounds per
acre, and you will have some idea
of why I was wide open to a love
affair with
Joyce.
I should explain
that
Joyce
is the affectionate name
given to the Ams t r ad PCW
8256.
Having attended various seminars,
talks, lectures, and exhibitions on
computers, in the early 1980s, I
was convinced that the marriage of
wordprocessing and a solicitor's
office was absolutely inevitable.
The first problem - as always -
was finance, or to be more precise,
the lack of it. The second problem
was that there was no affordable
friendly computer around with
whom I might form a liaison.
The message that came across
was that wordprocessors were
very expensive, needed a dust free
environment, a new wiring system,
and a maintenance contract which
would cost 10% of the original cost
of the hardware and software.
Enter
Alan Michael Sugar
and the
(A)lan (M)ichael (S)ugar (Trad)ing
Company Limited - AMSTRAD.
In the summer of 1985 there
appeared the AMSTRAD PCW
8256 selling for the noble sum of
three hundred and ninety nine
pounds Stg. It comprised an 8 bit
computer which used the outdated
CP/M processing system, an inte-
grated screen and printer and came
bundled with a wordprocessing
program specially written for it
called locoscript. Some disparag-
ingly called it the Model T. Ford of
computers or the poor man's
computer.
Contrary to all the advice of the
pundits and experts, I bought it,
and returned one winter's evening
to the office with a large box from
which I tremblingly assembled the
bits and pieces. I plugged it in and
was confronted wi th a green
screen. Carefully following the
instructions, I managed to load the
disc and after about an hour had
managed to produce a short letter.
A love affair had begun.
Since then my extra marital affair
with
Joyce
has blossomed and
grown. Not only that but I now
willingly share my experiences with
a large number of previously
impoverished and equally lovelorn
colleagues both in this country and
elsewhere. Am I jealous? Never.
Joyce
is a fabulous lover, with
many erogenous zones, who
delights in sharing her favours with
all and sundry. She is friendly and
lovable with the most endearing
quirks and hidden delights which
always come as a pleasant surprise.
by
Henry C.P. Barry
Solicitor
She may be slow but who cares.
She is adaptable. She is a linguist
being able to print love letters in
many languages, including Gaelic,
Cyrillic, Greek, French, Spanish,
and many more. Not only that but
her dot-matrix printer can print in
various fonts without changing
print wheels. She can also do
spreadsheets, accounts, graphs,
play games, print sideways (with
the right software), and all these in
draft mode or near letter quality
mode. There are literally hundreds
of very affordable and very useful
programs available and they are still
being produced.
As I have grown older she has
grown younger. Locoscript which
once could only run under CP/M,
has recently been written to run
under MS.DOS, and by means of
what is known as Locolink I have
now transferred all the precedent
wills, land registry forms, declara-
tions, conveyances, court docu-
Henry C. P. Barry seated before his beloved
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