compatible. I had a program that enabled me to call up fourteen files; hers called up twenty-four files, with windows between them. I could move my functions around; so could she, and also modify their operations. Well, now! I had just paid a thousand dollars to adapt mine to DOS, and it seemed hers was better at four hundred dollars. True, hers had a feature I didn't like, batch formatting, that requires you to plug in many codes that change the text about before printing, but it was also one of the most powerful and versatile word-processing programs extant. Satan had timed it with infernal cunning, waiting until just after I had gotten what I wanted before dangling a new program before me.

Her program was Final Word II, put out by Mark of the Unicorn. In my letter ordering it, I said, "It is the wrong reason to make a purchase, I know, but I am intrigued by the name of your company. You see, I am a fantasy novelist with whole herds of unicorns in my fiction..." Their response was to bounce back our check, because they were changing their name to eradicate the Unicorn. What a slap in the face! Satan just couldn't resist that fillip. (And here I thought that unicorns were a protected species.)

So this may be my first novel in MS-DOS and my last with Edward. But I shall remain with Ms Dos, because she has succeeded in seducing me away from the Captain. Ms Dos comes on like a cranky old bat; she even has files suffixed ".bat" to run her errands. Every time you start her up, you have to check in with the exact date and time, a nuisance the Captain did not require. You have to type in a "Path" or she refuses to provide service to your distant sites. When you want to print something she always asks whether you mean it, the first time, and you have to agree that yes, it is the printer you want to use. She's like an old-fashioned schoolmarm: everything has to be exactly her way. But if you are willing to abide by her rules, she will do a lot for you. More than the Captain will, if you want the scandalous truth.

I see my wife is getting suspicious, so I'd better give a for-instance or two. One is that most of the software outfits have gravitated to Ms Dos. The Captain changes his clothing seldom if ever, while Ms Dos is very attentive to software. Thus the companies just naturally do more business with her. This means that if you want something like, for instance, a sophisticated interactive spelling program, you will find maybe two or three old ones moldering on the Captain's shelf, but dozens of fancy new ones on Ms Dos's shelves. I had to go to customizing to get the kind of word-processing program I wanted in CP/M, and realized just too late that that wasn't necessary in MS-DOS.