---
title: "Columnifying Quill"
type: "article"
slug: "columnifying-quill"
url: "http://localhost/article/columnifying-quill/"
markdown_url: "http://localhost/article/columnifying-quill.md"
published_at: "2026-01-19T11:38:52+00:00"
modified_at: "2026-06-21T23:36:33+00:00"
featured_image:
  url: "http://localhost/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ts-2068-windows-1.png"
excerpt: "The trouble with having been a working programmer in one's youth is that you spend the rest of your life under the constant threat of getting readdicted to that particular form of obsessive compulsive behavior. (The trouble with being an exprogrammer who's also a Published Author, by the way, is that you feel obligated to…"
category:
  - name: "Sinclair Timex User Group Newsletter"
    slug: "sinclair-timex-user-group-newsletter"
    taxonomy: "category"
    url: "http://localhost/category/periodicals/sinclair-timex-user-group-newsletter/"
post_tag:
  - name: "Full Text"
    slug: "fulltext"
    taxonomy: "post_tag"
    url: "http://localhost/tag/fulltext/"
  - name: "QL"
    slug: "ql"
    taxonomy: "post_tag"
    url: "http://localhost/tag/ql/"
  - name: "Type-in program"
    slug: "type-in-program"
    taxonomy: "post_tag"
    url: "http://localhost/tag/type-in-program/"
model:
  - name: "Sinclair QL"
    slug: "sinclair-ql"
    taxonomy: "model"
    url: "http://localhost/model/sinclair-ql/"
indiv:
  - name: "Peter Hale"
    slug: "peter-hale"
    taxonomy: "indiv"
    url: "http://localhost/indiv/peter-hale/"
publication_r:
  id: 21538
  title: "Sinclair Timex User Group Newsletter"
  type: "periodical"
  url: "http://localhost/periodical/sinclair-timex-user-group-newsletter/"
authors_r:
  - name: "Peter Hale"
    slug: "peter-hale"
    taxonomy: "indiv"
    url: "http://localhost/indiv/peter-hale/"
volume: "7"
issue: "5"
issues_articles:
  - id: 50150
    title: "BCS Sinclair-Timex User Group Newsletter v7 n5"
    type: "issue"
    url: "http://localhost/issue/bcs-sinclair-timex-user-group-newsletter-v7-n5/"
pages: "12-17"
pubdate: "September/October 1988"
archive_link: false
---

# Columnifying Quill

The trouble with having been a working programmer in one’s youth is that you spend the rest of your life under the constant threat of getting readdicted to that particular form of obsessive compulsive behavior.

(The trouble with being an exprogrammer who’s also a Published Author, by the way, is that you feel obligated to spend much more time describing programs than writing them. This can boggle a newsletter, unfortunately. So between my rewriting and his compressing, what you’re seeing 1s about 60% of what your Editor originally got. [In case anybody cares, The book is The Elements of Networking Style, Prentice- Hall, 1985.])

So when, for obscure reasons we needn’t bother with here, l decided the other week that I needed to be able to print a Quill document in Double Strike Condensed mode, in columns, I knew I had a problem. That meant I’d have to write a program to do it. And that meant l’d have to run the risk of getting rehooked, just as I had for several months last year, shortly after acquiring my QL. As a matter of self-protection, then, I consciously did the program in the simplest, laziest way I could think of, so as to re expose myself for only an hour or two, and sat back to enjoy it.