Best of the Best in Software

[tezza]

Hi,

At some stage I'll want to display my old dinosaurs to other people, to prove to them just how eccentric I am. Anyway, as well as collecting old iron, I ALSO want to collect exemplar software which I can use to demo the machines.

I'm looking for software that ...

(a) is historically associated with the machine. Perhaps it appeared FIRST on this machine before being ported to others.
(b) can show off the hardware capabilities (graphics/sound/speed/features)

Of course there are heaps of titles to choose from. However, I only want to collect a very limited number (maybe as little as 3 programs), so as not to have too many 5.25 inch disks and cassettes sitting around. I really just want the software as supreme examples of what the machines could do “in the day” so to speak.

The classic machines in question are:
- BBC (b)
- CP/M (any)
- Apple II
- Amiga 500
- Atari 800Xl
- Commodore Vic 20
- Commodore 64
- IBM PC (640k)
- Mattel Aquarius (unexpanded) (was there ANY software written for this 1.5k of RAM?)
- Spectravideo SV 318
- Tandy CoCo 1
- TRS-80 Model 1
- ZX Spectrum
- ZX 81
- EACA colour genie.

So...If you had to give just ONE example of an excellent piece of software in each of the three categories below for a specific machine (or machines) listed above, what would it be?

1. A business or work/based application
2. A game
3. A utility program

Any recommendations for ANY ONE of these machines above would be welcome.

P.S. My own for the TRS-80 model 1 (the machine I know best) is...

Business - Scripsit
Game - Defense Command
Utility - Super Utility Plus

[Brendan]

Apple ][:

1.) VisiCalc (1st spreadsheet) or The Print Shop
2.) Lode Runner? Rocky's Boots? Apple Panic? There are so many choices...
3.) Ugh...not sure for this one. I sure spent alot of time with Locksmith and Copy ][+, though. ;)

CoCo (assuming 64k with floppy drive):

1.) CoCo Max
2.) Robot Odyssey
3.) Autoterm

[SwedaGuy]

Apple ][:

1.) VisiCalc (1st spreadsheet) or The Print Shop
2.) Lode Runner? Rocky's Boots? Apple Panic? There are so many choices...
3.) Ugh...not sure for this one. I sure spent alot of time with Locksmith and Copy ][+, though. ;)



1) I agree with The Print Shop, or possibly Bank Street Writer.

2) The Oregon Trail

3) Copy II+

[DoctorPepper]

For the IBM PC (and compatibles), there are so many good examples it is difficult to decide, and I know this will start a debate amongst the PC aficionados. Anyway, here are my three choices:

Business: Lotus 123. For me, it was WordPerfect, but Lotus 123 drove the PC market.
Game: Castle Wolfenstein. Ground breaking game! Started the whole 1st. person shooter genre.
Utility: Borland Sidekick. There were tons of them, but this was an incredibly useful utility!

[carlsson]

Yeah, Lotus 1-2-3 killed off some competition once it was released on the market.

[tezza]

Yes, Lotus 1-2-3. It was indeed the "killer application" for early-mid 80s PCs in general. I agree with Wolfenstien for the general PC range too, as far as games. Could Wolfenstien run on older machines under 640k though?

Thinking of really early machines, is Lotus typical software in the original floppy-driven 5150s? Did it ever run on that platform, or did you need a hard disk?

What was your typical 5150 256k max with twin floppy drives running in the day? I know the monochrome one I used at work in 1984 has Wordstar and Multiplan bundled with it. It didn't have any games. It cost too much and was far too "serious" for those trivial things. :) In somewhat of an ironic twist my almost sole use of it was to write educational games to use with my students.

[Trixter]

1. A business or work/based application
2. A game
3. A utility program


There are three categories of answers to this. There's the public opinion poll, the historical lesson, and the technical tour-de-force. As co-founder of MobyGames and an 808x assembler programmer, I'm qualified to answer for all three :-) The public opinion polls are just the popular vote; the history lessons illustrate what really drove the industry in hindsight; the technical list is what some people may not realize are the best from a programming and technical trickery standpoint.

(Yes, these lists are somewhat tongue-in-cheek.)

For the IBM PC (5150/5160 PC/XT era, NOT 486s/vga):

Public Opinion Poll:

1. WordPerfect (everyone loves WP for reasons that escape me -- interface was terrible)
2. King's Quest
3. Spinrite (A shame this utility doesn't quite live up to its claims)

History Lesson:

1. Lotus 1-2-3 (coded in assembler, was fast and powerful. Sold a LOT of PCs. Was used as a benchmark as to how compatible clones were.)
2. King's Quest (and all Sierra "quest" games, specifically on the Tandy 1000, which showed that 16-color graphics and 3-voice sound *could* make a game machine out of the PC)
3. Norton Utilities (almost single-handedly created the "utility" market for PCs. There were others, like the Mace Utilities, but Norton had a way of making normal users feel smart.)

Technical tour-de-force:

1. Geoworks Ensemble (a full GUI environment with display postscript (!) running on a 512K XT with CGA -- must be seen to be believed)
2. Flight Simulator (there are others with just a hair more performance, like Sublogic's Jet, and others with amazing 3-D performance like Interphase, but Flight Simulator is a pretty damn good product in all areas and the most accessible). Starflight is a close runner-up, with fractal 3-d land generation and a deep story.
3. DesqView. Run this on an 8088 -- yes, an 8088 -- and you will be amazed that it is actually doing what it claims to do (multitask any program as long as you have memory for them all). No 386 required (although a 386 helps immensely, of course).

Trixter's personal nostalgic favorites:

1. Microsoft Word for DOS 5.0 or earlier (why? Because it used Lotus-style menus that took up MUCH less screen space, and introduced the logical/nice cursor move/select that we still use today (hold down shift to stretch highlight).
2. Wasteland (landmark RPG for the time).
3. FastTrax (Simply the very best disk defragmenter ever written, which took cylinder boundaries into account when laying out files, such that the next cluster would be ready as the head passed over it. I still use FastTrax 5.0 on my 5160.)

[DreadStorm]

Strange. Maybe its my limited experience, but I always thought AppleWorks 3 was the ultimate in productivity - with the ease of use not seen since (for Apple II series).

[CP/M User]

I ported a Virtual Landscape program written in Turbo Pascal 5.5 or 6 for Turbo Pascal 3 and got it to run in CP/M-86 v1.1 - does that count?

Unfortunately the site I posted that program on has since folded up and I'm unsure if it's replacement site (http://www.discoverpotsdam.com/~cpm86/) has it since the original site didn't have it up for long :-o (of course it's got a number of programs which I'd ported from DOS to CP/M-86 v1.1)

I'll have to look through my dodgy disks to see if I've still got it!

Amstrad CPC users who enjoy using CP/M v2.2 would also like my website! ;-p Though there's something there for everyone! :-D

[DoctorPepper]

Yes, early versions of Lotus 123 did run on a floppy-only PC.

Gaah! I meant "Wolfenstein 3D", not Castle Wolfenstein! Man, it sucks to grow old!!! ;-)

I've never been much of a game player, so I can't really speak to what the "definitive" game might have been for the PC. I was speaking more in general terms, that most of the games prior to Wolfenstein 3D were just re-hashes of stuff that had been produced from the mid-70's and up. Wolfenstein 3D was ground breaking in the regards to being a first person shooter, and was the "breakthrough" game in that genre.

As for personal favorites, I'd go with:

WordPerfect
Sidekick
Wolfenstein 3D

[frozenfire75i]

For the IBM PC I would run windows 1.03.. It will run fine on the system you have being color but would not work on mono!

The IBM PC was the 1st of the win-tel systems the birth of what we all know today. I know the PC was meant for dos but you all know what I mean ;-) I would run windows 1.03 floppy based of course! That shows what the IBM 5150 really is in my mind the great grand dad of every PC in use today!

[Micom 2000]

Just to throw in a little-known tidbit into the Lotus 123 legend. They actually stole it off a couple of former Northern Telecom employees who started a company which my mind can't recall. I had one of their machines at one point. After a 10 year litigation in which Lotus never(couldn't) deny it's similarity to thier program, the impoverished pair had their US Patent disqualified on a Patent filing technicality . Shades of Bill Gates and the Pirates of Silicon Valley. How they were even able to contest the financial behemoth that Lotus had become during that period boggles the mind at their courage. As Voltaire in his "Philosophical Dictionary" humorously showed, being "Right" when your up against power means nothing.

I imagine a Google could turn up the litigation. I had it on one of my HDs off the internet over 10 years ago.

Lawrence

[Micom 2000]

I would advise you to read some computer history. The main reason that the IBM PC became the dominant personal computer was by a bunch of events which had little to do with it's capabilities. It had to do with IBMs reputation in the business community which had up till then ignored the concept of "personal" Computers, it had to do with a power play with the dominant operating system CP/M and it's owners DRI, and the emergence of a badly put-together adaption from an OS called Quick and Dirty. into the Bill Gates creation called Microsoft. Some would call it an abortion of all the promises which early computers represented.

There are other computers besides the PC(personal computers) and there might be others which like the Next or the BEOS eclipse them in functionality and design. Even IBMs OS/2. Unfortunately advertising tends to eclipse quality and because of that the PC and corporate marketing has become a drag on computer innovation. IBM's PC has now been orphaned and is now owned by a chinese company LeNova. Quick and Dirty dominates the industry. As to Win 1.03. compare DRIs GEM GUI or Apples Mac OS from the same time. I.03 sucks as did the constrained and memory limited Disk Operating System on which it operated despite all the $millions which went into it.

Lawrence


The IBM PC was the 1st of the win-tel systems the birth of what we all know today. I know the PC was meant for dos but you all know what I mean ;-) I would run windows 1.03 floppy based of course! That shows what the IBM 5150 really is in my mind the great grand dad of every PC in use today!

[frozenfire75i]

Hello Lawrence,

I would also advise you to go back and read tezza's post he was asking for cool programs to display on the vintage computer’s to folks!
Most folks are not going to have a clue about what you just went babbling (that I already know by the way) on about most folks when looking at vintage computers want see lights flashing stuff moving it making noises ECT. Not an “A” prompt bilking.. Would that be the right and correct thing to display with the 5150 yes… but would it get many looks and oh that’s cool NO!

Or you could up right next to it a little sign saying “this is windows 1.03 one of the 1st version of windows …………. To XP vista…………………..that ibm pc was the 1st of the PC (design ,setup, software ECT) class of computers it set the standard for all PCs and what has come to be pretty much ever computer in use today.

I would also advise you not to cap me down before you know a little more about me! I have personally interviewed many of the IBM guys that worked on design and built the 5150!

PS windows did 1st apper on the IBM PC or clone!

[mbbrutman]

If you don't like the tone of what somebody wrote, take it offline. I see little in Micom's post to complain about.

Windows did not appear first on an IBM PC or clone. Go talk to the Xerox Parc guys. ;-0

[carlsson]

If you had to give just ONE example of an excellent piece of software in each of the three categories below for a specific machine (or machines) listed above, what would it be?
Does the software have to be contemporary, i.e. a computer built in 1983 should be demoed with software from no later than 1985? It matters a lot when it comes to the top-of-the-line show off, both for productivity, games and utility software.

[Trixter]

I would advise you to read some computer history. The main reason that the IBM PC became the dominant personal computer was by a bunch of events which had little to do with it's capabilities. It had to do with IBMs reputation in the business community which had up till then ignored the concept of "personal" Computers, it had to do with a power play with the dominant operating system CP/M and it's owners DRI, and the emergence of a badly put-together adaption from an OS called Quick and Dirty. into the Bill Gates creation called Microsoft. Some would call it an abortion of all the promises which early computers represented.

There are other computers besides the PC(personal computers) and there might be others which like the Next or the BEOS eclipse them in functionality and design. Even IBMs OS/2. Unfortunately advertising tends to eclipse quality and because of that the PC and corporate marketing has become a drag on computer innovation. IBM's PC has now been orphaned and is now owned by a chinese company LeNova. Quick and Dirty dominates the industry. As to Win 1.03. compare DRIs GEM GUI or Apples Mac OS from the same time. I.03 sucks as did the constrained and memory limited Disk Operating System on which it operated despite all the $millions which went into it.

Lawrence

I am amazed at just how wrong you both are. I would suggest watching Robert X. Cringley's "Triumph of the Nerds" for a slightly more accurate version of why the PC became the dominant personal computer.

Hint: If you can sum it up in one word, it is "choice".

[Druid6900]

Oh, I'd have to say that the early adoption of IBM PCs was accurately summed up by the saying "No one ever got fired for buying IBM"

[willowmoon93]

For the Apple II, I'd have to say:

1) VisiCalc
2) Ultima II, III, or IV
3) Copy II+ or Locksmith 5.0

[Floppies_only]

Thinking of really early machines, is Lotus typical software in the original floppy-driven 5150s? Did it ever run on that platform, or did you need a hard disk?.

I remember Lotus running with little system resources. You got two program disks in a slipcase with the manual in it. You could copy the program to a working floppy or to your hard drive. The program disks were copy protected and when you copied the program to a working floppy or hard disk, it was copy protected on there, too. You could copy the copy prtected part of it back from your working media to the original program diskette if the floppy wore out or you wanted to move the program to another machine.

Later, various programs were devised to defeat Lotus' copy protection.

Sean

[Floppies_only]

[quote=frozenfire75i;59174]For the IBM PC I would run windows 1.03.. It will run fine on the system you have being color but would not work on mono!quote]

If you have a Hercules Graphics Adaptor and a mono monitor Windows v 1.0x will run on it. I also like it because it runs without a harddrive.

Sean

[Yzzerdd]

Sean, I believe you forgot the [/ before the end of your quote. Also, I got the stamps you sent, I will get the box out tomorrow.

Your advice explains why neither me or Eric couldn't get Windows 1.03 to work on our standard monochrome cards in a 5150. We tried lying to it telling it we have fancy video adapters, but to no avail. Now I know more monochrome, I need the Hercules adapter card. Oh well, as soon as I can, I will be getting a color monitor to go with my colore card, so I won't bother seeking a Hercules card. The Windows manual I have should of been more specific, as I believe it just stated it could run on monochrome, but I suppose I wasn't motivated enough at the time to look into the details of that at the time.

--Ryan

[Floppies_only]

IBM's PC has now been orphaned and is now owned by a chinese company LeNova.

It's actually Lenovo.

Sean

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates <-- Wild hillarity.

"640k is all anybody will ever need"
-- somebody other than Bill Gates, we don't know who

[Floppies_only]

Sean, I believe you forgot the [/ before the end of your quote. Also, I got the stamps you sent, I will get the box out tomorrow.

Your advice explains why neither me or Eric couldn't get Windows 1.03 to work on our standard monochrome cards in a 5150. We tried lying to it telling it we have fancy video adapters, but to no avail. Now I know more monochrome, I need the Hercules adapter card. Oh well, as soon as I can, I will be getting a color monitor to go with my colore card, so I won't bother seeking a Hercules card. The Windows manual I have should of been more specific, as I believe it just stated it could run on monochrome, but I suppose I wasn't motivated enough at the time to look into the details of that at the time.

--Ryan

Hey, you're online! We're both online at the same time :)

Yeah, that quote definitely got mangled. I will pay more attention from here on out.

I was able to get a Hercules card off of eBay (recently) for less than ten dollars. It provides 720×348 resolution, which is pretty good. It is backwards compatible with the MDA. The card I got was a late model, only half as long as the other one I have. That means that it uses less power, because it has fewer components.

You can run Windows up to version 3.1 with a CGA card and a regular TV. It is monocrome with 640 x 200 pixels of resolution. Windows 3.0 will run on an XT. Slowly :)

Sean

[tezza]

Your advice explains why neither me or Eric couldn't get Windows 1.03 to work on our standard monochrome cards in a 5150. We tried lying to it telling it we have fancy video adapters, but to no avail. Now I know more monochrome, I need the Hercules adapter card.

Yes, the old Hercules card. The IBM-PC I used at work all those years ago back in 1984 had one of these cards. After all, colour was considered an extravagent luxury!! For games, not serious uses! :)

The mono graphics were actually quite good, and many (but not all) software products had drivers which could be used with it. I don't think the card was ever officially supported in MS-DOS though? There was a piece of software you could use with a herc card (cga.com?) which made the computer think it was running a CGA card. This was often a solution for games, where hercules was almost never an option.

[tezza]

Does the software have to be contemporary, i.e. a computer built in 1983 should be demoed with software from no later than 1985? It matters a lot when it comes to the top-of-the-line show off, both for productivity, games and utility software.

Well, just to clarify, I was looking for programs which typified the particular computer's use "for the time". For business applications, from what people have said, from what I remember and from what I have read, Lotus 1-2-3 would be a good choice for the 5150.

For good or for ill, it's true that Windows is a direct descendant of what most of us use today, and for that reason early versions are of historical interest. However, not a lot of people used Windows 1.0 back when the 5150 was in its heyday. It was more of a curiosity, and certainly was inferior to the OS on the Mac. Although I faithfully bought every release I was never very impressed with the early versions of Windows.

If I ever do get to display these units, I'll probably use some kind of Lotus demo mock-up for the 5051. However, people might also be interested in seeing where Windows came from too, so who knows, I may display that as well if the theme is more on software than hardware.

[tezza]

Oh, I'd have to say that the early adoption of IBM PCs was accurately summed up by the saying "No one ever got fired for buying IBM"

Exactly. In terms of capability the machines were not groundbreaking at all when you looked at what others were doing but...

1. They were well-engineered, and looked and felt like solid, quality products.
2. There was a huge marketing effort and lots of excitement from the computer press which help surge uptake along.
3. IBM was unlikely to fold up and go under. When outlaying a huge expense, this fact allowed budget controllers in companies to sleep at night.
4. There was a distribution and support network
5. They were expensive, and looked like serious machines for serious business (unlike the playful Mac).
6. Every software writer and his dog started to write programs for the IBM-PC

To the chagrin of many in what was initially an anti-establishment movement (i.e. microcomputers), Johnny-come-lately Big Blue moved in and spoilt the party. :)

Love it or loath it, the conservative, staid IBM-PC is one of the defining computers of the microcomputer revolution. The machine and the name legitamised microcomputers for the business world.

(...and, one could argue, "computing" grew up and stopped being fun :( )

[CP/M User]

tezza wrote:

The mono graphics were actually quite good, and many (but not all) software products had drivers which could be used with it. I don't think the card was ever officially supported in MS-DOS though? There was a piece of software you could use with a herc card (cga.com?) which made the computer think it was running a CGA card. This was often a solution for games, where CGA was almost never an option.

I personally disagree your attacks on the CGA card, sure it had that blinking problem which was fixed with a simple program and only 4 colours 320x200 graphics not to add to the fact the IBM BIOS didn't support the other low-res 160x100x16 colour mode which Software company Windmill Software made a game within and a few other games used this (not to mention the 120 Colours demo I translated into TP from GWBASIC and posted here years ago). For games the CGA card has some useful visural tricks which were found in games like the original Digger by Windmill Software, so there's most certainally a reason to have a CGA card, not to mention the Square Characters (which later video Cards need a program for to generate the characters as seen on CGA) - text mode games look heaps better.

CP/M User.

[tezza]

tezza wrote:

The mono graphics were actually quite good, and many (but not all) software products had drivers which could be used with it. I don't think the card was ever officially supported in MS-DOS though? There was a piece of software you could use with a herc card (cga.com?) which made the computer think it was running a CGA card. This was often a solution for games, where CGA was almost never an option.

I personally disagree your attacks on the CGA card, sure it had that blinking problem which was fixed with a simple program and only 4 colours 320x200 graphics not to add to the fact the IBM BIOS didn't support the other low-res 160x100x16 colour mode which Software company Windmill Software made a game within and a few other games used this (not to mention the 120 Colours demo I translated into TP from GWBASIC and posted here years ago). For games the CGA card has some useful visural tricks which were found in games like the original Digger by Windmill Software, so there's most certainally a reason to have a CGA card, not to mention the Square Characters (which later video Cards need a program for to generate the characters as seen on CGA) - text mode games look heaps better.

CP/M User.

Attack on the CGA card? What makes you think I am doing that??

At my work, the managers wouldn't consider colour cards or monitors at first as (in their eyes) it was a frivilous luxury. This doesn't mean to say I didn't want them (I would have loved colour!). That's why I used a smiley in the post. I was being facetious.

Actually, I did make an error in that post which I've now corrected. I meant to say "This was often a solution for games, where HERCULES was almost never an option".

I've corrected this in the original post.

[CP/M User]

tezza wrote:

Attack on the CGA card? What makes you think I am doing that??

Aparantely your earlier mistake was the attack!

Personally I'm only familiar with the Hercules video card by name and that it has a higher graphics resolution than CGA (that's about it), though a friend in the states (who seems to be no longer around!)-: was a fan of Hercules - might have even done a few graphical programs for it too.

The original Monochrome card for the IBMs I believe didn't support true graphics as such (though someone told me it was possible with some very clever and tricky programming), Mode 7 was the video mode used.

I vagerly recall a game I had on the XT which supported the Hercules graphical modes, think it was Test Drive 2 - The Duel. How many other games supported this I'm unsure.

[DoctorPepper]

My favorite monitor was monochrome. I had a green and an amber monitor, on two PC's (clones, not IBM), side by side. I've never been much of a gamer (I was asking about SpaceWar in another post, and that is to just look through the source code), and always found, at least in a console or command prompt, that monochrome makes me more productive.

We need another category added to this list: Best assembler/compiler/development environment for early computers. I liked the built-in BASIC of most early micros, or even the ones that presented BASIC as the operating system. Made programming much easier, just turn on the computer and start typing ;-)

I loved Borland's "Turbo" series of development environments/compilers, but my favorite will always be MASM (Macro Assembler). It isn't a "development environment" or even contain an IDE or editor. You have to provide those. MASM 5.0 was the only compiler/assembler/dev environment I ever paid full price for. I still have the original floppies, although I can no longer find the books :-(

[tezza]

I liked the built-in BASIC of most early micros, or even the ones that presented BASIC as the operating system. Made programming much easier, just turn on the computer and start typing ;-)

I loved Borland's "Turbo" series of development environments/compilers, but my favorite will always be MASM (Macro Assembler). It isn't a "development environment" or even contain an IDE or editor. You have to provide those. MASM 5.0 was the only compiler/assembler/dev environment I ever paid full price for. I still have the original floppies, although I can no longer find the books :-(

I totally agree with you here regarding BASIC.

I never played with MASM although I do have the original disks. I did however use both TurboBasic and TurboPascal on both an XT and 386 to program several educational programs I used for my own University teaching.

They were excellent tools.

[tezza]

I vagerly recall a game I had on the XT which supported the Hercules graphical modes, think it was Test Drive 2 - The Duel. How many other games supported this I'm unsure.

I don't think there was many. I seem to recall needing to drag out cga.com so I could fool my Hercules machine into thinking it had a cga card, whenever I wanted to play graphical games.

My main gaming interest back then tended to be infocom non-graphical games and the Hercules was fine for them :)

[willowmoon93]

I don't think there was many. I seem to recall needing to drag out cga.com so I could fool my Hercules machine into thinking it had a cga card, whenever I wanted to play graphical games.

My main gaming interest back then tended to be infocom non-graphical games and the Hercules was fine for them :)

Loved the original text-based Infocom games -- Zork I, II, III ... Planetfall ... Ballyhoo .... definitely my kind of adventure games! :)

[barythrin]

Yeah although I don't have a specific list I would usually stick to cult classic games of the era. Zork, Adventure, Ultima, Kings Quest.. I don't recall when Elite came out but that's one I picked up to show off since it was a huge game.

For the Apple /// it was easy, I have the original Demonstration disk lol so it scrolls through little features and shows off spreadsheets and other graphics. I don't know how many other systems had demonstration disks but if they do that'd be the thing to find.

Apple II whether or not it was really out at the right time Oregon Trail is what most will remember on that system. Possibly Logo although you'd have to have some Logo code loaded that's interesting or looping.

- John

[Micom 2000]

For me the killer program that I automatically put on all my MSDOS machines is the CM(Charles Miller)Filer. It's capabilities continue to amaze me and It's worked on all my Dos machines from PC up to Win 98 (my most "advanced" Dos-type OS), While being a bit like Nortons Commander it is immensely more powerful, and can read or edit text or Hex, or launch a program from a floppy, HDD, or CD. It can also include most of the archival programs and make directories and copy files or move them. I think the original version came out in the late 80's so it can't really be considered legacy.

I have for the most part found the boring conformity of most of the early DOS machines I acquired surprising. Lotus123, Word Perfect, DB II, Disk Doctor and the usual DOS utilities. Ocasionally Tetris or some other games. It was always a treat to find some interesting or unique program such as Pop-Drop, Factcruncher(?), Sidekick or Compushow. Utilities such as Teledisk or Uniform. Even PCWrite or Wordstar showed a little more imagination than Word or WP. DeskView and Framework. Ventura Pubisher with it's GEM interface. Even Symphony.

Don't misunderstand me. I am a major fan of IBM and it's techical quality, I just found that Big Blue's business orientation tended to stifle a lot of the earlier innovative creativity of the computer community (which could be contradicted by some of the programs I mention above), but most of it had to be found on the "Home" computers or "ButtonWare.

Off the top of my head for some of the essential "Home" computer programs:

Tandy --- Scripsit, Deskmate, Dungeons of Daggorath
C-64 --- GEOS, the fast-load programs, KoalaPad
Apple --- Visicalc, ProDos, Copy II
Atari8-bit ---Homepack, Bankstreet Writer, Missile Command, Hacker

Lawrence

[Floppies_only]

The original Monochrome card for the IBMs I believe didn't support true graphics as such (though someone told me it was possible with some very clever and tricky programming), Mode 7 was the video mode used.

I vagerly recall a game I had on the XT which supported the Hercules graphical modes, think it was Test Drive 2 - The Duel. How many other games supported this I'm unsure.

The IBM character set had various lines and bars as part of it's character set. That's why I like Micro$oft Works so much, it gives the appearance of windows in text mode.

Sean

[CP/M User]

Floppies_only wrote:

The IBM character set had various lines and bars as part of it's character set. That's why I like Micro$oft Works so much, it gives the appearance of windows in text mode.

Yep the IBM Character Set has always been "the same" - and has made it's name under Windows as the Terminal Font. On a CGA card (and I'm assuming the Monochrome card is the same) the appearance of the characters is slightly different compared to later VGA/SVGA (maybe even EGA) with the size of the font slightly smaller and squarer on a CGA card. The only example I can give you is the vertical streaks down the screen from one of those nearly solid (or striped) graphical characters on the VGA/SVGA cards, CGA didn't have that and everything was streaked so much (if you know what I mean!).

[Floppies_only]

Well, just to clarify, I was looking for programs which typified the particular computer's use "for the time".

If I ever do get to display these units, I'll probably use some kind of Lotus demo mock-up for the 5051. However, people might also be interested in seeing where Windows came from too, so who knows, I may display that as well if the theme is more on software than hardware.

I remember buying a shareware version of a program that emulated Lotus 1-2-3. Maybe you could get that?

My all time favorite program for the IBM PC is Microsoft Works for DOS. But version 2 didn't come out until 1989, so I suspect that it doesn't meet your time constraint.

Best,
Sean

[carlsson]

Although I've collected brief experiences with most of the computers Tezza listed in his first message, I'll stick with those I know by heart.

Amiga 500
Business/work: Hmm.. Deluxe Paint, SoundTracker.. perhaps OctaMED which follows the same principles as SoundTracker but greatly improved and with its own formats. Its ancestors are still developed for Windows PCs today.

Game: There are so many to choose from. Personally I like the Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies games by Digital Illusions. Partly because the 386 conversion of Pinball Dreams was truly terrible, to the point people claimed a 7 MHz Amiga 500 was vastly superior to a 33 MHz 386. Of course this is BS, which was shown by the nice PC conversion of Fantasies.

Utility: Ditto. The whole Workbench in some respects was refreshing even compared to MS Windows. But if I should pick one utility, I'd go with Directory Opus, another program I believe still exists today in Windows versions. It is a file explorer loaded with configurable buttons which lets you view, play, unzip, move, encrypt etc files as you select them.

Commodore VIC-20
Business/work: Not so many memorable applications in that sector. There were a bunch of word processors, but word processing on a computer that can display 20-25 characters per row is not so much fun, even though the keyboard is rather good. Perhaps I'll name a Basic expansion although they probably belong under Utilities. In order to not draw a blank, I'll throw in Super Expander +3K in this category. Programmer's Aid, HES Mon and a few others might qualify too.

Game: Most VIC-20 games were arcade ports or from other systems. Games such as Omega Race, Jelly Monsters, Jupiter Lander, Gorf, Shamus and so on hold good quality, but are not unique to the VIC or arguably the best versions. Tom Griner wrote a couple of remarkable games, and so did Jeff Minter too. Perhaps I'd select something from Minter's production: Gridrunner, Laser Zone or Matrix. If I remember correctly, one of those is known as Attack of the Mutant Camels in the USA, not to be mixed up by Jeff Minter's C64 game with the same name.

Utility: Hrm, same story as with the business software. I'll play safe and throw in the DOS Wedge found on the 1540/1541 Test/Demo disk. It adds the > for sending commands to the disk drive, $ to view the directory and I think even shortkeys to load and save programs. No turbo though, but sometimes quite handy to load.

Commodore 64
Business/work: Hm, probably the GEOS suite, which is a whole operating system rather than a single piece of software. I'd also like to nominate Calc Result Easy/Advanced by Handic Software, which is less known but once upon a time a relative smash hit, ported to the IBM PC and released directly after Lotus 1-2-3 had entered the market.. and that was the end of Calc Result.

Game: Everyone have their personal favorite: arcade conversions, games from other formats.. Since you asked for nominations that boggle your mind, thinking "this is not possible", I'll recommend one of the last commercial games for the C64: Mayhem in Monsterland from 1993. It is a bit of a Sonic rip-off, but technically very advanced. You think the C64 has been upgraded (?) to at least a NES, perhaps even a 16-bit video game.

Utility: Ah.. time for more cartridges. There was a "religious war" between the Final Cartridge 3 crowd and those who preferred Action Replay V - VI. Both are fine pieces of C64 history, and essential for anyone who wants to cheat in a game, get a cheap, instant disk turbo, machine code monitor and more. The Final Cartridge was said to be more targetted towards gamers with boxes full of tapes in Turbo Tape format, while Action Replay perhaps aimed a bit more at developers and productive people. I've been a proud Action Replay owner since .. 1990 or so. Nowadays, the heritage from these freezer cartridges remain in form of Retro Replay and latest MMC Replay.

Now, I'm done with this message. :-D

[Jorg]

Utility: Ah.. time for more cartridges. There was a "religious war" between the Final Cartridge 3 crowd and those who preferred Action Replay V - VI. Both are fine pieces of C64 history, and essential for anyone who wants to cheat in a game, get a cheap, instant disk turbo, machine code monitor and more. The Final Cartridge was said to be more targetted towards gamers with boxes full of tapes in Turbo Tape format, while Action Replay perhaps aimed a bit more at developers and productive people. I've been a proud Action Replay owner since .. 1990 or so. Nowadays, the heritage from these freezer cartridges remain in form of Retro Replay and latest MMC Replay.

Now, I'm done with this message. :-D

Uh oh. Former Addicted Final Cartridge III user reporting for duty.. :)
Yes, right about the boxes of turbo tapes...

[CP/M User]

carlsson wrote:

Now, I'm done with this message. :-D

You'll need to put this into a Blog carlsson! ;-)

[nige the hippy]

BBC - Game:- Elite!!!! I scratch built a wire wrapped beeb clone just to play it (sometimes!)
- Utility:- disc doctor - useful & you could examine memory etc...
- Business App:- Basic - cos you can do allsorts especially when you've got oodles of ports - I've run dataloggers on the analogue port & used my "test bed" beeb to run a real-time timesheet program so i didn't spend 2 hours on friday afternoon trying to work out what I'd done all week.

[carlsson]

Hm, yes. BBC Basic was a very fast and powerful one, perhaps a bit of a killer app in itself if you just could afford the computer.

[CP/M User]

carlsson wrote:

Hm, yes. BBC Basic was a very fast and powerful one, perhaps a bit of a killer app in itself if you just could afford the computer.

I dare say some of that BBC BASIC rubbed off some of the people who had CPCs who went on to write EVAL functions and something else was written something to do with Procedures - all were BASIC programs with M/C loaders to kick in some RSXs which could be used in Locomotive BASIC of course!

The only Elite I enjoyed was the Software company - games like Ikari Warriors & Space Harrier are excellent! :-D
Perhaps Elite on a BBC IS a lot better than on a CPC though!?

[fred333]

That is an interesting observation.

[meshikumar]

this site has more than 1000 telecom articles

[nige the hippy]

Perhaps Elite on a BBC IS a lot better than on a CPC though!?

Probably not! But in 1984 it was about the best thing around.

Hmm... That's going to start a "what was the best game in 1984" battle.

[DoctorPepper]

Probably not! But in 1984 it was about the best thing around.

Hmm... That's going to start a "what was the best game in 1984" battle.

Then let me lead the charge! ;-)

Actually, I was firmly in the grasp of Tandy in 1984. I was probably playing some adventure game on my Model IV, while the rest of you were enjoying your color graphics and awesome sound.

But then again, I still enjoy text-based adventure games much more than any graphical game.

[tezza]

But then again, I still enjoy text-based adventure games much more than any graphical game.

Me too. Most enjoyable game I ever played? Zork 1 on an IBM XT in 1987 or so.

I'm sure there are better games, but at that time in my life I had time for this activity and this one I really got into, solving 98% of it without resorting to a cheat sheet.

It took me a week (day and night) doing nothing but playing Zork and my kitchen table was filled with maps, jottings, plans, notes etc.

If only I had figured out how to open the jewel encrusted egg without breaking it, I would have solved 100% of the puzzels. In the end (as my vacation time was running out) I had to cheat with that one.

Very satisfying none-the-less.

Tez

[Rick Ethridge]

Whilest many great vintage word processing programs were mentioned, it seems the first, Electric Pencil, has been forgotten. Also, Wordstar hasn't been mentioned either.

Rick Ethridge

[Micom 2000]

I did mention Wordstar and Sidekick which also used it as it's editor. Electric pencil is unknown to me. What platform was it on ?

PC Write however, was always my favorite on Dos machines based on it's ease of use and functionality.

Lawrence

Whilest many great vintage word processing programs were mentioned, it seems the first, Electric Pencil, has been forgotten. Also, Wordstar hasn't been mentioned either.

Rick Ethridge

[Terry Yager]

I remember EP on the TRS-80 M-I, dunno if it was around before then or not.

--T