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Software Hall of Fame

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barney:
Yeah, PC Mag had a lotta stuff, went on for years publishing utility after utility.  Think my 1st ram disk, other than on OS-9, came from them.

At the time, say ~DOS 3.x, just building batch files was fun, sometimes remunerative.  First checkbook prog I ever built was DOS batch file, complete with GoTos ... and it worked for years!  Never could wrap my head around assembler, though, so I missed a lot in that respect.

Great fun on Delphi - the BBS, not the much later software - and CompuServe:  text only, many flame wars ... met Phil Katz, Ron(?) McAfee & Peter Norton there, another guy - Ross Greenfield? - when both viruses and utilities were starting to grow.  Went through, vicariously, the fight 'tween Katz & SEA (System Enhancement Associates), when he built the ZIP protocol and released it to Public Domain out of spite  :P.  Prolly my all-time nomination for utility of the aeon, though, would be Norton Commander.  It just worked!  Although a close second would be the 2nd or 3rd iteration of the Disk Doctor.  That tool would let you get some stuff done:  no over-automation, no "Are you sure?" dialogs.  It pretty much assumed you knew what you were doing and let you do it.

OK, so much for nostalgia ... back to work, damnit!

TomD101:
Oh, the olde days. It all comes back to me now.

Started around Dos 2.x and MS Word 3.x something.
First thing I needed was a zip tool - the first there was, as my dad's word files didn't fit on 360 kb disks.
And then I found all those gems
Desqview and Quemm - spent hours configuring my autoexec.bat and config.sys to fit everything in 640 + 384 KB
PCToos, of course, and Xtree (Gold)
Norton Utilities, when the consisted of two letters to start
Fastback and PCbackup. STill have the disks, but no pc in the world is slow enough to start the program. It dies from speed overload instantly.
MS Word over WordPerfect in ANY release
Lotus Manuscript for long texts. Lost gem.
Turbo Pascal occasionally. Never was a coder.
Getting online into mailbox systems with 300 bd, later with a lightspeed modem at 1200 bd and a software that somewhat sounds like Qemm, don't ask
Oh yes, Harvard Graphics, before there was Power Point. Vector Graphics in slideshow software.

Windows came and I tested v2.0 and 3.0. Not impressed. 3.1 / 3.11 impressed the hell out of me. Many things got easier.
Word for Windows - a dream come true for a guy who created and edited 100 - 500 page documents - PRINT READY.
Office - every incarnation. Never could get myself to the other Office lines.
HyperSnap since 1997. MY screenshot app. No other ever got close.
When the Internet became www for all, I just found everything I needed somewhere.
Download it, test it, delete it or keep it. Some things stay forever, most don't.

My favorites over the last years
MS Office
Vista's own Mah Jong - only game I really play.
IrfanView
IZarc
Teamviewer - makes support fun again, believe me
ditto - clipboard manager. Even blackmailed my company in installing it. Threatened to quit. Worked.
Webshots - for recreation and beautiful pictures
CompareIt
Handy File Tools from Heatsink
Lupas Rename

pretty much the tools that are installed first on ANY computer I get my hands on.

Thanks for sharing and bringing back fond memories with this thread.
Thomas
Berlin, Germany

Curt:
MS Word over WordPerfect in ANY release-TomD101 (September 15, 2011, 04:26 PM)
--- End quote ---

In the early nineties my girlfriend at the time was teaching colleagues how to use WordPerfect. When they complained, because they were used to Word, she would insult them and say, "Word is fine for beginners, but WordPerfect is the much better choice  if you care to learn how to use it!"

I was using Word. We are not together any more...

barney:
Hey, I kind of enjoyed using WordStar ... but, then, I've been accused of having a masochistic streak  ;).

I do recall a dust-up on several of the BBSs I frequented about MS corrupting the HELP key from F3 to F1.  Didn't matter to me, but then, I never had a keyboard with a side load of function keys, either.

Heard your [ex-]girlfriend's protests quite a bit when MCI went to MS, Excel and Word.  At the time, both WordPerfect and WordStar were more capable then MS Word, QuattroPro la misma in.re. Excel, and Word and Excel both ran in individual windows on DOS boxes.  A real hassle to support, but as usual (then), MS got it right about version three (3).

I don't recall the DOS program name that became InfoSelect, but I used it a lot.  And I fell in love with Borland's Paradox, just couldn't afford to get it for my home system.

Actually, I kinda miss the old DOS autoexec.bat ... from bootup to shutdown, never left it.  I was in control!  :P

oblivion:
Hey, I kind of enjoyed using WordStar ... but, then, I've been accused of having a masochistic streak  ;).
-barney (September 15, 2011, 07:51 PM)
--- End quote ---

Nothing masochistic about WordStar. The command sequences were considered arcane by many but had a certain amount of logic -- like WordPerfect (and, indeed, Word) it was just important to take the time to learn what you needed all the time and remember where to find the stuff you didn't want or need to learn.

But far and away the most important thing about WordStar was the fact that you could do everything without moving your hands away from the home keys. (There were function keys and menus if you wanted them, but everything had a touch-typist-friendly shortcut.) A decent touch-typist using WordStar could therefore outperform a similarly-skilled person using absolutely any of the competition.

^PB-- bests, Tim ^PB ^KX

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