Author Topic: What was a great program that's now been forgotten? (Read 40827 times)

app103 · « **Reply #25 on:** February 01, 2020, 12:41 AM »

Let me dig into my archive of forgotten software setup files....

Not including the plethora of web apps that are no more, here's my contribution to the list of apps I wish never died:

3M Post-It Software Notes - It was good, till it wasn't...and Notezilla is far better in most areas, but I still miss its alarm manager
Acoustica MP3 CD Burner - nothing I have ever tried, burned better gapless audio CD's, but most recent version doesn't work with modern burners or Windows 10
AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) - I think in its final days, I only was using it to talk to my daughter from another room, rather than yelling through the house
Ad Muncher - If only it worked as well as it used to.
Big Fix - Before Windows Update was automatic, this did the trick of keeping Windows 98 updated for you, as well as most software on your system. It sat in your tray and monitored Windows Update for patches and Tucows software repository for new versions of apps and compared the list to what you had installed on your system.
Claris EZ Business Cards - (Apple bought Claris and killed everything) I remember setting the image on a card to the desktop wallpaper file from Panorama32, and then hitting the hotkey to change the wallpaper, to print of pages & pages of gift tags. I'd still be using it, if it wasn't for the fact that it's 16-bit and won't run on Win10.
Copernic - both their classic web and desktop search apps. Before Google came along, their web search app was the best way to find stuff.
Filebox Extender - Yes, it still works, but it looks like parts of XP pasted onto Win10
GTalk - Another thing killed by Google
Juice - podcast downloader that hasn't been updated in over 10 years
MSN Messenger- and all the great 3rd party add-ons. I lost touch with a lot of good people that didn't move over to Skype, when Microsoft shut it down.
Newzie RSS reader - still available, but hasn't been updated in over 10 years.
Popup Cody - DC forum post notifier (still works but is abandoned)
PS Tray Factory- Still available and works for the most part, but it could use some updating for Win10
Sam Spade - Still works but could use some modernizing
Surfulater - It was one of the Big 3 in note taking software, currently my most recent abandonware frustration (still manually migrating data to a local installation of Wordpress)
Winamp - It was bought from AOL by Radionomy, and they promised to continue development, but they don't really seem that interested. A 3rd party that used to be part of the Winamp team at AOL, has taken up patching it and developing plugins to extend functionality under the name of WACUP, in the hopes of eventually releasing his own replacement.
WinMX - abandoned by developer a long time ago, small community of diehard users still supporting what they can, but no new client and it's dead for the most part,
Xteq X-Setup - this was the king of system tweakers, in it's hayday
Yahoo Widgets - I'm still using some of the widgets that still work. Lost the weather widget once & for all, earlier this month, unless I completely rewrite it, myself.

And games too numerous to mention.

oblivion · « **Reply #26 on:** February 10, 2020, 09:10 AM »

(Anybody remember Rusty n Edies, FidoNet, and Boardwatch Magazine?)
-40hz (January 24, 2020, 05:58 PM)

One part of that. I ran a FidoNet BBS right up to the early 2000s -- 2:25/108 -- and may have been among the last phoneline-based systems.

One of my old USR Courier modems was repurposed as the hardware part of an automated fax system that was finally switched off for the last time less than two years ago.

[Fun fact: not sure it was much used but I used a Courier for dialin access to my work system back in the mid 1990s. Security was handled with a password provided via whatever the heck comms program I was using, after which the Courier dropped the line and dialled back the number associated with that password. Hack that!

Oh yes. The whatever the heck comms program was probably Telix. That was pretty awesome too.]

And I just turned 58 on Friday. Which, given the above, is suddenly starting to sound believable.

hamradio · « **Reply #27 on:** February 10, 2020, 05:54 PM »

(Anybody remember Rusty n Edies, FidoNet, and Boardwatch Magazine?)
-40hz (January 24, 2020, 05:58 PM)

One part of that. I ran a FidoNet BBS right up to the early 2000s -- 2:25/108 -- and may have been among the last phoneline-based systems.
-oblivion (February 10, 2020, 09:10 AM)

Speaking of FidoNet/BBS in general I remember...

Synchronet BBS Software a long time ago and appears it is still going pretty good.
(Has support for Telnet, FTP, SMTP, POP3, IRC, NNTP, and HTTP according to the website.)

Lolipop Jones · « **Reply #28 on:** February 11, 2020, 02:29 PM »

FoxPro - The PC database to end all databases.
-40hz (January 24, 2020, 05:58 PM)

Ay-men to that! I started my work life with Foxbase running on MS-DOS. All I asked was for a weekly data dump of our COBOL financial files and I could put together reports in half a day that would take the mainframe guys 3-4 days to debug and run.

Winamp
-app103 (February 01, 2020, 12:41 AM)

Not forgotten by me! Still use it almost every day.

Wuffke · « **Reply #29 on:** March 24, 2020, 10:42 PM »

For me it was WinXP. I'm still using it (among all later versions of Win) since I am using programs I need for work that have never been upgraded for later Win Versions. WinXP is actually the master sys to network all computers running later systems. WinXP still proves to be the most stable system. Win7,8, and even 10 are crashing (not often of course!) WinXP doesn't. The system runs 12 hours 7 days at average. The only problem is now to not get good graphic cards anymore that would run with XP. So far I failed to find an nvdia for my system. The old graphic card gets weaker and weaker, it won't supply any more dual screen, and when it fails completely, that would be the end of my XPeriance. Very sad!

MargotLinda · « **Reply #30 on:** March 25, 2020, 04:39 AM »

This 'ol lady still misses XP Pro

!

YannickDa · « **Reply #31 on:** March 25, 2020, 05:52 AM »

I'm still using Powermarks, BrainWave Generator, Jaangle (portable), WinChime, HotBasic, JauntePE, Space Empires III (v 1.17, november 1998), Jasc Image Robot, MangaMeeya, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7, Bekky Mail, Bit Che, Acid View, BiromSoft Calc, NotPad, PolyEdit, TextPad 4, 3D Color Changer, CatFood Fortune Cookies, AXE 3.4, Jazz UPX, Naevius Directory Watcher and WinSpy 1.7.

tomgee88 · « **Reply #32 on:** March 25, 2020, 10:35 AM »

Lotus 123, the best spread sheet I ever used when working 30+ years ago.

oblivion · « **Reply #33 on:** March 25, 2020, 10:47 AM »

Lotus 123, the best spread sheet I ever used when working 30+ years ago.
-tomgee88 (March 25, 2020, 10:35 AM)

I liked CA SuperCalc better -- for what little it's worth. Similar in many ways but SuperCalc had something that was just awesome -- it worked out whether what you were typing was a number, text or a formula and just acted accordingly. So the prefixes you had to type in 123 (or pretty much anything else before or since) to identify what you were entering in a cell -- no need. Lovely.

reynolds_john · « **Reply #34 on:** March 25, 2020, 12:34 PM »

The one that comes to mind for me is WordStar, a ground breaking word processor from back in the character-mode CP/M & DOS days. It didn't successfully make the jump to graphical environments. They got killed by WordPerfect and MS Word.

Pioneered the use of the ESDX 'diamond' for cursor movement (when the Ctrl key was held down). Way back then keyboards didn't always have dedicated arrow keys. Made far more sense to me than Vi's HLJK scheme.

I just threw out an old manual/floppy box from the 80's that I had kept around for nostalgia reasons.
-mwb1100 (January 24, 2020, 12:29 PM)

Holy cow that brings back memories. I used it in MCAS Iwakuni, Japan while stationed there in 1988. If you took a few to learn the syntax you could really do things very quickly. Thanks for the memories!

Chris · « **Reply #35 on:** March 25, 2020, 07:47 PM »

To store contacts, telephone numbers, addresses etc I still use PSA Cards. https://psa-cards.software.informer.com/
I registered the program years ago but is no longer available or supported.

oblivion · « **Reply #36 on:** March 26, 2020, 11:28 AM »

Holy cow that brings back memories. I used it in MCAS Iwakuni, Japan while stationed there in 1988. If you took a few to learn the syntax you could really do things very quickly. Thanks for the memories!
-reynolds_john (March 25, 2020, 12:34 PM)

WordStar was awesome for touch-typists. You could do everything without moving your hands away from the home keys. Sure, there was function key support too -- later on, anyway -- but anyone who'd learned it properly could bash out documents faster than anyone working on pretty much any other platform.

DanR · « **Reply #37 on:** March 26, 2020, 03:04 PM »

X-News.

dantheman · « **Reply #38 on:** March 26, 2020, 08:39 PM »

Barca +1 email client (already mentioned) for sure!!

Digsby IM client (could check most popular ones).

autohost · « **Reply #39 on:** March 27, 2020, 10:14 AM »

I'm still using Powermarks, BrainWave Generator, Jaangle (portable), WinChime, HotBasic, JauntePE, Space Empires III (v 1.17, november 1998), Jasc Image Robot, MangaMeeya, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7, Bekky Mail, Bit Che, Acid View, BiromSoft Calc, NotPad, PolyEdit, TextPad 4, 3D Color Changer, CatFood Fortune Cookies, AXE 3.4, Jazz UPX, Naevius Directory Watcher and WinSpy 1.7.
-YannickDa (March 25, 2020, 05:52 AM)

Oh! I see several here I loved! WinChime and Paint Shop Pro 7.

I'll add another plug for WordStar. I used it on my dad's Kaypro II in the mid 80's.

A newer one (early 90's) that I liked was 386Max! A DOS program, it allowed the user to load memory-resident programs and drivers in the unused memory space between the 640k and 1meg area, so that more of the 640k space was available to regular DOS programs. It also allowed easy configuration of the memory above the 1meg mark to allow programs to use Extended and/or Expanded memory.

YannickDa · « **Reply #40 on:** March 27, 2020, 10:43 AM »

It appears WinChime has been updated recently by its author to be compatible with Windows 10.
An update coming 15 years after the last one !

oblivion · « **Reply #41 on:** March 27, 2020, 12:46 PM »

A newer one (early 90's) that I liked was 386Max! A DOS program, it allowed the user to load memory-resident programs and drivers in the unused memory space between the 640k and 1meg area, so that more of the 640k space was available to regular DOS programs. It also allowed easy configuration of the memory above the 1meg mark to allow programs to use Extended and/or Expanded memory.
-autohost (March 27, 2020, 10:14 AM)

Now that brings back memories. Quarterdeck QEMM/386 and DESQview. All that extra memory and multi-tasking DOS apps too. (Should have mentioned it above when I was reminiscing about the BBS -- DESKview let me run a BBS and use the PC for other things at the same time. Sounds trivial now, but pre-Windows that was kind of revolutionary. Not cheap but once you had it you never, ever wanted to do without it again...

rjbull · « **Reply #42 on:** March 27, 2020, 03:57 PM »

Now that brings back memories. Quarterdeck QEMM/386 and DESQview. All that extra memory and multi-tasking DOS apps too. (Should have mentioned it above when I was reminiscing about the BBS -- DESKview let me run a BBS and use the PC for other things at the same time. Sounds trivial now, but pre-Windows that was kind of revolutionary. Not cheap but once you had it you never, ever wanted to do without it again...
-oblivion (March 27, 2020, 12:46 PM)

+1

DOS with QEMM, DESQview, and 4DOS (or NDOS) as command processor was a greyhound and the fastest, most responsive and productive system I ever had - provided you didn't want graphics or the Internet. <deep melancholy sigh>

IIRC, QEMM contained speeder-upper memory management technology that Quarterdeck called Virtual Real-time Object-Oriented Memory Management, or VROOMM for short. I hope somebody got a small prize for dreaming up an acronym as twisted as that.

drgnfli133 · « **Reply #43 on:** March 27, 2020, 07:16 PM »

Battlefield 1942

Dormouse · « **Reply #44 on:** April 05, 2020, 12:24 PM »

Winamp - It was bought from AOL by Radionomy, and they promised to continue development, but they don't really seem that interested. A 3rd party that used to be part of the Winamp team at AOL, has taken up patching it and developing plugins to extend functionality under the name of WACUP, in the hopes of eventually releasing his own replacement
-app103 (February 01, 2020, 12:41 AM)

And the original developer, who sold it to AOL, founded Reaper, one of the best DAWs, which is still going strong - last release 3rd April.

panzer · « **Reply #45 on:** April 05, 2020, 04:54 PM »

Winamp

-app103 (February 01, 2020, 12:41 AM)

Winamp is still around:
https://winamp.com/
https://webamp.org/

m9833 · « **Reply #46 on:** April 07, 2020, 07:50 AM »

Chimp Notes, probably my first auto saving note taking and outlining software. I use ResophNotes and Simplenote now But still have fond memories of Chimp Notes.

JulianASmith · « **Reply #47 on:** May 11, 2022, 12:43 AM »

Greetings Scary Taskbar Girl,
I've only recently got my PC back running after more than two years. I noticed that the Yahoo Weather widget isn't functioning--again! I went to the Donation Coder site to look for the fix you made available four years ago. When it didn't work I posted a message to you on 5/09/'22 to ask you about it. In searching further on the site I came across your post about it, that appears to have been dated 2/01/'20. In that post you indicated that you would have to re-write the widget.
I'm writing to ask you is there anything I can do to encourage you? Would another donation be helpful? Please let me know. Thank you.

flamerz · « **Reply #48 on:** May 22, 2022, 09:11 AM »

I'm missing spartan clipboard.

rjbull · « **Reply #49 on:** May 22, 2022, 02:43 PM »

I'm missing spartan clipboard.
-flamerz (May 22, 2022, 09:11 AM)

If it was your favourite, OK, I understand - but there are an awful lot of good alternatives...