What other software genres were you into besides games?

[Keatah]

What other software genres were you into besides games? What other kinds of programs did you like to play with back in the day?

 

For me was science simulations, some paint programs, and mostly astronomy software. I thought those applications were interesting because they were very different than your typical SpaceInvaders and Pac-Man remake.

 

Astronomy software was uniquely interesting because I was learning all about it at the time and it was an amazing thing that a machine made from bits of sand and metal could "understand" the laws of nature and universe itself. Some of the early astronomy software packages (and they were packages with 100+ page manuals) were imaginative and inspiring. And some used math-coprocessors - which was a whole separate gig - for now we had a chip that "specialized" in the universal language of mathematics. And what is astronomy without mathematics? These kinds of programs were unique in that they revealed the nature of the motions of the night sky. In what sort of patterns did things move? What governed that? All very intriguing.

 

After all that brain-draining heady stuff flight simulators, and city simulators, and plain old basic Atari VCS came next. Man we had it good then. All that stuff was new and fun. New enough that every game & application program was an adventure to explore. And care-free fun when we'd just plug in a cartridge and have at it!

 

So.. What where your favorite kinds of vintage software? Besides games..

[jhd]

By the time I entered  High School (mid-1980s), I very badly wanted a functional wordprocessor. Alas, the options for the Coco were limited, at best.  The most useful tool that I ever found was the line editor in the Editor-Assembler-Debugger cartridge, and even that was like trying to pound a nail with a rock. I did not have access to a PC (and WordPerfect) until I entered university.

 

More than once I tried to create a database to track my book collection, but lacking a disk system, everything had to be stored in RAM. This seriously limited the number of records that could be stored. The search functionality was also very limited.   

 

Other than that, I did not engage in any "productive" activities.  

[+OLD CS1]

My computers have always been multi-tools for me.  Games, productivity, programming, education, astronomy, astrology, hurricane tracking, communications, faxing, entertainment (music and video,) you name it.  The more my computers can do, the more I use them for.  I started that trend with my phones up until the point that the phones started doing things without my permission.

[JamesD]

My computer was a CoCo, and I only owned 6 games other than type ins.  
Programming was my main interest, but I had Graphicom (a graphics editor), a word processor (VIP Writer), and the Macro 80c Editor Assembler package from MICRO WORKS.
VIP writer got me through college until I got an Amiga.  I got a free copy of Word Perfect for that at Comdex, bought SAS C, and had a glut of software for that machine.
 

[Keatah]

Ohh gosh I remember one of my first uses of a word processor at high school. It was 3rd year or something and I fucking hated that school with a passion. 1st issue was when I tried to turn in a paper done on my Apple II and Epson MX-80 with MagicWindows - a simple but solid word processor setup. And I even had the 1/216th double-strike patch that improved quality significantly at the cost of doubling the time it took to print.

 

The teach'a told me I had to either re-type it with a typewriter on non-perforated single sheet paper or write it by hand. The computer paper in a box was "illegal" for "reasons". I'm like fuck you. I'm not going backwards to writing by had or typing on archaic machinery. You're taking it and that is that. Not acceptable my ass. Dispense with the unnecessary tedium! And round and round it went. Guy tried to drop my grade by a full letter point. This coming from an electronic's instructor too. I think it was a power struggle or jealousy or something. I had a computer (an E*X*P*E*N*S*I*V*E) Apple II at that time.

 

Another time was not being allowed in the computer lab because I wasn't in an advanced math class. Well. There's more to computers than math. Even back then at that early juncture. There were games and PrintShop and BBSing, and BeagleBros. two-liner programs to experiment with. Despite my extraordinary understanding of how it all worked I got detention for sneaking in. What a buncha stiffs that school was. I really was beyond them all. Did they think computers were still mainframes with tubes?

[zzip]

I remember being interested in the desktop publishing, because I could print things that looked kind of professional,  MIDI because I could make music that didn't sound like computer music,  learning ASM to make better games than basic could do.

 

I think the common thread was that I was interested in things that could push the limits of the computer, especially the weak 8-bits.   As computers became more powerful, my interests in such things waned.

[MrMaddog]

I was more into BASIC programming and later going online when the Internet got started and there was still a BBS scene...

 

When I had my 130XE in high school, I wished I had gotten into word processing and DTP but I couldn't get a printer or even an interface that worked with Atari 8-bits.  Just as well since teachers wouldn't accept a 40 column report printed on an 80 column printer.  Still I had a simple database for my other hobbies and a spelling flash card program that got me through English classes.

 

21 hours ago, Keatah said:

Ohh gosh I remember one of my first uses of a word processor at high school. It was 3rd year or something and I fucking hated that school with a passion. 1st issue was when I tried to turn in a paper done on my Apple II and Epson MX-80 with MagicWindows - a simple but solid word processor setup. And I even had the 1/216th double-strike patch that improved quality significantly at the cost of doubling the time it took to print.

 

The teach'a told me I had to either re-type it with a typewriter on non-perforated single sheet paper or write it by hand. The computer paper in a box was "illegal" for "reasons". I'm like fuck you. I'm not going backwards to writing by had or typing on archaic machinery. You're taking it and that is that. Not acceptable my ass. Dispense with the unnecessary tedium! And round and round it went. Guy tried to drop my grade by a full letter point. This coming from an electronic's instructor too. I think it was a power struggle or jealousy or something. I had a computer (an E*X*P*E*N*S*I*V*E) Apple II at that time.

 

Another time was not being allowed in the computer lab because I wasn't in an advanced math class. Well. There's more to computers than math. Even back then at that early juncture. There were games and PrintShop and BBSing, and BeagleBros. two-liner programs to experiment with. Despite my extraordinary understanding of how it all worked I got detention for sneaking in. What a buncha stiffs that school was. I really was beyond them all. Did they think computers were still mainframes with tubes?

 

I really hated that you schools won't let you near any computer if you weren't a math nerd (someone who got perfect A+'s because they sucked up to the teachers instead of actually learning anything).  In fact I had to belong to a special class that was run by a [jerk] who berate you for not having high grades in math...nevermind it was because the math teacher was also a beotch which was why I hated those classes and public schools in general.

 

Protip: Algebra & Calculus has F' all to do with computer programming because the route memorization of formulas is far opposite of the step-by-step process of programming which my mind was more suited for.  Those bloody teachers expect to "know" forumulas without even explaning how they actually work...

 

[zzip]

3 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

I wished I had gotten into word processing and DTP but I couldn't get a printer or even an interface that worked with Atari 8-bits.  Just as well since teachers wouldn't accept a 40 column report printed on an 80 column printer

Paperclip on the 8-bit wasn't limited to 40 column printing.  Basically you marked every paragraph with a paragraph marker, and at printing time, it would format it properly for 80 columns (or 120 colums or whatever your printer could handle)

 

You could also markup headers, footers, bold,  columns, etc.   It just wasn't WYSIWYG

[+OLD CS1]

@zzip IIRC, AtariWriter is the same.

[MrMaddog]

On 6/16/2020 at 2:28 PM, zzip said:

Paperclip on the 8-bit wasn't limited to 40 column printing.  Basically you marked every paragraph with a paragraph marker, and at printing time, it would format it properly for 80 columns (or 120 colums or whatever your printer could handle)

 

You could also markup headers, footers, bold,  columns, etc.   It just wasn't WYSIWYG

 

On 6/16/2020 at 11:39 PM, OLD CS1 said:

@zzip IIRC, AtariWriter is the same.

Ah, I see... And I thought I had to get something like a XEP80 for an 80 columns on the Atari 8-bit.

 

Anyone used 1st XLent Word Processor? I've lusted for that program after reading about in Antic.

 

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, MrMaddog said:

Ah, I see... And I thought I had to get something like a XEP80 for an 80 columns on the Atari 8-bit.

We used AtariWriter in my junior high school computer lab (had it outfitted with about two dozen Atari 1200XLs.)  As I recall, they were stock, no 80 column card.  As an aside, the guy who ran the lab was the president of the regional TI-99 users group.

[high voltage]

I collect non games for A8, C64, IBM

My first 'non-game' was Atari Planetarium for the 130XE. I reviewed it in the first issue of our UK based fanzine 8 /16 way back in 1987.

I collect the GEOS stuff on C64, music software for all three mentioned above.

For IBM and Mac I used to collect all OS software (just because). Had everything from Windows 1 up to Vista and all the animal named Mac OS.

MS Office versions I collected as well.

 

[Keatah]

I wonder if anyone (bitd) made practical use of the home planetarium software, for observing.

[+OLD CS1]

8 hours ago, Keatah said:

I wonder if anyone (bitd) made practical use of the home planetarium software, for observing.

I recall the Cubmaster from another pack (Cub Scouts) used his telescope and a Commodore 64 with some planetarium software.  This is what first got me interested in such software, and the notable lack of anything similar easily available for our TI.

[DeathAdderSF]

I was always keen on collecting DOS-based compression utilities. There's dozens of them, each with their own unique format and methods. Though the vast majority of them never caught on, every once in a while I'd run into an "exotic" archive on a BBS or FTP, and be glad I already had the proper tool to open it and extract the files.