Well I’m one of those weirdos who actually likes playing with word processors, databases and programming environments of yore rather than playing games, so you’ve got my attention.
I was responding to @amoroso I have nothing against productivity (or any non-game) software for retro platforms, mind! The more of any kind of software the better, that’s how the platforms stay alive.
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Many science fiction writers still use WordStar for their work. Do you also use retro software as your daily driver for certain tasks, i.e. as the main application for carrying out specific tasks that you need in your modern work?
I’ll leave the definition of retro a bit fuzzy but WordStar clearly qualifies. Also, for the purpose of this question the retro software may run on any retro or modern hardware, directly or via emulation. Here I’m focusing on software.
I’m curious about your experience.
I’ll go first. I use Medley Interlisp as my daily driver for Lisp development. Granted, I do hobby programming and not production work but I run Medley Interlisp for most of my personal projects in preference to modern Lisp environments.
My question was inspired by this discussion.
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One more thing. Playing retro games in their original environment is a very popular and well known modern activity, so I’m mostly interested in non-gaming software.
How retro is retro?
e.g. I use an operating system daily on several platforms (Linux) that has its roots firmly based in 1968 Unix.
I use LaTeX - originating from the early 1980s - maybe not daily, but certainly weekly to prepare class-lists and lesson plans for the teaching I do.
Not “daily drivers”, but…
My hobby OS is written in BCPL which originates from ~1966, although admittedly I’ve not tinkered with it for some time.
Another hobby project is a little system based on the 6502 CPU originating in 1975 - it’s running my own implementation of TinyBasic which originated round about the same time.
And so on…
-Gordon
Linux and LaTeX may be retro but for the purpose of this question they’re like classic games: very popular and their usage very well known. And, unlike retro software like, say, WordStar, they both never really stopped being used.
I’m more interested in other software used for carrying out some kind of task used for modern work. A good example is writers using WordStar.
My answer would be no. I mean, I use vi (well, vim) but it’s actively maintained and updated and I’m not using some ancient version.
I am tempted to go all the way back to Amiga Deluxe Paint 2 for doing pixel art, though.
Another example is this Atari ST software for managing campground reservations:
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Ah - I suppose I should say I use emacs to edit? Not a retro version, nor on a retro computer.
But more retro than that, when I want to do some puzzle investigation or numerical investigation, I will pretty often choose BBC Basic, and usually inside Owlet, a BBC Micro emulator in the browser.
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Retro for me is some Ancient Beast like the IBM 1130, impressive for the time
but outdated hardware by any modern standard.Computer architecture has always interested
me,I never found a nice machine hardware wise in the 70’s and 80’s for programming in.
I like simple machines, modern stuff is too complex like say the 386. Had I had the hardware
I would most likely use the bundled software for text editing and programing for a file system not paper tape.
I did have a PDP 8 (from spare time gizmos) but found that just too slow and limiting hardware wise.
I’m not sure, if either of this qualifies: (I do not think so.) My daily driver for anything text editing is BBEdit, which has been with me for 30 years, since the days of Classic Mac OS and System 7. But this still enjoys active support and development. On the other hand, I’ve an old PowerMac (2008), still kind of in production, which runs Adobe software in versions before Adobe switched to the subscription model. So, for me, this software suite has long fallen out of support, similar to abandonware.
This may pose a rather interesting question, namely, is it the age or the fact that a software isn’t developed further anymore and frozen in time, which makes software vintage or retro?
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It is not software, but I use two pieces of Retro hardware (both from the 1980s) still really every day:
- I have an IBM model M keyboard as my main keyboard. It is great to type on, and much better than all of the new stuff I know.
- I use my old HP 12-C calculator almost daily for little calculations, when it does not make sense to start up a computer or start Excel. It still does a great job, and I am faster than with the smartphone calculators (and also it has RPN
).
Both devices contain software from the 1980s, so my answer is maybe not completely off-topic.
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LaTeX has never stopped being used.
WordStar has (by your own admission above) never stopped being used.
Both are somewhat niche and both have never stopped being used.
Unix in many forms has never stopped being used.
So I find your argument somewhat confusing here.
I use several different Basics here - daily - mostly because I actively develop them. Retro?
-Gordon
Yes, my definition is a bit fuzzy and confusing, apologies. I mentioned WordStar because, although some people never stopped using it, the commercial product itself was long discontinued.
The intent of my definition is to exclude software like Linux, LaTeX, Emacs, vi, and so on. Not because they aren’t interesting or significant but because it is already very well known this software has been in use for decades.
Instead, I’m curious about more obscure uses such WordStar and writers (I wasn’t aware of it until I read some recent retrocomputing stories) and the campground reservation system for the Atari ST.
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I think a fuzzy base for a discussion is fine. For me, it’s much more interesting to see a wide variety of contributions than to see ever-narrowing definitions.
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I still use emacs on a regular basis and consider it modern more than retro, and in the seventies I used mince (mince is not complete emacs).
One of the interesting(!) aspects of my use of emacs is that it is extremely limited. No modes, no macros, no windowing environment. I use the undo feature, and I sometimes use multiple panes, and sometimes rectangular edits. It’s all in a textual context, using curses or whatever emacs uses for that. As such, I would probably be just as comfortable with rather an old version. (Oh, I will sometimes use hexl-mode.)
(Apologies if it a bit messy, but I’ve just moved some posts into this thread from the intro thread.)
The number of features that lay dormant, unloved and unused, in the bulk of my software is staggering.
I’m using Compaq Contura 430cx notebook - for writing novels. I use good old MS Word 6.0 under Win95osr2, and transfer files to modern pc using PCMCIA->CF card). Also sometimes use old Photoshop from 3.0 to 5.2 to make posters on various systems from 486 to pentium-1.) In other cases I use old computers for gaming and learning Turbo Pascal 7. Also hope to master some Amiga software to use my A3000 for making music)
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