The most popular word processor for classic Macs is probably Microsoft Word 5.1 — and, for once, deservedly so. A quite capable word processor with the right mix of feature set and Mac-friendliness. Thus, it’s likely to be the first recommended application in this category when you want to use your vintage Mac for writing and you ask around in the community. I, for one, have been recommending it along with WordPerfect for a long time. Until — alas, belatedly! — I discovered WriteNow.
WriteNow is a Macintosh classic par excellence, since it was one of the first word processors available for the Macintosh along with MacWrite. Its genesis is interesting and is well summarised by the Wikipedia entry:
WriteNow was written for Apple Computer, Inc. by John Anderson and Bill Tschumy in Seattle, separate from the Macintosh computer and MacWrite word processor development teams. Steve Jobs was concerned that those programming MacWrite were not going to be ready for the 1984 release date of the Macintosh; he therefore commissioned a team of programmers to work independently on a similar project, which eventually became WriteNow. Members of the WriteNow team knew about MacWrite, but members of the MacWrite team did not know about WriteNow. Ultimately, MacWrite was in fact completed on schedule and shipped with the Macintosh, while WriteNow was later made available as a commercial product after Steve Jobs left Apple to form NeXT. WriteNow was originally owned by NeXT and published by the T/Maker Company.
There is a very nice review of WriteNow 4.0 (the last and more complete version) on the 5 August 1994 Issue of MacUser UK, written by Clive Grace. The following is a series of highlights I chose to illustrate what’s good (and what could be improved) about WriteNow.
The review starts with one of the most important things about WriteNow, compared with other applications of its kind:
WriteNow is carving a niche for itself among users who don’t want the memory overhead that comes with a heavyweight word processor. Microsoft Word, for example, takes in excess of 6.5 MB of your hard disk and, where possible, occupies 2 MB RAM, and few users fully utilise the flexibility and programmability of a package like Nisus either.
Stiffer competition comes from cheaper, leaner integrated packages such as Microsoft Works and ClarisWorks which cost just under £100, and so approach WriteNow’s territory, which sells on the fact that it has been written for speed and compactness without sacrificing features.
On import and export formats and features:
WriteNow 4.0 imports and exports other word processing file formats and is compatible with Microsoft Word, and Windows Write and Works files. It will also read MacWrite II, PageMaker and QuarkXPress files, but sadly, only the DOS version of WordPerfect is supported. However, if your existing word processor doesn’t support any of these file formats, WriteNow 4.0 will save and read RTF files.
WriteNow 4.0’s new features focus on improved table handling, better and faster importing of EPS, PICT and MacPaint files, colour support for pictures and text, and a set of PowerBook features to manage your battery more efficiently.
One thing I like about WriteNow is that, as the reviewer points out, you can install as much or as little of the application as you need. For users with PowerBooks there are additional installation options, including a feature that loads the word processor entirely into memory along with as many documents as the RAM can support:
Although this option eats up memory, the result is a faster word processor — and not using the hard drive saves on battery life, squeezing an extra 30 minutes from a new Type III battery.
And:
Unless you use a battery monitor utility, you’ll find WriteNow’s battery-saving software a useful alternative to switching to the Finder and so spinning up the hard disk. The battery indicator stays invisible on a PowerBook Duo, which uses a different set of power management tools, but it operates without incident on a PowerBook 145B.
The WordMaster thesaurus is excellent, but you’ll have to be careful when you install it:
A Mac IIcx suffered repeated bus errors and fatal crashes until we made the machine 32-bit aware by adding Connectix’s Mode32 and setting 32-bit addressing in the Control Panel. However, once running, the thesaurus ran circles around Word’s resource-hogging equivalent and indeed made using an online thesaurus a viable proposition on a PowerBook.
Finally, I fully agree with the reviewer’s conclusion:
If all you need is a small, lightweight word processor with none of the extraneous features of an integrated package, but with enough graphics and tabling functions to let you perform basic DTP operations, then WriteNow is ideal. Its ability to read and write to other word processor formats makes it useful as a cheap word processor to run on a PowerBook and because it’s fast, it’s ideal for slower machines such as the Mac Plus, Classic, or an SE.
You can download all WriteNow’s versions (1.0 – 4.0.2) nicely packed in a single self-mounting image at the Macintosh Garden.
Update: The Macintosh Garden website appears to be down at the moment. Luckily, I managed to grab the package previously, so if you can’t download WriteNow at the address provided, you can find it here.
Right when I was considering my Classic Setup series a fiasco, I received a couple of emails that restored my hopes. Sebastian’s message was unexpected and a very pleasant surprise.
Sebastian P. is a 28-year old student living in Munich, Bavaria, and is passionate about vintage Macs.
Sebastian’s Setup
1. What does your desk look like?
Beware of the 36MB monster
Ain’t the desk just perfect for this 68k Mac? Antique desk – antique computer!
2. What is your vintage Mac setup?
It’s a Macintosh LCIII (68030/25MHz), with 36 MB RAM (maxed out) and an 80 MB hard drive.
3. Why are you using this setup?
Probably because of nostalgia, I grew up with this computer and it’s very dear to me.
4. What software do you use, and for what do you use it?
I use the fabulous Word 5.1 for writing business letters. After so many newer versions of MS Word I still consider this to be the best version ever. I also use my LC for Retro-gaming, bringing back memories of all those great games we used to play day and night during the nineties (Sim City 2000, Diamonds, Civilization and many many more). Right now I’ve been thinking of bringing my LC online to use it as an e-mail machine, but it’s not easy to come by the necessary hardware for a fair price. Also, I’m a bit disheartened by the fact that there is no up-to-date 68k Browser like Classilla. Any volunteers for a port?
One thing that always surprises me is how durable these old Macintosh computers are. This LCIII is about 16 years old and still running like the first day. Amazing. I’m not sure if my Intel iMac will make it even for the first ten years…
Benj Edwards at Macworld.com has a very nice article celebrating the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the LaserWriter, Four reasons the LaserWriter mattered:
The $6,995 LaserWriter was part of a 1985 Apple marketing initiative christened the “Macintosh Office” that involved new network technology called AppleTalk, the printer, a file server, and a high-end UNIX workstation. Critics soon called the Macintosh Office campaign a bust because Apple kept delaying the fileserver and workstation. (Ultimately, neither made it to market.)Apple pulled the plug on the Office campaign in late 1985, and critics soon forgot the episode. However, two office components—AppleTalk and LaserWriter—lived on and became successful products in their own right. In light of this 25th anniversary, here are four reasons why the LaserWriter mattered:
Earlier today, in the Mac OS 9 mailing list, Cameron Kaiser (the intrepid developer of Classilla, the best browser for Mac OS 8.6 – 9.2) wrote:
I need to find out if there are a large number of 601-based systems using Classilla — I just hit a snag trying to port the nanojit for TraceMonkey. TraceMonkey uses mftb and mftbu, which are assembler instructions only supported on 603 CPUs and up, and CodeWarrior offers me no other way around them (‘machine 601’ causes a failure). If there is significant 601 usage out there, then I won’t make the jump to TraceMonkey for 9.2 (though I may do so in the future with a warning).
I don’t think making a 603 a minimum requirement will be too onerous, but I don’t want to exclude users unnecessarily. If you are using a 601-based Power Macintosh with Classilla, such as a 6100, 7100, 8100 or 7500, and have not upgraded the CPU, speak now — I need to know who’s out there. This is a critical portion of the nanojit and cannot be coded around.
I am fairly certain that with 604 or G3-upgraded 601 systems, however, that this problem does not exist. Thus, if you have an upgraded CPU card, this should not affect you. […]
In other words, Cameron has stumbled onto a development obstacle and he needs to have an idea of how many users with PowerPC 601-based Macs using Classilla are out there (including those using a 68K Mac with a PPC-601 upgrade card). He also needs to know, if you’re using Classilla on a Mac with such a processor, how Classilla is behaving on your machine. Problems? Crashes? Please get in contact with him via email at ckaiser [at] floodgap [.] com
It’s possible that for PowerPC 601-based Macs, Classilla reaches a version number after which it will be no longer developed, and that for the technical reasons mentioned above, development will go on with a PowerPC 603 processor as minimum requirement for final users. But all this really depends on the statistics Cameron manages to collect, so I encourage giving him as much useful feedback as you can. Thank you.
My invitation is still valid. Have you got a vintage Mac setup you use on a regular basis? Or at least not hidden in some storeroom or attic collecting dust? Do you want to send me pictures and talk about it? Read this past article.
So far, only Nicola D’Agostino has answered my call. I have invited people, I have tweeted friendly reminders. I am a bit disheartened by the general disinterest. I am sure I’m not the only one who still uses vintage Macs, and I’m aware that this blog is not as famous as other Mac-related sites or blogs (this is no Shawn Blanc’s Sweet Mac Setups, this is no Waferbaby’s The Setup — I know), thus people aren’t really incentivised to take photos and write some short presentation of their setup. But come on, guys, I think it could be a nice idea.
Too bad I can't configure them with Xgrid.
Meanwhile I introduce you to my “Compact Macs Basketball Team”. While I was cleaning up and reorganising my studio a couple of weeks back, I took the opportunity to take this group photo. On the top you can see my original 128K Macintosh (more about its story here). On the coffee table, on the left, my Macintosh SE FDHD (2MB RAM, 80MB hard drive, running System 6.0.8); on the right my Macintosh Classic (4MB RAM, 80MB hard drive, running System 7.0.1), which was the first compact Mac I acquired back in 1995. On the floor, you can’t miss the unmistakable shape of the Colour Classic (6MB RAM, awaiting a new 160MB hard drive, running System 7.1), and then, on the right, my last acquisition, a Macintosh SE/30 (more about its story here).
These lovely little guys are more or less all functioning, and after the sudden death of the Colour Classic’s hard drive, I’ve taken their maintenance even more seriously. Since I can’t have all of them set up and running at the same time, I have established some sort of rotation to ensure that each one of them gets its fair share of use. Every fortnight I take one out and put it on the desk in my vintage Mac corner and I use it as my distraction-free writing workstation. I have started synchronising my data across four of them (the 128K is not usable at the moment) using the old-school floppy approach, although I’m contemplating getting a SCSI Iomega (or Epson) ZIP drive and extend the backups to include essential applications and preferences, not just my personal documents.
My simple piece of advice — if you have a vintage Mac somewhere, and has sentimental value, do it a favour: find a way to put it to good use, keep it running, especially if it’s a compact Mac like these. Leaving it powered off for a very long time is usually not a good idea and often, when you later decide to turn it on for nostalgia’s sake, your compact Mac might not work or start showing hardware issues caused by neglect. The Compact Mac section of the 68k Macintosh Liberation Army forums is a good place to find help when you need to do some troubleshooting.
Periodically, when I have time, I browse my archive of vintage magazines (mostly MacUser and MacFormat) looking for interesting bits of information to reprint here, of course related to the scope of this blog.
Inside the March 4, 1994 issue of MacUser I found a couple of things related to the Newton. The first is the announcement of the MessagePad 110, and the second is about a useful PCMCIA made for the Newton that I didn’t know about. Here they are:
Apple tackles handwriting in restyled MessagePad 110
Apple has launched a new MessagePad, despite disappointing sales for the original PDA. The MessagePad 110, codenamed Lindy, is expected to cost £599, and will feature improved handwriting recognition, more storage, longer battery liffe and a sleeker design.
Unlike the first MessagePad, which was made by Japanese consumer giant Sharp, the 110 will be manufactured by Taiwanese company Inventec and, according to US sources, Lindy will answer some of the problems that have dogged the MessagePad.
Lindy improves handwriting recognition by allowing users to jot down messages in digital ink which can be converted into text later. It also comes with 1MB of built-in RAM, effectively tripling the storage space available compared with the MessagePad.
The device’s AA batteries store more power than the AAA batteries of the original MessagePad and will come with an optional stand (similar to those used by mobile phones) for recharging the batteries (nickel cadmium) in around four hours.
US sources suggest the MessagePad will be an inch longer, slimmer overall and be tapered in the middle, in response to complaints from customers that the original was too wide to hold comfortably. The device will boast a Type II PCMCIA slot.
Like rival product Zoomer, from Casio, the 110 will come with a folding cover which protects the LCD screen by snapping onto the back when the PDA is in use. And it features a spring-loaded retractable pen which squeezes into a small slot which replaces the present long stylus.
However, sources report that the Lindy’s screen is four pixels shorter than the MessagePad, which suggests that some of the few existing PDA applications may not work properly.
Sources close to Apple suggest Apple is also likely to install other software improvements in Lindy’s ROMs available as upgrades for MessagePad owners in exchange for a nominal payment.
The Economist slots into world issues on Newton
Apple has launched The Economist World in Figures on a PCMCIA card for the Newton. The launch is the first of 12 titles to be published this year by Apple’s StarCore group.
The project was researched and compiled by The Economist and consists of world rankings and country-by-country information on subjects including population, economic performance, currency exchange rates, climate and social mores. It covers 60 countries and will be updated annually.
Loading the card into any Newton provides access to a straightforward interface for searching user-defined groups by map or by index. So, for example, users can look at the population in G7 nations or define a specific group and obtain similar information. Information culled can easily be extracted, faxed or printed directly from the MessagePad.
Marjorie Scandino, chief executive of The Economist, said this was the group’s first information age launch. The publication is now considering how this and other titles could be developed for online services.
Apple claims 80,000 Newtons have now shipped, a conservative figure compared with original forecasts. But the company expects forthcoming titles — such as the Time Out London Guide, Personal Time & Billing, and Presenter Pad — to fuel an increase in sales. World in Figures costs £74.95.
Needless to say, I’m interested in this special card for the Newton. If anyone owns it or other titles mentioned in the article, please let me know. I would love to try them and maybe write a review.
CUPERTINO, Calif. — June 20, 1994 — From today, traveling the much discussed Information Superhighway could actually begin to make sense for people who want to keep in touch, stay informed and be entertained. Apple Computer, Inc. has launched eWorld, its innovative, informative, powerful yet easy to use online service which includes eWorld for Macintosh and NewtonMail, eWorld’s messaging service for Newton. eWorld for Macintosh is an ‘online town square’ which provides a global electronic mail system together with news, information and other services from around 100 partners such as Reuters America Inc., Tribune Media Services, ZiffNet/Mac and Inc. Magazine Online.
— Opening paragraph of the June 1994 Apple press release
Fourteen years ago, on March 31, 1996, eWorld was ultimately shut down after less than two years since its introduction.
I wasn’t an eWorld subscriber, yet I remember the phenomenon fondly. I believe it was another Apple creation with potential, but the high costs of the service (and perhaps Apple’s lack of belief, too) prevented it from really taking off. Too bad it was just discontinued without being morphed into something that could survive on the Web, Apple could have taken advantage of the faithful eWorlders’ sense of community to expand it online and pioneer today’s social networks, for instance. But I guess it was not the right timeframe for Apple, not in its best of shapes financially. (By the way, in Owen W. Linzmayer’s Apple Confidential 2.0, pag. 239, it is said that then-Apple CEO Spindler promised to change eWorld into an Internet-based service).
Here are some resources to give you a clearer picture of eWorld:
Scott Converse’s eWorld page, containing the Apple press releases about the launch and the discontinuation of the service, plus some nice eWorld screenshots and lost graphics.
This does not aim to be a step-by-step tutorial, although you could definitely use it to set up such a connection, provided you have all the necessary hardware and software bits. These last two weeks I finally managed to connect my Newton MessagePad 2100 to the Internet via Bluetooth, and I just wanted to put together all the information for future reference. The essential steps to set up the connection, on the Mac side and the Newton side, are all Steven Frank‘s work. He posted the result of his efforts on the NewtonTalk mailing list four years ago, and subsequently in the WikiWikiNewt. I am reposting those instructions here, but also starting from the beginning, as they assume that you already have the right hardware and that you’ve already installed all the necessary software packages and paired the Mac and the Newton via Bluetooth.
Some preliminary observations
First and foremost: it’s complicated. Not impossible, but not a user-friendly process, either. Few Bluetooth PCMCIA cards work in the Newton, and those that work do not seem readily available. But, if you do own such a card and you can easily connect your Newton to install all the packages needed to use Bluetooth, you should try this method of wireless connection to the Internet with your Newton. I prefer it over using a Wi-Fi 802.11b card because it’s less battery-hungry. The downside, of course, is that you are limited to your home network since you’re using the Internet connection shared via Bluetooth by one of your Macs, while with the Wi-Fi solution you have more freedom of movement and you could theoretically connect to the Internet from a public hotspot. I say theoretically because all the Wi-Fi cards supported by the Newton have limited encryption abilities — WEP — while most public and office access points nowadays use wireless WPA encryption.
Anyway, I can say I’m quite happy I’ve managed to connect my MessagePad this way. Of course my primary use is not browsing the Web on the Newton — despite some great software it’s still a very crippled experience — but reading some RSS feeds and checking email, definitely a more rewarding experience.
The hardware
On the Newton side, you’ll need a MessagePad 2000/2100 or an eMate (although I’m not sure if you’ll get a good result performance-wise). As for the Bluetooth card, since you’ll have to download and use Eckhart Köppen’s Bluetooth software (Blunt), you are limited to the few options that have been tested and proven compatible. In the Hardware Compatibility section of Blunt’s page, Köppen writes:
Blunt has been tested on US and German MP2100 MessagePads. It requires a Bluetooth PCMCIA card with the following characteristics: PCMCIA Type II card (no CardBus card), UART interface, HCI protocol support. This should cover those cards which are supported via a UART driver under Linux or BSD. It has been tested with the following hardware:
PICO Bluetooth PCMCIA card
Taiyo Yuden internal UART modules
AmbiCom Air2Net BT2000CF CompactFlash card (new model with purple antenna). Note: It seems there are two revisions of this card, and only revision A is working at the moment.
AmbiCom Air2Net BT2000E CompactFlash card (older model, black antenna)
Not working is the following hardware:
Belkin Bluetooth PC Card (a CardBus card)
3com Wireless PC Card (incompatible serial chip)
IBM Bluetooth PC Card (incompatible serial chip)
Might work at some point:
Conceptronic Bluetooth PCMCIA card (requires special serial chip initialization or firmware reprogramming)
Xircom Bluetooth PCMCIA card (requires special serial chip initialization or firmware reprogramming)
I own probably the best Bluetooth card of the group, the PICO Card, purchased four years ago. Here are some photos:
My Newton MP2100 (in a 2000 case), the PICO Bluetooth card and box.A close-up of the PICO Bluetooth Card
When inserted, the card is not flush, the whole transparent green section sticks out, but it doesn’t really bother me:
My MessagePad, with stand and keyboard.
Activity is clearly indicated by a LED inside the green section.
The software
I have installed Blunt (not Blunt 2, since it’s still in alpha) and all related packages mentioned in the Blunt page, that is, the NIE Nitro & Blunt Support, plus Nitro, Neo, IC/VC (this is for iCalendar and vCard import/export, not really needed for Internet connection via Bluetooth, but I figured it was a nice addition to have), and then Courier (Web browser), Raissa (RSS reader), which in turn need NHttpLib and ntox. All these software packages can be retrieved starting from the main page of Eckhart Köppen’s 40Hz site. As the page for Nitro will remind you, you’ll need to download and install the patched NIE Modem support module to obtain mobile Internet over IrCOMM.
For the uninitiated, NIE stands for Newton Internet Enabler and it’s a series of essential packages that should reside on the original floppies that came with your Newton, if you bought it in the 1990s or second-hand from someone who sold you all the original accessories. Otherwise, you can download it from this page on unna.org (UNNA is the United Network of Newton Archives). Before installing Köppen’s software, you should install NIE in your Newton’s internal store.
To give you a visual summary, here is a screenshot of all the extensions installed in the internal store of my MP2100:
Of course, you don’t have to install all this. The essential packages for the present discussion are Newton Ethernet, Blunt, Neo, Nitro, Ntox, NIE Nitro & Blunt, NIE Modem & Serial, NHttpLib.
Text Stationery and Paper Stationery are two extensions needed by Mail V, the excellent software I use to handle email on my Newton.
Setting up Bluetooth
Once installed all the aforementioned packages from Eckhart Köppen’s site, you will need to configure Bluetooth on the Newton and pair it with the Mac. I simply followed Köppen’s instructions outlined in the Blunt page. In the preferences for the Bluetooth Setup app (tap [i], then Prefs), my settings are as follows:
Name: Newton
Device Location: Top PC Card
Speed: 230400
Driver: PICO Card
I paired my MessagePad 2100 with my PowerMac G4 Cube (after plugging a Bluetooth USB adapter in the Cube). It’s definitely a trial-and-error process: in my attempts, I noticed I was more successful when initiating the procedure from the Newton using the Pair and Get Services commands in the Bluetooth Setup:
It’s important to ‘Get Services’ because otherwise the Bluetooth connection via serial port you’ll setup later will not work. You’ll notice that sometimes, even when everything is set up correctly, the Newton will lose the ‘Modem Port’ and ‘OBEX Port’ information, showing ‘None available’. In that case, just tap Get Services while keeping the Newton in range of your Mac, and all will be fine:
That ‘Name: Q-bert’ is the name of my G4 Cube on the home network.
Sharing the Mac’s Internet connection over Bluetooth
The following part (in italics) was written by Steven Frank in 2006, and it’s the core of the matter:
It is assumed that you already have worked out the kinks in your Newton Bluetooth setup. You should be paired with the Mac, and have done a service discovery. Make sure you select the Mac’s Serial Port service in the Newton’s Bluetooth Setup (there was only one in my case).
Next, you’ll need to go to Terminal on the Mac, and carefully enter these commands:
This starts a PPP server on the Bluetooth-PDA-Sync serial port. Note the IP address here. I’ve used 10.0.1.111. This will be the address assigned to your Newton.
This can be anything you like, but it should be a valid IP address for your LAN. If you use, for example, 192.168 addressing, you should use a 192.168.0.x address instead. Make sure it’s not an address that’s in use by something else!
Now, you need to set up an internet connection on the Newton side! Whew!
Create a new Internet Setup called whatever you like.
Protocol: PPP Configuration: Manual User ID: [none] When closing, disconnect: [your preference] Local IP Address: (whatever IP address you used in the pppd command above!) Gateway/Router Address: (the IP address of the machine that’s sharing its connection — in my case, the Mac. NOT the address of your actual router!) Primary DNS: [an actual working DNS address] (Using 0.0.0.0 doesn’t seem to cut it.) Secondary DNS: [optional, up to you] Domain Name: [none]
Now, cross your fingers, and initiate a network connection from the Newton. With a little luck, it should connect to the PPP server running on your Mac, and get online.
When you are all done, and you want to turn off the Internet sharing on the Mac, try the following commands:
At one point I went into the Bluetooth system preferences pane, Sharing tab, and changed the Bluetooth-PDA-Sync serial port from “Modem” to “RS-232”. I’m not sure if this is required, but it’s something to try if it doesn’t work for you.
Because this runs a PPP server on the Bluetooth-PDA-Sync port, it will conflict with anything else that tries to use that port, such as Palm HotSync.
Further notes and clarifications
I have followed Frank’s method to the letter and it worked. Not after a few attempts, though. At first I started getting error connections and the Newton seemed unable to negotiate a PPP connection. I turned off Internet sharing with the Terminal commands listed above, restarted the Cube and restarted the PPP server on the Bluetooth-PDA-Sync serial port. I kept having problems, until I discovered that I had some old connection profiles in the Newton’s Internet Setup (located in Extras > Setup). I deleted every other profile that wasn’t the Bluetooth profile created as per Frank’s instructions and all went well.
Some other things to remember:
When Frank says “Create a new Internet Setup”, it means specifically creating a new ‘Generic Setup’ in the Internet Setup app. When you start configuring the setup, in the first pane of your New Internet Setup, choose Connecting using: Bluetooth. Not Serial, not Modem — don’t get confused by the terminology.
It’s important you enter the correct IP address of the Mac that’s going to share the connection. In my case, the Cube’s IP was 10.0.1.3, so that’s what I entered in the Gateway/Router Address item of the Newton’s setup profile.
Also, Steven Frank is right about the DNS. It must be a working address. In my settings, I put Google’s address (8.8.8.8) as Primary DNS and one of my ISP’s DNS addresses as Secondary DNS.
I, too, have tried this only on a Mac with Mac OS X 10.4.11. I think it can work under Mac OS X 10.6 as well. In the future I’ll try with my Intel MacBook Pro and report back.
It should be nice to have some kind of automation to simplify the turning on/off of the PPP server on the Mac. For now, since I’m not a programmer, the only thing I managed to do to speed up the process was to write all the Terminal commands on one line, separated by a semicolon, in a text editor. Then it’s a matter of copy/paste them into the Terminal and using the up/down arrow keys (the UNIX history feature) to initiate and shut down Internet sharing sessions. If someone wants to write a script or a small app, I will make it available for download here.
So, Internet on the Newton…
Just a couple of screenshots to give you an idea. My Inbox using Mail V:
This very blog rendered in Eckhart Köppen’s Courier:
I hope this information can be useful to someone else. I tried to write this as clearly as I could, considering the many steps and convolutions, but feel free to ask questions and share your doubts or difficulties. I’ll try to help you out as much as I can.
What can be considered ‘must-have’ software in the vintage Macintosh world? What are (still) the most useful programs and utilities to use with our classic Macs?
I will try to answer those questions with a new series of articles called Macintosh classics. In every post I will talk about an application for the classic Mac OS which I think is worth mentioning and keeping in your classic setup. I will also try to contact the author of the software, asking if he/she wants to give a little contribution in the form of memories, anectodes, if he/she is still using vintage Mac hardware, and so on. In addition, I’ll do my best to add a direct download link, asking permission to the author first (especially when the software is a bit difficult to find on the Web).
So, without further ado, let’s start with one of the best programs for the classic Macintosh: DOCMaker, written by Mark S. Wall / Green Mountain Software.
I remember a time in the mid-to-late 1990s when most software programs for the Macintosh that came with some form of electronic documentation (I’m not talking of plain-text readme files, but longer documents with instructions or complete manuals) used stand-alone documents generated by two applications: either eDOC or DOCMaker. eDOC was basically a printer driver residing in the Extensions folder. You could select it from the Chooser and create an eDOC document from any word-processing application, like Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, WriteNow, ClarisWorks, etc. DOCMaker is more sophisticated, since it integrates a word processor and the ability to place multimedia content such as graphics, sound files, and movies in a page. You can also navigate inside a document not only by using the classic Table of Contents, but also by adding buttons in pages or using the multimedia element as a ‘hot spot’. This way you can easily jump to relevant sections of a manual, for instance, right from the first page, or reach a related topic or section without leafing through the whole document, or have a tooltip-style note popping up near a picture.
What I always loved of DOCMaker is its versatility. No wonder it was widely used to create e-zines, self-contained publications that were very popular in the late 1990s. The Apple Easter Eggs publication I made available in this post is a nice example of what can be done with DOCMaker. An even nicer — and surely well-known — example is About This Particular Macintosh, a Mac-related e-zine first published in April 1995 and issued monthly in DOCMaker format until July 1999 (from August 1999 on, the offline Webzine was made available as HTML pages you could read with a browser, or in eDOC format, and subsequently as PDF too). As for me, I can testify to DOCMaker’s flexibility and ease of use by saying that I was creating my first ebooks with it back in 1998 — yes, more than ten years before today’s hype.
In the January 1996 issue of ATPM, there’s a nice review of DOCMaker (the current version at the time was 4.5.1) by Paul Taylor. Here are some excerpts:
You all know what I’m going to say, don’t you? DOCMaker is what I consider to be the best portable document creation application available as shareware. But don’t let my obvious bias sway you. Mark Wall’s program is used by MacSense, ATPM’s choice for Best e-Zine of 1995, and by Inside Mac Games, the most successful commercial Macintosh magazine launched since MacUser and Macworld. In fact, of the thirteen magazines mentioned in this feature’s Best of 1995 article, ten use DOCMaker. Let me tell you why.
It is simple, and it is powerful. It looks like a word processor, and it (for the most part) acts like a word processor, complete with font selection, bold, italic, underline, and all the rest. Placing graphics is as simple as copy and paste from your graphics program. As is placing sound files, movies, or buttons that do various things, from navigating the magazine to printing, quitting, or starting another program. Design is straightforward, but flexible enough to let you do what you want with a page. With an eye towards ResEdit, you can even change the colors used to color text. For example, the blue and green in my copy of DOCMaker are not the usual text colors.
Sure there are some problems with DOCMaker. Graphic placement could be better, and text wrapping doesn’t exist. […] But DOCMaker is the choice of electronic publishers worldwide, not because it has great graphic display capabilities (or not), but because it is so easy to use. […]
In the in-depth review, Taylor expands on some new improvements in the then-current version 4.5.1:
Mr. Wall also apparently cleaned up the code for DOCMaker and tossed in a few little morsels for publishers. Users now have the ability to change the background color of the pages (very cool!) and perform a few other helpful functions like display the pictures only as outlines while putting together the document. This makes scrolling through the pages while looking for where you are going to place that new paragraph a much quicker task because the pictures are not having to re-draw every time you pass them. And, the most noticeable new feature is the refined reader interface, which is geared toward pleasing you, the reader. The new reader interface is a beauty to behold in and of itself.
The bars surrounding the document have been refined, the navigation arrows are polished and the contents text is easier on the eyes to read. The documents are also more intuitive. All the navigational arrows are located together in the bottom left corner of the document, within quick reach of each other. Two new buttons, the “All the way to the back” and the “All the way to the front” button have been added for times when you are in a hurry to get somewhere. A table of contents is also placed right next to the navigational buttons and is accessed by clicking and dragging to the chapter name you wish to view.
Before publishing this article, I contacted Mark Wall asking him if he wanted to share some memories about DOCMaker and what Mac hardware he was using at the time. I also asked for permission to offer a direct download for the latest version of DOCMaker (4.8.4), now freeware, right here in my blog. He replied: I too try to utilize some of the old Macs in useful ways. I’ll try to sit down sometime and write about the days when DOCMaker was a big part of my life – it almost got really big, but that’s another story… It is ok to upload DOCMaker v4.8.4 for general distribution, no problem. Thanks!
No, thank you Mark for a very nice software that shouldn’t be forgotten.
System Requirements:
DOCMaker and the documents that you create with it will run on all MacOS computers with System 7 or greater and 4MB RAM or greater. Some features depend on additional System software services such as QuickTime and AppleScript. (From Green Mountain Software’s original website)
Download:
DOCMaker 4.8.4 (BinHex format) — Contains the application, the Revision notes for version 4.8.4 and a ‘DOCMaker Licensing Information’ document (in DOCMaker format, of course).
DOCMaker Doc Patch for Mac OS 8.5 (BinHex format) — Be sure to read the instructions attached. Quoting from the Read Me First document: The DOCMaker Document Patch for Mac OS 8.5 will quickly update existing DOCMaker documents for use under Mac OS 8.5. After patching, the documents will still work under older Mac OS versions. The patcher replaces the horizontal navigation scrollbar in those documents that have more than one chapter. This scrollbar needs updating for use under Mac OS 8.5. The symptoms that are fixed by this patch are long pauses in the Macintosh after using the popup menu in the navigation scrollbar. This patch is only needed for DOCMaker documents whose version number is 4.8.3 or earlier.
Ten days ago, when I reported about my casual experiment — testing a group of classic email clients against a modern email service such as Gmail — I couldn’t help but point out the excellent results given by PowerMail 4.2.1, a client written by CTM Development (the link takes you to the page of PowerMail 6 for Mac OS X, since the classic version is no longer developed).
In my previous post, I wrote:
If I were to pick my favourite client to use with Gmail, I would choose PowerMail. Now, again, the irony is that PowerMail is the only commercial product of the bunch — in other words, it doesn’t come free. If you want to handle multiple Gmail accounts with a versatile and powerful email client for the classic Mac on a daily basis, I’m sure you won’t mind paying for PowerMail. The current version is 6, works on Mac OS X, and according to CTM Dev website a licence for 1-2 users costs $49 or 49 Euros (without SpamSieve) or $65 with SpamSieve. If you try to connect to CTM Dev through the older PowerMail 4.2.1 you get a ‘Service Unavailable’ error, so I guess you should contact the company and ask about pricing for the older classic Mac OS version of PowerMail. I will try to contact them and ask about this myself. Who knows, maybe they’re even willing to consider turning pre-Mac OS X versions of PowerMail freeware, given that now the majority of Mac users are on Mac OS X.
A few days ago I did contact CTM Development and enquired about the possibility of a free release of PowerMail 4.2.x for hardcore classic Mac OS geeks like you and me.
I was positively surprised by their promptness in replying. Unfortunately they’re not willing to release pre-Mac OS X versions of PowerMail as freeware, but they made me an offer anyway and told me that I could let my readers know about it if I felt it was relevant, otherwise they would respect my (and maybe your) disappointment. What follows is the interesting part of their email, which they authorised me to report:
What we will do on occasion then is to offer people who really want PowerMail 4.2.1 to purchase the current version and we will give them a free upgrade down to 4.2.1, while providing support on the current release only. We may be able to work something like this out for your readers, with the advantage being that they own a personal licence to two versions of the same product, and if they ever move over to X their data will be moveable with them.
In a follow-up email, they added:
The important thing is that people explicitly add in the comments field of their order (in capitals) REQUEST SUPPLEMENTAL UNSUPPORTED 4.2.1 LICENCE. Also, tell them to order PowerMail alone and not the more expensive bundle with SpamSieve.
In a nutshell, for $49 (or 49 Euros) you can have both PowerMail for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9. It might not be the best deal in the world, but I think it’s quite a reasonable offer. Sort of two programs at the price of one, legitimately obtained. PowerMail is really a good email client. Although it’s not my primary client, I really recommend it. I used it extensively in the past, and considered a migration from Apple Mail when I was using it under Mac OS X 10.4. Now it’s the main email client on two other Macs I own; I use it lightly but it never gave me a problem. If you’re not satisfied with your email client in Mac OS X, give it a try. If you need a still modern and reliable email client under Mac OS 9, you should definitely consider it.
Finally, a disclaimer: my endorsement of PowerMail is genuine and there isn’t any behind-the-scenes agreement between CTM Development and me. I contacted them with a proposal, and they were gracious enough to reply and make this counter-offer. That’s it. I do hope to send some customers their way, though, because they deserve it, in my opinion. They’ve been developing software for the Mac since 1985, and from what I’ve seen, they have great respect for the Mac community.
System Folder 