CFOG's PIP, April 1990, Volume 9 No. 2, Whole No. 74, page 15
A Little History from InfoWorld
by Benjamin H. Cohen
I recently decided, reluctantly, that some of the old computer magazines just had to go. I put some notices up on the Antelope Freeway RCPM and CBBS. Someone responded that he wanted the issues of InfoWorld with CP/M items of interest, and off they went. That included three "Report Card" issues that were issued by the magazine back in 1982-83 which contained copies of reviews published during the year and many of the "slick magazine" issues of InfoWorld, 10-31-83 through 8-26-85. By 1985 any CP/M references were few and far between. I copied a number of articles, which are listed below, and sent the copies of the magazines off. [The balance of the "old" InfoWorld issues, almost complete through December 1986, have been discarded: for reasons which may be apparent from reading the article "Law Office Technology Review" in this issue I am keeping the more recent ones for reference.]
In the list the name of a piece of software or hardware without more indicates a review. Except for the first five items the listings are alphabetical by product name.
The date is in YYMMDD order, except that YY--RC refers to one of the report card issues for the year question. The collection of articles and reviews gives a small glimpse at the history of CP/M at the height of its popularity. Some of the names are unfamiliar, and that's as it should be. Does anyone who didn't actually have one remember the Epic Episode or Pied Piper? At any rate, I have put these together in a little binder, as a nostalgic reminder of the way things used to be.
Just reading over the list will no doubt have an effect on many of our members, not necessarily the same to all!
840611 CP/M Eludes home Market 831107 Lee Felsenstein: Populist Engineer 840514 Seymour Rubenstein, Q&A 840514 Software for Defunct Machines 840409 Actrix ?????? Assistant CPe 82--RC Badlim 82--RC Cardbox 82--RC Computer Chef 840611 CP/M Gold Card 831205 CP/M 2.2 from Montezuma 82--RC CP/M 86 82--RC Electric Webster 83--RC Epic Episode 841126 Epson PX-8 Geneva 83--RC Epson QX-10 83--RC Formula, The 83--RC Fortran 80 83--RC HP-125 83--RC IBM PC 83--RC MicroGANTT 831226 [JRT Systems] files bankruptcy 841008 KAMAS 831226 Kaypro confident 83--RC Kaypro II 841112 Kaypro 2X 831031 Kaypro 10 83--RC Manual Maker 831226 Morrow unveils portable 83--RC Multiplan (IBM) 840319 NEC PC-8201 83--RC North Star Advantage 841126 [Osborne] Vixen Maker Goes Public 841112 Osborne Shows New Computer 840709 Why Osborne Wrote the Book 83--RC Otrona Attache 83--RC Personal Pearl 83--RC Pied Piper 83--RC Planner Calc 831205 Prolog adapted for Z80s 83--RC Select WP 2.01 83--RC SuperCalc2 83--RC T-Maker III 840430 Televideo TPC-1 840130 Transtar 130S 83--RC TRS-80 Model 12 83--RC VEDIT 841119 New WordStar on the way 831207 Zenith Z-100 83--RC Zorba
If you'd like to take a look at this exercise in nostalgica, let me know and I'll bring it along to a meeting.
CFOG's PIP, April 1990, Volume 9 No. 2, Whole No. 74, page 15
Tea Leaves are Right. WordStar 6 is Here!
If you want to accuse the Editor of having a dirty crystal ball, go ahead, but I think that my prediction of WordStar 6's release in January was close enough: the announcement was in the March 15 issue of InfoWorld which arrived on March 8th. I couldn't glean much from the article -- which seemed more concerned about WordStar's competitive position than about telling what's new. A first impression report on MicroBytes indicates that the two biggest new items are scalable fonts (from the invisible 0.25 points to the bigger-than-a-page 999.75 points) and LaserJet III. There are improvements in the page preview, which if I remember correctly, now works on landscape format pages as well. I believe the built-in graphics editor is a new feature, too. WS6 is $89 plus shipping.