# Favorite old pieces of software (not games) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 2, 2021, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059 "2021-02-02T15:34:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/121 "2021-03-30T22:52:16Z")
I still depend on three programs that, with various updates, started in the 80s. The first is TeX. The basic program was created around 1980, revised in 1989 and has remained stable since. There are a zillion add-ons to make it easier to use and for special purposes, but the basic program has had only a handful of bug fixes. It is a markup program and produces camera ready copy that I have published three books from. And while the fine points might be hard, it is really not hard to learn. In 1984 I started using an editor called Kedit. It was upgraded to run under Windows during the 90s, but hasn’t changed since. For example, you install it by downloading it to a directory and running the .exe file. And I always run it from a command line (along with TeX). Which brings me to the command line replacement that started as 4DOS and is now called TakeCommand. It has been regularly revised and is really nothing like the original, so not really old software. ---
**Author:** ![moes\_lotion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@moes\_lotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moes_lotion)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/122 "2021-03-31T01:10:48Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > [POV-Ray](http://www.povray.org/). A CG rendering engine based on ray tracing. I used it to create a short animation of a Menger cube (before the Borg, I might add) appearing in the distance against a fake starry backdrop, ending up with a zoom into the center of the cube. All told, the total computation time was about 5 days. Good times… ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/123 "2021-03-31T02:12:04Z")
Nice! You must have had a screaming machine, though, if a whole _animation_ only took 5 days. One of the scenes I was most proud of at the time was a rendering of a diamond. The scene was simple enough, but I wanted realism. I rendered the scene several times while varying the light color and the index of refraction. One of the things that makes diamonds look the way they do is _dispersion_, which is the dependence of index of refraction on light frequency. It gives diamonds that sparkly color look. Took forever to render all the variations, but looked good in the end. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/124 "2021-03-31T02:42:09Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I have used all the Wordstar, Wordperfect, InDesign (I tried using Word but quickly gave up on it), but for DTP, like for generating long books or even basic articles, there is something to be said for the TeX/LaTeX/ConTeXt family, bringing high-quality typesetting capabilities to the masses since the early 1980s, in the public domain, no less. I wrote my entire PhD thesis using _vi_ and _troff_. > **[troff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troff)** > > troff (/ˈtiːrɒf/), short for "typesetter roff", is the major component of a document processing system developed by Bell Labs for the Unix operating system. troff and the related nroff were both developed from the original roff. > While nroff was intended to produce output on terminals and line printers, troff was intended to produce output on typesetting systems, specifically the Graphic Systems CAT that had been introduced in 1972. Both used the same underlying markup language and a single sourc... My first real word processor, however, was [Volkswriter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswriter). I loved that little program. And I’ll match obscurity to obscurity. A significant part of my early career depended on [JSPICE](https://ptolemy.berkeley.edu/projects/embedded/pubs/downloads/spice/jspice.html). ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/125 "2021-03-31T03:29:39Z")
> **[biff (Unix)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biff_(Unix))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > biff is a mail notification system for Unix. > When a new mail message is delivered, the program biff alerts the recipient so they can read it immediately. The alert is sent to the tty where the recipient is logged in, and contains the Subject, From line, and first few lines of the body of the new message. The alert also includes terminal beeps to guarantee quick attention. > Notification is enabled by the command And later, xbiff. It was a simpler time. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2021, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/126 "2021-04-01T19:40:19Z")
Printshop. Another great relic from DOS. I’ve never found a simpler program to create signs,letter head, banners, posters, greeting cards etc. It was actually a program your grandmother could use and enjoy. Ms Publisher can do the same type printing but it’s much more difficult to learn. Remember the bright yellow box? [![](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fe/c3/e1/fec3e1d4fc965429841d1506c3802997.jpg) ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fe/c3/e1/fec3e1d4fc965429841d1506c3802997.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2021, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/127 "2021-04-01T19:58:21Z")
A modern version of PrintShop is [still around](http://www.printshop.com/). But there are good open source programs today like [Scribus](https://www.scribus.net/). ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2021, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/128 "2021-04-01T20:18:30Z")
I still use Eudora as my local mail client for my business. I use Gmail for my personal email and Outlook online for city council mail, but I’ve never found anything as good as Eudora’s interface for a mail client. When I went to college in 1997 they gave us 3.5" discs with Eudora.exe on it, and we carried it around with our email and settings on it. If you wanted to check your mail at school you’d go to the computer lab (nobody really had laptops) and pop in your disc and check your mail, downloading it to your disc. It’s really getting shitty about running, or rather, displaying emails properly. But it still performs the basic functions of email…without needing a browser, and without opening multiple windows. And yes I do have all my email since 1997. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/129 "2021-04-02T01:56:06Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > I’m kind of surprised no one has mentioned Quark Xpress. That was a good program. I made my living for about 10 years using it. Quark might still be the top of the design heap. If only they had cared about their customers. We used it, our clients used it, I taught it, and (long story) I got to see how poorly they treated their users. I still remember an Adobe conference we all went to, and a guy giving a side lecture said Adobe was working on “a little something we call our Quark Killer”. Spontaneous standing ovation! … But way before that, MacPaint was an early drawing program for the first Macs… it had a vector layer AND a raster (bitmap) layer. Like Photoshop and Illustrator on top of each other… but really basic. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/130 "2021-04-02T05:20:08Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I still use Eudora as my local mail client for my business. I use Gmail for my personal email and Outlook online for city council mail, but I’ve never found anything as good as Eudora’s interface for a mail client. I remember Eudora’s fantastic “redirect” feature, which AFAIK no other email client had, or has. I miss that. ---
**Author:** ![blabbermeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@blabbermeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blabbermeister)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/131 "2021-04-02T13:34:49Z")
I loved Print Shop. In one of the fonts each letter had a cute decorative triangle behind it. Never saw a font like that again. I think it was called “Marin” ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/132 "2021-04-02T19:06:46Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > I use a version of Thumbs Plus from 1998. It lets me batch process, crop, and resize images really quickly and works on BMP/PNG/JPG/GIF so it does everything I need. Another vote for Thumbs Plus. Best image organizer app I’ve used, and I’ve used a few. [They still sell it](http://www.cerious.com/) ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/133 "2021-04-02T21:48:31Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > > [@ZipperJJ](#): > > > > I still use Eudora as my local mail client for my business. I use Gmail for my personal email and Outlook online for city council mail, but I’ve never found anything as good as Eudora’s interface for a mail client. > > I remember Eudora’s fantastic “redirect” feature, which AFAIK no other email client had, or has. I miss that. I have never been tempted to use Eudora, so cannot say anything good or bad about it, but doesn’t “mutt” do exactly what you want by default? It is also possible to edit the headers to say anything you want. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/134 "2021-04-02T23:41:45Z")
Like a few others have mentioned upthread, I too miss WordPerfect, and the Reveal Codes function. I was in the Canadian military and we were first using WP in the early 90s. At the same time I was looking for a PC for home use and, at the time, PCs in the stores were loaded with MS Word which, at the time, seemed like a “toy” word-processing app. When I looked at Word I felt like I was looking at a Fisher-Price word processor. In the late '90s the Cdn govt selected MS Office and I was personally really surprised and disappointed. Anyway, decades later I am very comfortable with Word but damn I wish that it had an effective reveal codes function. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/135 "2021-04-02T23:58:37Z")
I’m still doing most of my statistical work with [S-plus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-PLUS) a commercial product that has been replaced by its open source doppelganger R. However Splus has an great GUI that makes it easy to plot, manipulate and explore your data. Licenses are still offered by the company but it hasn’t been updated since 2010, and is no longer offically supported. Still for now it seems to work so I am still using it. I dread the day that Windows updates to the point that it no longer works, as I have about 20 years worth of work that I will have to figure out how to transfer over to R. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/136 "2021-04-03T00:40:21Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > My nominee (which nobody else may have heard of) would be [Plug-In for Windows](https://www.pcquest.com/plug-in-windows-26), a personalization/customization tool for Windows 3.1/3.11. What I appreciated most was something the linked article doesn’t mention: the ability to nest folders on the pre-95 desktop. Since at one time I supported eight different applications, each with its own sheaf of development tools and options (ah, the good old days before .Net), this was an Ogsend when it came to keeping my desktop from being overwhelmed. > > 'Course, it helps that I’m a Neanderthal who persists in thinking hierarchically … Ooh. I forgot about that program. Not only did it let you nest groups, but it would make it where you could open them up as a menu on the desktop, so you didn’t have to mess with Program Manager at all. I remember actually taking an image of the Windows 95 taskbar, making my own wallpaper in Paintbrush to go with it, and putting the little tine Plugin icon where the Windows logo would be, so I could pretend I had upgraded. It was great along with Win32s, which let me actually open some 32-bit programs. It also was the first time I had a computer where the time was always visible. It would let you put the time in the titlebar, which is what I did. I can’t remember what I put on the other side, though. (Windows 3.1 titles were centered, so you could put two different “plugins”, one on each side). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2021, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/137 "2021-04-04T13:36:52Z")
Appleworks was excellent integrated software for the casual used. Its database was great for keeping track of story submissions. There’s no doubt Access is better overall, but more people would use databases if something like Appleworks was available. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2021, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/138 "2021-04-04T16:51:22Z")
Netscape Navigator. There was something calming and at the same time optimistically uplifting about that old ship steering wheel logo. I’d still be using this browser today if it were still available. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2021, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059/139 "2021-04-05T13:16:13Z")
I’m surprised that no one mentioned [Kai’s Power Goo](https://www.neverdiemedia.com/products/kais-power-goo) They called it silly putty for photos. Distort facial features and make interesting results. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-old-pieces-of-software-not-games/932059.md?page=6)