Okay, so what's the oldest software that you still run on a regular basis...

Sonnar Brian

Sonnar Brian

Product of the Fifties
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I still use Wordstar to write all of my embedded software.

I bought the 7.0 upgrade, but did not like it. I use 6.0. Upgraded it 20 years ago. I think my $99 was well spent.

also discovered that Lightroom 3.3 pulls up Photoshop 7.0 and passes it 16-bit Tiff files transparently. Used it for this:



Works great!

I have not tried it with Photoshop 3.0. I still need that for an old DSLR.


The Photoshop 7.0 was a discard, disk, box, license. In fact, so was the Office 2000 suite that I'm running on this Laptop. Seems to work fine.
 
Photoshop Elements from 10-12 years ago, I haven't even cared to check which version it is. The important thing is, it gets the job done for me.
 
The oldest software I use? That would have to be "Write Away," which I still use on my Apple IIe.
 
Yes- the cherry trees are blooming in the neighborhood. Pretty time of year for walks after work.

Apple IIe.... WOW.

My Xerox 820-II still works, CP/m. I started with Wordstar 2."something", upgraded to 3.0 then 3.3, 4.0, 5.0, 5.5, stayed with 6.

On the 3.0 version: disassembled it and redid the keyboard mapping. Then Hex patched the Help files to reflect the changes. I loved Z80 assembly.
 
Does Unix count?

I suppose it's been upgraded a few times :)

I still use original vi quite regularly. Most of my editing is done in vim, though.
 
I still think Lotus 123 was the best spreadsheet ever. I actually still use it for simple personal spreadsheet stuff (on a really old IBM PC XT - original except for the 10 meg HD which died about 10 years ago) even though I have the latest version of Excel. The version I'm using is from 1984 or 1985.
 
Hi Brian -

Wordstar!?

I wrote my dissertation with that, longer ago than I care to remember - that plus dry-transfer for the symbols my printer couldn't make. It's actually a very good editor.

(But why are you writing code with that as opposed to a programming text editor?)

The oldest application I use is probably the vi text editor, which hasn't changed appreciably in thirty years or more (sounds like something you might use as well).

But even in my doddering old age, I really prefer TextMate on OS X. ;-)

All the best,

Randy
 
Well, if you use "Sideways-123" with Lotus 123 there is no real reason to change spreadsheet software.

What version is Multiplan at these days?

Wordstar has a Program editing mode that allows you to customize settings based on file extensions. Programs are all text-based, Wordstar is a great text editor. I customized it for ".asm", ".mac", ".mar", ".s" (MIPS Assembly), ".for", and even ".c". The modern IDE's pull the files up easily enough as they know when they were changed externally.
 
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I used Photoshop 3.0 for this one:

picture.php


Taken with my first DSLR.
 
The oldest mainstream software I use is PalmOS as of 1998. I use FotoTimer application for my darkroom needs regularly.

Incidentally the oldest software I wrote that still being used is also circa 1998. A JPEG baseline codec, which is a part of NIST electron microscopy and spectral imaging package, among others.
 
Sideways, Unix, Wordstar, vi, my goodness. I actually still have two books on using vi, but haven't used it in a while. I remember our computer club in Korea back in the mid-80s getting a demo on Wordstar from a lady who used it at her work. Needed a lot of Control/Alt/something, but then that was before wysiwyg.
 
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