[GEM Development] gem-dev Digest, Vol 97, Issue 5

[Armand Colleye]

Hi Ben,

Seemingly I put some new life in this discussion group since my purchase of Adimens GT ;)

Thanks Ben for your lengthy reply.

Now the question arises, who is gonna update the list.

And I found also a new "MasterPiece".
See https://winworldpc.com/product/the-office-publisher/1x

The website states:
The Office Publisher is a powerful high-end, yet friendly, WYSIWYG desktop publishing program created by the large Canadian publishing company Print Three and sold under its spin-off, Laser Friendly. It was originally targeted at Print Three customers so they could create content on their own computers and then submit large publishing print jobs.

Unlike other publishing tools of the time it featured a form designer and a built in bitmap editor. It is built on top of the Digital Research GEM GUI environment, which enables it to automatically use any display, pointing, or printing device supported by GEM. It includes a GEM runtime so no additional software purchase is necessary.

It supports styles, forms, tables, libraries, long documents, built in help, word processor document import, and graphics image import.

So.....
A new item on the list (And happy downloading)!
B.T.W. You will find this software also on the website Vetusware.com.

Have fun
=Armand=


>  Hi Armand,
> 
> That’s interesting - I didn’t realise, or had apparently forgotten, that any of the SoftKey Key* series were GEM based.  A little while back I bought copies of GEM Draw and GEM Chart (as loose original disks) that arrived with backup copies of both those two DRI products and something labeled ‘Keychart’; the latter appears to be a SoftKey release (includes a SOFTKEY.EXE) but looks like a DOS application rather than GEM (all .EXE files, has its own drivers, etc.)  Unfortunately I couldn’t get a clean read of the disk so I can’t fire it up to see what it’s like!
> 
> Looking at Ken Mauro’s notes on known GEM applications c. 1999 (see http://www.deltasoft.com/gemnotes.htm for my HTMLified version), it appears that SoftKey also published a private-label version of Artline 2 as KeyDraw+ 2.  KeyPublisher 1.0 is listed as being a private-label edition of GST’s Publish-It 1.19 so it’ll be interesting to see if version 2.0 corresponds to version 2.x of that product too.
> 
> The same notes also mention the K-* series of programs, but as being from Kuma Software here in the UK; presumably not related to the SoftKey products.  It also includes a listing for the GEM Pascal product you’re looking for, along with GEM Fortran - again, I’d completely forgotten about these two, which are also relevant to Jeff’s question from Friday.  Would be very interesting if copies of these ever turned up; most PC GEM development would have been done outside the GEM environment.
> 
> A couple of other observations from things I’ve spotted lurking on eBay recently(ish):
> 
> - Psion released a PC (DOS) port of their Quill/Abacus/Archive/Easel suite of office products (originally for the Sinclair QL) as ‘PC-Four’; see https://sites.google.com/site/martin2reid/psion-organiser-ii/manuals/pc-four for details.  The GEM connection is the Easel charting program, which can be run either as a DOS application or under GEM - in which case it still looks like a DOS program, but it uses the GEM VDI (without AES) for better device/graphics support.  Thought this was a somewhat interesting approach!
> 
> - I’ve been on a bit of a buying spree lately (call it retail therapy) and now have original boxed copies of GEM WordChart, GEM Draw Plus and Artline 2 on my shelf.  There’s not much in there that wasn’t already available online, except for a few drivers that either aren’t on John’s list at http://www.seasip.info/Gem/Drivers/index.html or are there but not in the same version.  I’m working on digging myself out of a bit of an organisational hole at the moment but I’ll send a list of potentially-new files to the list once I’ve confirmed I’m not hallucinating.
> 
> Regards,
> Ben A L Jemmett
> http://flatpack.microwavepizza.co.uk/
> 
> > On 11 Jul 2023, at 21:31, Armand Colleye <armand.colleye at planet.nl> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> >  
> > Via eBay I just bought Key-Publisher (version 2.0).
> > There is another seller, for those who want to have this software. Round 11 US-dollars (ex. shipping). See https://www.ebay.de/itm/134504545461
> >  
> > As a good merchant makes eBay, has similar items which resembles my purchase.
> >  
> > Looking back on a mail conversation on this list, I refer to the message with the title "[GEM Development] GEM Apps" dated on Wed Jul 28 18:42:49 PDT 2004.
> > In that message there was software mentioned as
> > -K-Comm 2.0, 
> > -K-Word 2.0 
> > -K-Graph 2.0 
> > -K-Spread 2.0 
> > -K-Data 2.0 
> > -K-Minstrel 2.0 
> > -K-Spell 2.0
> >  
> > The BIG question is is it really spelled as e.g K-Word or is it Key Word Pro ? see also the link at eBay (https://www.ebay.de/itm/325548497210)
> >  
> > And the next BIG question is, is this list complete?
> > I am still looking for GEM Pascal 1.72
> >  
> > Have fun
> > =Armand=
> >  
> >  
> > _______________________________________________
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