TSR

XyWrite II

XyQuest, 1983 · IBM PC · word processor

The editor newsrooms refused to give up. There are no menus: you press F5, type a command on the CM line, and press RETURN. Formatting is stored in the file itself, in guillemets, where you can see it. Ours has the three-line header, nine windows, define-and-move blocks, search and change, a virtual C:\XY\ disk, and a typesetting pass that pages the document with running heads.

CM
PRMPT F5 = CM line    F1 = help              Ln 1  Col 1  W1 I
‖····▶···1▶····▶···2▶····▶···3▶····▶···4▶····▶···5▶····‖
«FC»«MDBO»INTERNAL MEMORANDUM«MDNM»◄
«FL»TO:     All editorial staff◄

Lotus 1-2-3

Lotus Development, 1983 · IBM PC · spreadsheet

The program that sold the PC. Press / and the menu appears on the second line of the control panel, with the next level of choices explained on the third — you learn it as a sequence of letters and stop reading the screen. Ours has the formula engine (@SUM, @PMT, @VLOOKUP, @IF, ranges, absolute references), cell formats, copy and move that adjust references, insert and delete that rewrite formulas, /Data Sort, /File to a virtual C:\123 disk, and character-mode graphs.

A1: [W18] 'ACME WIDGET CO.  1983 OPERATING BUDGET   READY
      A             B        C        D        E        F  
  3 Region            Qtr 1    Qtr 2    Qtr 3    Qtr 4     Year
  4 North            12,500   13,100   14,250   15,900  $55,750
  9 Total            44,800   46,450   51,000   55,850 $198,100

WordPerfect 5.1

WordPerfect Corp., 1989 · IBM PC · word processor

White on blue, and nothing else: no menu bar, no ruler, no toolbar — just the document and fifty function-key combinations you learned from a card laid over the keyboard. Underneath sits Reveal Codes, the second window that shows every [BOLD], [HRt] and [Tab] in the file, which is why people trusted it. Ours has the codes window, blocks, bold and underline as paired codes, indent, centre and flush right, search and replace, the Format and Print menus, View Document, List Files, and the four-colour keyboard template — clickable.

              WESTFIELD & PARTNERS
                   Solicitors
Dear Mrs Ellery,
[Center][BOLD]WESTFIELD & PARTNERS[bold][HRt]
C:\WP51\LETTER.WP        Doc 1 Pg 1 Ln 1"  Pos 3.2"

QBasic 1.1

Microsoft, 1991 · MS-DOS 5.0 · programming environment

Free on every school PC, and the first place a lot of people typed something that ran. The blue editor is here with its menus, its Immediate window and its habit of shouting your keywords back at you in capitals — and behind it a real interpreter: FOR/NEXT, DO/LOOP, SELECT CASE, arrays, DATA/READ, SUB and FUNCTION, INKEY$ and TIMER. Press F5 and it runs on its own screen. On the disk: NIBBLES.BAS, WUMPUS.BAS and MANDEL.BAS.

  File  Edit  View  Search  Run  Debug  Options    Help  
┌────────── NIBBLES.BAS ──────────────────┐
│ DO                                                │
│ k$ = INKEY$                                       │
│ IF k$ = CHR$(0) + "H" AND dy = 0 THEN dy = -1     │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

MS-DOS 6.22

Microsoft, 1994 · the last one before Windows swallowed it

The C:\> prompt itself, EDIT’s blue screen, DOSSHELL, and the commands everyone typed without thinking. The floor the rest of this showcase stands on.

Procomm Plus & a BBS

Datastorm Technologies, 1989 · and whoever ran your local board

ATDT, the handshake, and an ANSI login screen drawn by a teenager two suburbs away. Message bases, file areas at 2400 baud, and a door game you played once a day because that was your turn.