16 ms·

For Inventor of Eudora, Great Fame, No Fortune (1997)

79 points by percept 11y ago

fensterblick 11y ago
Thanks, Steve Dorner. I liked Eudora a lot. And now I always remember what happens when you chop off a branch while sitting on it (a question on Eudora's help menu).
hendekagon 11y ago
Loved Eudora back in the day
beefman 11y ago
I've been using Eudora since 1995. Lack of UTF-8 support is causing problems now... I'll be moving to another client soon. Recommendations more than welcome!
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  Depends on what you want. If you want a graphical client, try Thunderbird or Evolution, depending on if you need Windows support. If you want a powerful client for processing a large volume of mail, and you don't mind needing separate tools to handle HTML mail, then try mutt.
- veidr 11y ago
  I think the spiritual successor to Eudora is MailMate. Barebones functional UI, tons of features (many hidden or needing some end user work to expose or make use of). http://freron.com http://freron.com
- toast0 11y ago
  If you're running Windows, try Pegasus Mail[1], it's a contemporary of Eudora, but is still maintained, and supports UTF-8. Releases are pretty infrequent of late, but email is still email, so things still work. :) [1] http://www.pmail.com/ http://www.pmail.com/
  - keithpeter 11y ago
    I actually bought a copy of that years ago, or rather paid for a manual which was the way you supported the author in those pre-Millennial days. I tend to use sylpheed on Linux at home now when I need an off-line client.
  - craigching 11y ago
    Wow, pegasus mail! Thanks for bringing back the memories, I loved PM back in the day!
- wvenable 11y ago
  I was a long time Eudora user -- I moved to Thunderbird a long time ago and I'm still using it. There aren't really many reasonable desktop mail clients anymore.
- blue1 11y ago
  I still love and use Seamonkey. It's a mozilla-based product that is the modern heir of the old Netscape Communication Suite. You get a browser that is based on the latest Firefox but not dumbed down as Firefox is, an email client very similar to Thunderbird, an IRC client etc., all in a single package.
- lassejansen 11y ago
  [Disclosure: I'm a co-founder] If you're open to new approaches to email you should try Unibox. It's an email client for Mac (and soon iOS) that lets you browse through your emails by person, so you always have all messages and all attachments with a person in one place. https://www.uniboxapp.com https://www.uniboxapp.com
- hugodahl 11y ago
  I was in the same boat until I moved go Google apps for domains, and imported my Eudora content. My mother is in the same boat right now, and looking for suggestions. UTF-8 and prevalence of HTML content are making it nearly impossible to keep using in this day and age. Best features (not killer but very nice) are/were the storage format, and saving attachments externally, and not "in line" with the message.
  - kps 11y ago
    Key features for me are filtering and multiple windows — it can sort all my email, and open mailbox or message windows for things I consider important. Local storage in an accessible format (Eudora uses mbox) is table stakes; roach motels need not apply. I'm still running OS X 10.6 largely because of Eudora, but some day this machine will fail, or I'll have some compelling need to ‘upgrade’, and by then I'd like to have a better option than Eudora in a VM.
- SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
  I sometimes think I'm one of the few people happily using Mozilla Thunderbird. It hardly ever seems to come up in these recommendations and when it does, it's usually accompanied by plenty of criticism about it not being updated regularly enough. But I'm happy using it for 5 email accounts and the ability to copy the entire profile folder to a new PC (or even use it directly from a USB stick if you're that way inclined) has been really handy for me in the past. The same profile folder can even be shared between 2 different OS's!
mariuolo 11y ago
Alas it happens all the time. See Gary Kildall (MS-DOS originated from from his CP/M but he never saw a dime of royalty) and Phil Katz (PKZIP, note how the Zip file format uses "PK" as magic number). I've always wondered if the bitterness of having lost their big occasion caused them to die prematurely, the former in a biker bar brawl and the latter of alcoholism at the age of 37.
- TwoBit 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure Phil Katz was rich from pkzip.
- computator 11y ago
  > Alas it happens all the time. In the field of computing, I think the greatest contribution to the world vs least fame & fortune goes to the inventor of the World Wide Web. It's sad that outside of the computing world, Tim Berners-Lee is unknown. Asking your dentist, aunt, or barber about who they think invented the web leads to some amusing replies. I've actually done this and after telling them about Berners-Lee, I found the following themes to be common: (1) Incredulousness that it was one person. People either think it had to be a big company or that it somehow "evolved" into existence (you know, the way television or photography just kind of happened without any particular persons being involved /irony). (2) Belief that he chose to not accept the money. That is, he could have made a fortune if he wanted to, but for unspecified reasons he didn't want the money. I've tried to explain that the web wouldn't have succeeded if he tried to charge for it (even assuming that CERN let him charge for it), but there's a popular belief that great work always gets rewarded unless one explicitly opts out of the reward. AN ASIDE: I think that in all human endeavor, the record for greatest contribution to the world vs least fame & fortune, where the inventor is truly known, should go to Cai Lun (also spelt Ts'ai Lun), the inventor of paper. He's a real person and historically well-documented as the actual inventor of paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cai_Lun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cai_Lun
  - alayne 11y ago
    Tim has received many, many honors. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awards_and_honours_presented_to_Tim_Berners-Lee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awards_and_honours_presented_t... There was a large amount of right place/right time to what he did. It wouldn't have been possible without the Internet infrastructure. He didn't invent networking or hypertext.
porsupah 11y ago
Alas! I used Eudora well into the OS X days, by which time it was abundantly clear there would be no further development thereon. I still rather miss it - I loved the way I could open a new window, and have it be completely ready absolutely immediately, rather than first having to consult a lengthy database. Around 2002 or so, I finally conceded, and went with OS X's own Mail. Not nearly the same, but - adequate, and viable for the future. I was also touched to see mention of CUSeeMe. Ah, how we all nearly avoided Skype!
fspeech 11y ago
This article was written in 1997. In 1999 Qualcomm stock went up 26 times (2600%). If he were still at Qualcomm (Edit: Wikipedia reports that he was with Qualcomm till at least 2006)... Back then companies were still generous with options and principal engineer at Qualcomm was quite senior.
- porsupah 11y ago
  And quite bloated! A friend was with them in 1997, and left, simply out of having to spend more than half their time - literally - in meetings. The money was absolutely not a problem, nor the projects - they simply couldn't spend their time programming.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- jlarocco 11y ago
  That's a little misleading. Every tech stock in the world sky rocketed in 1999, and then they all tanked. Qualcomm topped out at $88 a share in 1999, and was under $14 in 2002. Still up 3.8x, but nowhere near 26. It's increased since then, but even right now it's only $48.
  - lallysingh 11y ago
    You don't have to wait until retirement to sell shares.
    - jlarocco 11y ago
      Obviously. People also don't typically sell shares right at the top of a bubble, either. Look at the graph on Yahoo. The shares were $88 for like a day. Very unlikely he made 26x.
nodesocket 11y ago
Kudos to Eudora. Brings back memories. I am 33 years old, but it seems like eons ago. Anybody else remember: Kai's Power Tools (smear and smudge images) Hotline Communications (Warez) Real Player (Arrggg so much nerd rage) Claris Home Page (remember DHTML) ICQ (the original Slack) Winamp (awesome media player) 3dMark (graphic card benchmark)
- joering2 11y ago
  Remember? I never found or needed to find a better mp3 player than Winamp. Simple, lighweight, all needed features, nothing more. Version 5.6 still running on my system.
- roel_v 11y ago
  I use winamp every day. I have yet to find something better.
- jeswin 11y ago
  These. And Kai's Super Goo. :)
- icebraining 11y ago
  3DMark is still around, it's even available on Android and iOS.
- SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
  I'd add Napster to that list too. Pretty revolutionary for all the wrong reasons! Paint Shop Pro and WinRAR as well. :)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- fit2rule 11y ago
  .. Caligari Truespace .. Animation:Master .. electroGig3DGO
narrator 11y ago
He did just fine: http://blog.fawny.org/2015/07/04/stevedorner/ http://blog.fawny.org/2015/07/04/stevedorner/ "Qualcomm Contrary to rumour, Qualcomm, which had bought Eudora early on from the University of Illinois, had always treated him well, he says. (“I am very happy to correct that impression. I was not shafted by Qualcomm. Qualcomm did very well by me.” And actually, Steve worked for that company for over 20 years.) He doesn’t have to work anymore – “and that is a blessing – it’s a blessing, it really is. It’s nice not to have that pressure. On the other hand, I’ve been retired now for little more than a year, and I do look around and question why I’m not being productive.”"
JudS 11y ago
"Waste cycles drawing trendy 3D junk" Always wondered if that was indirectly aimed at me....
- kps 11y ago
  “Help stamp out flying e's” And of course <x-eudora-setting:319=32>
tomhoward 11y ago
My first job in tech was on an ISP helpdesk starting in 1999. The most common setup for our customers was: Windows 98 or 95, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. It became unofficial but conventional practice for most of the staff, that after you'd spent enough time trying to help a customer get Outlook Express working without success, to recommend they install Eudora. It wasn't pretty, but it just worked. Eudora was a perfect example of a product that did one thing but did it right. Whilst Microsoft was building Windows, IE and OE to be deeply integrated with one-another, Eudora just sat there minding its own business, doing a really great job of handling your mail. I still think about this now when building products. It's so often tempting to think the answer to your product problem is to add more features or integrate it with some other app or system. But I always have Eudora as a reminder of the value of doing just one thing but doing it really well.
- percept 11y ago
  Woz liked it, too: “Wozniak was a Eudora user for the longest time,” Steve says. People gave Wozniak shit for it. He used Eudora, Steve says Woz replied, “because I can put anything on the damn toolbar.” Eudora could put any menu item with any modifier combination into a toolbar button. Now nothing else can or will. The message from today’s software, Steve says, is “You do that a lot? Too darned bad. Not gonna go on the toolbar.”
  - kps 11y ago
    ‘Anything’ included scripts. I used this heavily when I was moderating mailing lists — F5 Accept, F6 Reject.
bane 11y ago
I used to work for an ISP back when anybody could start one. We shipped new customers a single 3.5" 1.44MB floppy with some shareware to get them started: a dialer program, a browser and Eudora on it...one floppy.
superplussed 11y ago
I loved the quote by the founder of CU-SeeMe, good to see they are still around (chuckle): http://www.wpine.com/ http://www.wpine.com/
hatmatrix 11y ago
I started using Eudora when I first got to college. It was my way of keeping in touch with my old friends who I moved far away from. I can still remember the .wav file that played when I got mail (and spam was not as common those days so it was always happy mail).

79 points by percept 11y ago

Thanks, Steve Dorner. I liked Eudora a lot. And now I always remember what happens when you chop off a branch while sitting on it (a question on Eudora's help menu).

hendekagon 11y ago

Loved Eudora back in the day

beefman 11y ago

I've been using Eudora since 1995. Lack of UTF-8 support is causing problems now... I'll be moving to another client soon. Recommendations more than welcome!

JoshTriplett 11y ago
Depends on what you want. If you want a graphical client, try Thunderbird or Evolution, depending on if you need Windows support. If you want a powerful client for processing a large volume of mail, and you don't mind needing separate tools to handle HTML mail, then try mutt.
veidr 11y ago
I think the spiritual successor to Eudora is MailMate. Barebones functional UI, tons of features (many hidden or needing some end user work to expose or make use of). http://freron.com http://freron.com
toast0 11y ago
If you're running Windows, try Pegasus Mail[1], it's a contemporary of Eudora, but is still maintained, and supports UTF-8. Releases are pretty infrequent of late, but email is still email, so things still work. :) [1] http://www.pmail.com/ http://www.pmail.com/
- keithpeter 11y ago
  I actually bought a copy of that years ago, or rather paid for a manual which was the way you supported the author in those pre-Millennial days. I tend to use sylpheed on Linux at home now when I need an off-line client.
- craigching 11y ago
  Wow, pegasus mail! Thanks for bringing back the memories, I loved PM back in the day!
wvenable 11y ago
I was a long time Eudora user -- I moved to Thunderbird a long time ago and I'm still using it. There aren't really many reasonable desktop mail clients anymore.
blue1 11y ago
I still love and use Seamonkey. It's a mozilla-based product that is the modern heir of the old Netscape Communication Suite. You get a browser that is based on the latest Firefox but not dumbed down as Firefox is, an email client very similar to Thunderbird, an IRC client etc., all in a single package.
lassejansen 11y ago
[Disclosure: I'm a co-founder] If you're open to new approaches to email you should try Unibox. It's an email client for Mac (and soon iOS) that lets you browse through your emails by person, so you always have all messages and all attachments with a person in one place. https://www.uniboxapp.com https://www.uniboxapp.com
hugodahl 11y ago
I was in the same boat until I moved go Google apps for domains, and imported my Eudora content. My mother is in the same boat right now, and looking for suggestions. UTF-8 and prevalence of HTML content are making it nearly impossible to keep using in this day and age. Best features (not killer but very nice) are/were the storage format, and saving attachments externally, and not "in line" with the message.
- kps 11y ago
  Key features for me are filtering and multiple windows — it can sort all my email, and open mailbox or message windows for things I consider important. Local storage in an accessible format (Eudora uses mbox) is table stakes; roach motels need not apply. I'm still running OS X 10.6 largely because of Eudora, but some day this machine will fail, or I'll have some compelling need to ‘upgrade’, and by then I'd like to have a better option than Eudora in a VM.
SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
I sometimes think I'm one of the few people happily using Mozilla Thunderbird. It hardly ever seems to come up in these recommendations and when it does, it's usually accompanied by plenty of criticism about it not being updated regularly enough. But I'm happy using it for 5 email accounts and the ability to copy the entire profile folder to a new PC (or even use it directly from a USB stick if you're that way inclined) has been really handy for me in the past. The same profile folder can even be shared between 2 different OS's!

mariuolo 11y ago

Alas it happens all the time. See Gary Kildall (MS-DOS originated from from his CP/M but he never saw a dime of royalty) and Phil Katz (PKZIP, note how the Zip file format uses "PK" as magic number). I've always wondered if the bitterness of having lost their big occasion caused them to die prematurely, the former in a biker bar brawl and the latter of alcoholism at the age of 37.

TwoBit 11y ago
I'm pretty sure Phil Katz was rich from pkzip.
computator 11y ago
> Alas it happens all the time. In the field of computing, I think the greatest contribution to the world vs least fame & fortune goes to the inventor of the World Wide Web. It's sad that outside of the computing world, Tim Berners-Lee is unknown. Asking your dentist, aunt, or barber about who they think invented the web leads to some amusing replies. I've actually done this and after telling them about Berners-Lee, I found the following themes to be common: (1) Incredulousness that it was one person. People either think it had to be a big company or that it somehow "evolved" into existence (you know, the way television or photography just kind of happened without any particular persons being involved /irony). (2) Belief that he chose to not accept the money. That is, he could have made a fortune if he wanted to, but for unspecified reasons he didn't want the money. I've tried to explain that the web wouldn't have succeeded if he tried to charge for it (even assuming that CERN let him charge for it), but there's a popular belief that great work always gets rewarded unless one explicitly opts out of the reward. AN ASIDE: I think that in all human endeavor, the record for greatest contribution to the world vs least fame & fortune, where the inventor is truly known, should go to Cai Lun (also spelt Ts'ai Lun), the inventor of paper. He's a real person and historically well-documented as the actual inventor of paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cai_Lun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cai_Lun
- alayne 11y ago
  Tim has received many, many honors. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awards_and_honours_presented_to_Tim_Berners-Lee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awards_and_honours_presented_t... There was a large amount of right place/right time to what he did. It wouldn't have been possible without the Internet infrastructure. He didn't invent networking or hypertext.

porsupah 11y ago

Alas! I used Eudora well into the OS X days, by which time it was abundantly clear there would be no further development thereon. I still rather miss it - I loved the way I could open a new window, and have it be completely ready absolutely immediately, rather than first having to consult a lengthy database. Around 2002 or so, I finally conceded, and went with OS X's own Mail. Not nearly the same, but - adequate, and viable for the future. I was also touched to see mention of CUSeeMe. Ah, how we all nearly avoided Skype!

fspeech 11y ago

This article was written in 1997. In 1999 Qualcomm stock went up 26 times (2600%). If he were still at Qualcomm (Edit: Wikipedia reports that he was with Qualcomm till at least 2006)... Back then companies were still generous with options and principal engineer at Qualcomm was quite senior.

porsupah 11y ago
And quite bloated! A friend was with them in 1997, and left, simply out of having to spend more than half their time - literally - in meetings. The money was absolutely not a problem, nor the projects - they simply couldn't spend their time programming.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
jlarocco 11y ago
That's a little misleading. Every tech stock in the world sky rocketed in 1999, and then they all tanked. Qualcomm topped out at $88 a share in 1999, and was under $14 in 2002. Still up 3.8x, but nowhere near 26. It's increased since then, but even right now it's only $48.
- lallysingh 11y ago
  You don't have to wait until retirement to sell shares.
  - jlarocco 11y ago
    Obviously. People also don't typically sell shares right at the top of a bubble, either. Look at the graph on Yahoo. The shares were $88 for like a day. Very unlikely he made 26x.

nodesocket 11y ago

Kudos to Eudora. Brings back memories. I am 33 years old, but it seems like eons ago. Anybody else remember: Kai's Power Tools (smear and smudge images) Hotline Communications (Warez) Real Player (Arrggg so much nerd rage) Claris Home Page (remember DHTML) ICQ (the original Slack) Winamp (awesome media player) 3dMark (graphic card benchmark)

joering2 11y ago
Remember? I never found or needed to find a better mp3 player than Winamp. Simple, lighweight, all needed features, nothing more. Version 5.6 still running on my system.
roel_v 11y ago
I use winamp every day. I have yet to find something better.
jeswin 11y ago
These. And Kai's Super Goo. :)
icebraining 11y ago
3DMark is still around, it's even available on Android and iOS.
SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
I'd add Napster to that list too. Pretty revolutionary for all the wrong reasons! Paint Shop Pro and WinRAR as well. :)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
fit2rule 11y ago
.. Caligari Truespace .. Animation:Master .. electroGig3DGO

narrator 11y ago

He did just fine: http://blog.fawny.org/2015/07/04/stevedorner/ http://blog.fawny.org/2015/07/04/stevedorner/ "Qualcomm Contrary to rumour, Qualcomm, which had bought Eudora early on from the University of Illinois, had always treated him well, he says. (“I am very happy to correct that impression. I was not shafted by Qualcomm. Qualcomm did very well by me.” And actually, Steve worked for that company for over 20 years.) He doesn’t have to work anymore – “and that is a blessing – it’s a blessing, it really is. It’s nice not to have that pressure. On the other hand, I’ve been retired now for little more than a year, and I do look around and question why I’m not being productive.”"

JudS 11y ago

"Waste cycles drawing trendy 3D junk" Always wondered if that was indirectly aimed at me....

kps 11y ago
“Help stamp out flying e's” And of course <x-eudora-setting:319=32>

tomhoward 11y ago

My first job in tech was on an ISP helpdesk starting in 1999. The most common setup for our customers was: Windows 98 or 95, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. It became unofficial but conventional practice for most of the staff, that after you'd spent enough time trying to help a customer get Outlook Express working without success, to recommend they install Eudora. It wasn't pretty, but it just worked. Eudora was a perfect example of a product that did one thing but did it right. Whilst Microsoft was building Windows, IE and OE to be deeply integrated with one-another, Eudora just sat there minding its own business, doing a really great job of handling your mail. I still think about this now when building products. It's so often tempting to think the answer to your product problem is to add more features or integrate it with some other app or system. But I always have Eudora as a reminder of the value of doing just one thing but doing it really well.

percept 11y ago
Woz liked it, too: “Wozniak was a Eudora user for the longest time,” Steve says. People gave Wozniak shit for it. He used Eudora, Steve says Woz replied, “because I can put anything on the damn toolbar.” Eudora could put any menu item with any modifier combination into a toolbar button. Now nothing else can or will. The message from today’s software, Steve says, is “You do that a lot? Too darned bad. Not gonna go on the toolbar.”
- kps 11y ago
  ‘Anything’ included scripts. I used this heavily when I was moderating mailing lists — F5 Accept, F6 Reject.

bane 11y ago

I used to work for an ISP back when anybody could start one. We shipped new customers a single 3.5" 1.44MB floppy with some shareware to get them started: a dialer program, a browser and Eudora on it...one floppy.

superplussed 11y ago

I loved the quote by the founder of CU-SeeMe, good to see they are still around (chuckle): http://www.wpine.com/ http://www.wpine.com/

hatmatrix 11y ago

I started using Eudora when I first got to college. It was my way of keeping in touch with my old friends who I moved far away from. I can still remember the .wav file that played when I got mail (and spam was not as common those days so it was always happy mail).