5 ms·

Ask HN: Your favourite (oldschool) software?

16 points by froo 17y ago

Personally, mine used to be XTree gold for dos back in the day (it was the bees knees!) How about you?

johngalt 17y ago
This old sysop enjoyed Wildcat v4.0 BBS
RevRal 17y ago
I used to like working with MathCad, but I haven't needed it since ~1995.
noonespecial 17y ago
Laplink, baby! Copy that 200meg hard disk over your LPT port in just 40 hours!
MattF 17y ago
+1 for XTree Gold, I was stoked when I got my hands on that. Stacker was magic too.
joshu 17y ago
vi!
nfnaaron 17y ago
Gopher. Usenet (whatever client). Stacker. HP made some replacement desktop for Windows that I really liked, not New Wave. Tapcis addon for Compuserve.
protomyth 17y ago
PFE - I dearly miss that editor
revorad 17y ago
Not that old school but I miss Winamp.
- gdee 17y ago
  Why do you miss it? Older versions are surely available for download somewhere if the new ones annoy you, and even the new ones can be custom installed to filter most unneeded things.
  - revorad 17y ago
    I don't use Windows any more.
nathanb 17y ago
Definitely +1 for LapLink. Sure it required a null modem cable, but at least it beat sneakernet! QBASIC that came with DOS. The built-in context-sensitive help is how I taught myself how to "program". Also, Norton Commander and Norton Disk Doctor. In the bad old DOS days of no tab-complete and dodgy floppy disks, Peter Norton was a hero.
hga 17y ago
Stuff I'm still using: Windows Eudora (nothing I've found has the features from it that I really want). All the rest are from the '70s: UNIX and cygwin. Specific utilities I started using in 1978 include dd, du, dc, ed/ex (death before vi!), tar, ls and ps. EMACS, of course ^_^. Scheme. A bit later, command line FTP and dbx, the first unix debugger with source line correspondence (mid-80s, and it was a godsend). Stuff I've stopped using for whatever reason, although I might get back to it: nroff, Scribe and TeX (before LaTeX). ITS and it's COMSAT equivalent to sendmail. Multics. Lisp Machines. Chaosnet, with its named ports (not numeric). UUCP email. Lex and yacc ... as long as I can rope someone else into writing their inputs ^_^. Adventure, first generation Zork and Peter's Langston's 3D porthole spacewar and empire. Xtrek, the maze games on the graphics machines attached to MIT-DM and the Alto version. Rogue, rogueamatic (sp?) and nethack. The Artic Fox Amiga game.
bootload 17y ago
"... Your favourite (oldschool) software? ..." > You are in a twisty maze of passageways, all alike... Advent ~ http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/ http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/ The first bit of software I really used & liked. Still marveling at ths source code now ~ http://www.wurb.com/if/game/1 http://www.wurb.com/if/game/1
jacquesm 17y ago
The dos xcopy command. Command line globbing seems like a great idea until you find out the hard way that command lines have a maximum length.
smackfu 17y ago
My dad still uses DOS Quicken. At heart it's the same as the current program, just without all the bells and whistles. Plus it was a very mature DOS program: think his is version 11.
MaysonL 17y ago
Spacewar also - the eve editor on Vax/Vms
alanthonyc 17y ago
Anything by Beagle Bros.
peter_severin 17y ago
Norton Commander and its derivatives. DOS Navigator was very nice but slow. Then Windows/Total Commander later.

16 points by froo 17y ago

Personally, mine used to be XTree gold for dos back in the day (it was the bees knees!) How about you?

johngalt 17y ago

This old sysop enjoyed Wildcat v4.0 BBS

RevRal 17y ago

I used to like working with MathCad, but I haven't needed it since ~1995.

noonespecial 17y ago

Laplink, baby! Copy that 200meg hard disk over your LPT port in just 40 hours!

MattF 17y ago

+1 for XTree Gold, I was stoked when I got my hands on that. Stacker was magic too.

joshu 17y ago

vi!

nfnaaron 17y ago

Gopher. Usenet (whatever client). Stacker. HP made some replacement desktop for Windows that I really liked, not New Wave. Tapcis addon for Compuserve.

protomyth 17y ago

PFE - I dearly miss that editor

revorad 17y ago

Not that old school but I miss Winamp.

gdee 17y ago
Why do you miss it? Older versions are surely available for download somewhere if the new ones annoy you, and even the new ones can be custom installed to filter most unneeded things.
- revorad 17y ago
  I don't use Windows any more.

nathanb 17y ago

Definitely +1 for LapLink. Sure it required a null modem cable, but at least it beat sneakernet! QBASIC that came with DOS. The built-in context-sensitive help is how I taught myself how to "program". Also, Norton Commander and Norton Disk Doctor. In the bad old DOS days of no tab-complete and dodgy floppy disks, Peter Norton was a hero.

hga 17y ago

Stuff I'm still using: Windows Eudora (nothing I've found has the features from it that I really want). All the rest are from the '70s: UNIX and cygwin. Specific utilities I started using in 1978 include dd, du, dc, ed/ex (death before vi!), tar, ls and ps. EMACS, of course ^_^. Scheme. A bit later, command line FTP and dbx, the first unix debugger with source line correspondence (mid-80s, and it was a godsend). Stuff I've stopped using for whatever reason, although I might get back to it: nroff, Scribe and TeX (before LaTeX). ITS and it's COMSAT equivalent to sendmail. Multics. Lisp Machines. Chaosnet, with its named ports (not numeric). UUCP email. Lex and yacc ... as long as I can rope someone else into writing their inputs ^_^. Adventure, first generation Zork and Peter's Langston's 3D porthole spacewar and empire. Xtrek, the maze games on the graphics machines attached to MIT-DM and the Alto version. Rogue, rogueamatic (sp?) and nethack. The Artic Fox Amiga game.

bootload 17y ago

"... Your favourite (oldschool) software? ..." > You are in a twisty maze of passageways, all alike... Advent ~ http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/ http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/ The first bit of software I really used & liked. Still marveling at ths source code now ~ http://www.wurb.com/if/game/1 http://www.wurb.com/if/game/1

jacquesm 17y ago

The dos xcopy command. Command line globbing seems like a great idea until you find out the hard way that command lines have a maximum length.

smackfu 17y ago

My dad still uses DOS Quicken. At heart it's the same as the current program, just without all the bells and whistles. Plus it was a very mature DOS program: think his is version 11.

MaysonL 17y ago

Spacewar also - the eve editor on Vax/Vms

alanthonyc 17y ago

Anything by Beagle Bros.

peter_severin 17y ago

Norton Commander and its derivatives. DOS Navigator was very nice but slow. Then Windows/Total Commander later.