3 ms·

I've earned a decent living doing DTP on Ataris (1040STFM first, TT030 later) all the way through 1995 or so. Back then there were some DTP/graphics software th

by Fins 8y ago

I've earned a decent living doing DTP on Ataris (1040STFM first, TT030 later) all the way through 1995 or so. Back then there were some DTP/graphics software that was miles ahead of anything available on Mac,let alone PC back then. I haven't really followed that field closely since then, but it seems some of the features Calamus or Didot had back then still aren't available in mainstream packages even now...

robarr 8y ago
Sane hwre. CalamCalamus was over the top dtp for those times. I know there was a PC running thru an emulator (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamus_(DTP) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamus_(DTP)) Did you ever tried Arabesque for vector graphics?
- Fins 8y ago
  There also was a native Windows NT (including MIPS and Alpha builds) port of Calamus; I helped beta-test it. I mostly used Retouche Pro and Didot Line Art, but Arabesque was pretty good, too.
skissane 8y ago
> but it seems some of the features Calamus or Didot had back then still aren't available in mainstream packages even now What specific features are you talking about?
- jacquesm 8y ago
  They actually worked in the way you'd expect them to work. For the life of me I still can't get two lines of text to line up in almost every other package, it is most frustrating. Present day DTP/Layout software makes me long for either ATEX or typewriters.
- Fins 8y ago
  Stochastic rasterization, virtual copies, step kerning, real WYSIWYG down to a printer pixel level, good perfromance on a 32MHz 68030...