ancient version compatibility

Richard Hane yoresoft at sbcglobal.net
Sat May 11 13:37:16 PDT 2019 

Wow! I feel so much younger now. Like a trip in a time machine.

And Laura you are a much braver person than I am.

It's live deja vu (sp?) all over again.  2 weeks ago Bryan (I think) posted the interview with a former Tandy/Radio Shack exec and profile (filepro) and now an email about Deskmate filePro.

Keep it going guys.  How about naming all the add on modules for Profile II.

lol
Rick Hane
 
--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 5/11/19, Laura Brody via Filepro-list <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: ancient version compatibility
 To: "Scott Walker" <scottwalker at ramsystemscorp.com>
 Cc: "Laura Brody" <laura.k.brody at gmail.com>, "Filepro_List" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
 Date: Saturday, May 11, 2019, 3:00 PM
 
 I remember the Deskmate version
 of filePro as "The Project from Hell". It
 was the first time that we attempted to move
 DOS/UNIX keyboard-oriented
 filePro to mouse
 and menu land. It was painful, difficult and mostly a
 waste of time costing us about 2 years of
 effort. (I don't think that we
 sold many
 copies at all. Financially, it was a total bust. Shortly
 after we
 had a finished product, Radio Shack
 had it on the shelves for a few months,
 then
 we saw Deskmate filePro in the discount bin with all of the
 other
 Deskmate software) The big boss was
 constantly pushing us to finish. Asking
 us
 "what would it take?" for us to work
 harder/faster/longer hours and give
 him a
 finished product. I guess he thought that we were dragging
 our feet.
 He just didn't understand the
 complexity of the project even though we
 tried to explain it to him many times. Ken and
 Ron got new computers for
 the project. I
 think that they were 286 CPUs. Being a woman, I
 didn't.
 (Everybody knows that women
 can't program, so what would *I* need a better
 computer for?)  I added memory and another
 hard drive to my existing
 computer so that I
 could run the help system compiler needed for my part of
 the project and be able to alpha test Desktop
 filePro. Ken gave me my first
 lesson in
 hardware. Up until that point, I had zero clue about what
 was
 inside the case and how to fix or
 upgrade anything in it. I went to college
 and had a BS in computer science, so I was
 trained in software. When it
 came to
 hardware, I could name the parts and what they did, but
 nothing
 more. The hard drive was MFM
 (pre-dating IDE by several years). The extra
 ram was on a large card that I pulled from
 another computer that I found in
 the
 basement. (We had a hardware guy who had an area in the
 basement, but
 he left for greener pastures.
 The parts and tools were still there). I
 managed to cobble together the parts and pieces
 without burning something
 up by plugging it
 in backwards.
 
 Ken taught me
 the following rules.
 
 First
 rule: Make sure that the computer is unplugged before you
 start
 adding or removing parts.
 Second Rule: That red stripe on the ribbon
 cable was not just a decoration.
 
 Ignoring either of these rules will release the
 magic smoke and your
 computer will die.
 
 Good rules. I never released
 the magic smoke.
 
 The
 closest I came to that is when a customer gave me a computer
 to fix
 around 15 years ago. I plugged it in
 and turned it on to see what worked
 and what
 didn't since the customer's description of the
 problem was rather
 vague. The phone rang, so
 I turned my back on the computer to answer the
 phone. One of my kids comes by to ask me for
 something, sees smoke coming
 out of the
 computer and tells me "Mommy, is the computer supposed
 to be
 smoking?". The power supply had
 smoke coming out of it. I pull the power
 cord on it and open the door and windows. No
 flames, but lots of
 excitement. Ken, the
 rest of the kids and the dog have to come over and see
 what the fuss was all about. After I let it
 cool down, I removed the power
 supply and
 put in a new one. It booted up just fine. I think I found
 the
 problem lady! Of course Ken and the kids
 had to tease me for a while,
 asking me if I
 set anything on fire lately.
 
 
 Laura Brody
 
 On Sat, May 11, 2019 at 12:27
 PM Scott Walker via Filepro-list <
 filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
 wrote:
 
 > Deskmate
 Operating Enviornment
 >
 >  Initital Release = November 1984  (35
 years ago)
 >
 > Last
 Release =  1992 (27 years ago)
 >
 > So about a quarter of a century ago. 
 WOW!
 >
 > Some people
 don't like to upgrade too often :-)
 >
 >
 >
 Regards,
 > Scott
 >
 > Scott Walker
 > scott.walker at ramsystemscorp.com
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 > -----Original
 Message-----
 > From: Filepro-list
 >
 [mailto:filepro-list-bounces+scottwalker
 > =ramsystemscorp.com at lists.celestial.
 > com] On Behalf Of Laura Brody via
 Filepro-list
 > Sent: Saturday, May 11,
 2019 7:48 AM
 > To: Brian White <bw.aljex at gmail.com>
 > Cc: Laura Brody <laura.k.brody at gmail.com>;
 filePro Mailing List
 > <Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
 > Subject: Re: ancient version
 compatibility
 >
 > As I
 recall, the data files would be totally compatible with
 the
 > DOS/Windows
 >
 version of filePro. I am pretty sure that the screens would
 be too.
 >
 > Wow, that
 was a long time ago....
 >
 > Laura Brody
 >
 > On Sat, May 11, 2019 at 5:33 AM Brian
 White via Filepro-list <
 > filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
 wrote:
 >
 > >
 Here's a good one.
 > >
 > > Someone on a facebook vintage
 computer group has a bunch of data in a
 >
 > Deskmate version of fp.
 > >
 > > Anyone know if the files would be
 directly usable by a dos/win
 > >
 version, or would they need xfer like if you were going from
 win to
 > linux?
 >
 >
 > > --
 > >
 bkw
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