I remember when...

[John Morton]

Once upon a time there was a company called Aldus that had pretty good programs like Pagemaker and Photostyler.

That was back when computers were used to run software, and, there was no Internet to speak of...

Wow - hard to believe that was 20 years ago now!

Well, happened upon a copy of this magazine while sorting through some old notes and things:

[Bobobird]

I remember.

Pagemaker is still Pagemaker with Adobe.

Photostyler is now Photoshop with Adobe.

[xpatUSA]

Wife used to do desktop publishing on our Fat Mac.

The big excitement was gaining the ability to print in color on the dot-matrix ImageWriter with a 3-color ink ribbon.

ImageWriter: the world's noisiest printer?

[Bobobird]

ImageWriter: the world's noisiest printer?

For personal computers it was the first Epson dot-matrix MX-80.

[Mike Buckley]

For once I'm grateful to have such a bad memory.

[jcuknz]

I remember whenever it was [?] the Sinclair ZX80 came out and a group of technicians each popped in $50 to buy a 1/8 share of 1024 bytes and couldn't understand why a 'film editor' would want a share but accepted my $50 to pay for the computer and power supply. Then when it was demonstrated to the group that "if a =2 and b=3 then a*b=6" and my reaction " WOW! White man's magic".... later Apple donated a machine to the kid's programme we originated and when not required in the studio staff were given access to it and I wrote a programme to flash random morse code at me as practice for my Yachtmaster exam. Happy Days [c.1983-4]

[FootLoose]

I remember Pagemaker was infamous for crashing and trashing whatever project you were working on. To avoid total disaster it had to be reinstalled every week.

[zen]

I remember when we didn't have computers or digital cameras, nor had anyone even heard of them! That's ancient!!

Zen

[inkista]

I remember.

Pagemaker is still Pagemaker with Adobe....

Err...maybe you're thinking of InDesign?

[Val Mansfield]

I remember Voigtlaenders, Zeiss Icons, Agfa and Alpa!

Also developing tanks and printing frames you took out into the sun to expose.

[Bobobird]

Err...maybe you're thinking of InDesign?

Pagemaker still shows on their website and one can still download a trial version (and buy I suppose).

http://www.adobe.com/products/pagemaker/?promoid=DTEIV

[Ady]

I have mostly fond memories of PageMaker from the late 80s/early 90s, it's fair enough to say I had the occasional nightmare with it crashing and taking a project with it, that's when I learned to be very disciplined about backups!

The thing I liked about that time was a single individual could cover the entire design process from the layouts to the production of halftoned separations for offset litho. I produced several series of illustrated books and a whole range of newsletters, marketing and promotional materials from start to finish like that and it was some of the most satisfying work I've ever done.

It was then that I acquired my interest in digital imaging, I was using a pair of Microtek scanners, one greyscale 600dpi flatbed and a colour 300dpi flatbed. I can't remember what I used for the image editing at the end of the 80s (it may have been PCPaint) but I do remember getting the first version of Corel PhotoPaint in about 92 and that being a revelation, though doing any significant retouching/reconstruction was still very laborious. What I can achieve today in ten minutes with Photoshop (other perfectly decent editors are available, I just happen to use PS) used to be a good half day of careful, almost individual pixel by pixel editing. Throw in a Kodak A4 dye-sub and I made a reasonable amount of money repairing photos and doing reprints, people really did think it was a dark art back then.

Noisiest printer? Possibly a Walters line printer, they came with a 'soundproof' cabinet that made them just about quiet enough to shout a conversation with someone.

Cheers,
A

[inkista]

Pagemaker still shows on their website and one can still download a trial version (and buy I suppose).

http://www.adobe.com/products/pagemaker/?promoid=DTEIV

To quote from the Wikipedia page on Pagemaker:

The final version made available is PageMaker 7.0, released July 9, 2001, though updates have been released for the two supported platforms since.

[jcuknz]

I remember Voigtlaenders, Zeiss Icons, Agfa and Alpa!

Also developing tanks and printing frames you took out into the sun to expose.

As the 'dog's body' at Tesla Studios in Wanganui, now Whanganui, one of my jobs was to make proofs with those printing out frames and paper for Mark Lampe. Earlier I had a Reflex Korelle [ MF SLR ] and an MPP 5x4 along with a 35mm Vinten 'Normandy' with three lenses. [a British combat camera ]

[Val Mansfield]

"Wanganui, now Whanganui,"

I shall be there in January. I had no idea that they had changed the spelling. Is it now pronounced fonganui?

[pnodrog]

"Wanganui, now Whanganui,"

I shall be there in January. I had no idea that they had changed the spelling. Is it now pronounced fonganui?

It will depend on whether you are a returning local or a culturally sensitive visitor - does not really matter someone will tell you that you a wrong either way..

[pnodrog]

Judging from some of the responses you are going to tell me that microphen, bromophen and rodinal actually existed, stop was not a traffic sign and that you dreamed that one day someone would invent a variable contrast paper.

[Colin Southern]

"Wanganui, now Whanganui,"

I shall be there in January. I had no idea that they had changed the spelling. Is it now pronounced fonganui?

Last I heard they adopted dual spelling

The Wh version in pronounced "fung-a-nui". You'll also probably here Whanau (extended family) pronounced Far-now.

Hope that helps!

[Paniaa]

Yay Colin. Except it's far-know, but no wurries.

[Val Mansfield]

Thanks! As a fifth generation kiwi who left NZ in 1968, I don't really understand any of this!