MicroDesign Plus

[ComSoft6128]

This humorous poster was for office use and dates from 1989. Printed using the Amstrad DMP 2160. It was created using the original MicroDesign and two of the large headline fonts from MicroDesign Extra -  so is limited to a text only format. It would have been much improved by having the "And Remember!" component originating from a speech bubble from a large digitised graphic (say a cartoon character or a human face) as I did later with some other designs. But in 1989 the upgraded MicroDesign Plus with its Screen and Stop Press import and conversion menus, wasn't even on the horizon. So all the text you can eat!

[ComSoft6128]

MicroDesign - The French Experience.
The original MicroDesign was marketed in France as "Oxford PAO".

The link below leads to a detailed article by Philippe & Gilles Rimauro, on the history of the French CPC fanzine "Quasar". It shows how Oxford PAO and other CPC software/hardware was used in the making of the magazine.
Some of the scans/graphics are the best output from the Dart Scanner I have ever seen.
Check them out at:

http://quasar.cpcscene.net/doku.php?id=makingof:makingof

Google translate does a reasonable job with the article but for English readers best to copy and paste the above directly into Google as the link takes you to the original French page.

Some more background:
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php?title=Quasar_CPC&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php?title=OffseT&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Futurs%27

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Dart_Scanner_for_DMP-Printers

[ComSoft6128]

A5 advert in WACCI magazine, November 94.
Printed using the Star LC-10 9 pin printer.
Brief history of WACCI can be found here:
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/WACCI

[ComSoft6128]

The French Experience (PT2)

Phillipe Rimauro has kindly provided a link to the gallery of all the Dart scanned images, converted to MD/Oxford PAO format, that were used in Quasar magazine. Again these are well worth looking at:

http://quasar.cpcscene.net/doku.php?id=illustrations

Some examples are below.
The last one might ring a few bells.

[ComSoft6128]

More Stop Press clip art, converted to MD format 92/93.

[ComSoft6128]

Helpsheet for Customer Services Section, 1992. After a few months the various copies in the office were covered in written notations and this necessitated updating the design two or three times a year. 64K landscape format, printed using STAR LC-10.

[ComSoft6128]

1991.
This design is for anyone who has ever had the "pleasure" of working in a customer orientated workplace. 
Landscape format, printed using the Star LC-10.
Best viewed by downloading and using Windows Photo Viewer.

[ComSoft6128]

I made this for a friend who was (still is) a fan of the English rock band "The Sisters Of Mercy". The title is the name of the last track on side one of the 1985 "First and Last and Always" album - real vinyl!
Dates from 94/95? Portrait format, printed using the Canon BJ10-EX.
I used the Raven file previously stored on disc and found a suitably gothic style font that seemed appropriate for the poster. I thought the poster was quite satisfactory until it was pointed out to me that there was. One. Small. Problem.  The correct spelling should have been ..........................Marian, not Marianne, oops
I still have this copy, the (hastily) amended/correct version was later printed off and posted (yes snail mail ) to London.

[ComSoft6128]

Advert in WACCI magazine. 92?
Printed in portrait format (A5 scale) using the STAR LC-10.

[ComSoft6128]

This is a Stop Press page of small clip art converted to MicroDesign format. I think this is from the "Extra Extra" disc released by Medway about a year after the initial release of Stop Press.

A note on clip art.
Clip art was generally not distributed as individual files but as “pages” of clip art each containing many small graphics/files. The reason for this is quite simple. On a 3” disc the directory is limited to 64 entries per side and it would be inefficient to save small clip art graphics (usually 1 to 6K) as individual files as this would quickly fill the directory, and could leave up to 100k free on each side of the disc which was then no longer available for storage. On Romdos D20 format 3.5” disks with 256 directory entries and a capacity of 792K it made even less sense to store small clip art as separate files.
So using the page format greatly increased the number of files available while reducing the disc space used.

The most practical solution in Stop Press or MicroDesign when using one piece of clip art, would be to load the page, select (copy to memory) the clip art required, and then delete the page (from memory not disc).
This might sound laborious/time consuming but in practice it could be done in just a few seconds.

[ComSoft6128]

From 92.  256K strip format. Printed using the Star LC-10 9 pin printer. This scan is from a photocopy of the original. Again this was made during the development of the, never finished, MicroDesign 2 CPC. The graphic is from the UK maps library of large clip art licensed from Creative Technology Ltd.

[ComSoft6128]

Humorous poster from 91 again using the artwork of cartoonist Les Gibbard.
This one has an exact date when it was made, 22/9/91.
64K Landscape format, printed using the Star LC-10.

[ComSoft6128]

This dates from 91 and (blown up to A3 size) was made to hang on the wall at my 30th birthday party. As you can see I wasn't enamoured with the ageing process taking me to the ripe old age of 30. I am even less enamoured with it now .
The image on the left is clip art, the image on the right is a Rombo mode 2 digitised grab.
64K landscape format printed using the Star LC-10.

[ComSoft6128]

1995.
Shakespeare on the CPC.
Who needs a Kindle or E-book reader when you have a 3 or 3.5 inch drive?

Logo and Heading created using MicroDesign Plus, body of text is Protext.
Printed using the Canon BJ10-ex inkjet printer.

Even as ASCII files these are large for the CPC:
Julius Ceasar - 130K, Hamlet - 193K, Love's Labour's Lost - 140K and The Merchant of Venice - 134K.

Interestingly enough prices have went down in recent years, The Collected Works Of Shakespeare is now yours (Mobi version) for £1.50 from Amazon

To best view, download file and use Windows Photo Viewer.

[ComSoft6128]

1994.
The Desktop Environment System programmers guide.
64K Portrait format, printed using the Canon BJ10-ex.
The 17K mode 2 CPC screen in the centre of the page was captured using the DES App "Camera" and then converted to MD format for use in this file.
DES was reviewed in issue 102 (March 94) of Amstrad Action.

[tjohnson]

Interesting that there were still commercial products being sold relatively late.  What was the size of the market back on 94?

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

[ComSoft6128]

I can't comment on the market as a whole but I was in contact with MJC Supplies, OJ Software, Goldmark Systems and Q3 software at that time. The impression that I remember from them was of slowly declining sales for all serious software. MJC Supplies went into liquidation May(?) that year but in a conversation I had with the owner of the company he pointed out to me that his sales on the Atari and Amiga were way down. Remember that by 94 it was a saturated market and there were no new CPC computers being produced therefore no new customers.

Sales for new disc and ROM software were still commercially viable right up to 95 when Amstrad Action ceased publication. Without that last outlet for reviews and advertising there was no point in producing anything new for the CPC, as simple and as sad as that.


 
 

[tjohnson]

Good point, I hadn't thought about that. Most of what i got was as a result of Amstrad Action, i had a subscription to that for a while but that lapsed and i stopped reading as newer and better computer stuff came out.

Im not entirely sure which year i left the amstrad for pastures new, i reckon about 1991 or 92.  My bro got an amiga at some point before then but i was never allowed to touch that, i bought a gx4000 but that bombed as we all know, then i bought a very expensive 386 pc before the 486 came out.  Both Amstrad 464 and 6128 got sold along with all the games and stuff.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

[zeropolis79]

Promotional leaflet for the original MD from Siren Software - 1988. The programmer, Simon Hargreaves, was a winner of one of the Amsoft software competitions - see page 106 of the November 85 issue of Amstrad Computer User.
Most of the MD files in this post are displayed at a low resolution, to view them at a higher resolution download them and use WPV or similar.

I was just thinking that.. I think one of my discs has a copy of the Micro Draft version.

[ComSoft6128]

I would very much like to see that.
If I send you a 3" or 3.5" disc and SAE could you copy it for me?

Cheers,

Peter

[ComSoft6128]

Instructions for Goldmark Systems MicroDesign Pageprinter for inkjets. Probably the only computer program in history that used the Blue Danube as an audio prompt. I'm not sure if the debugged version ever saw the light of day.

The program was reviewed on page 21 of the February 93 issue of Amstrad Action.

Info on Goldmark is here:

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Goldmark_Systems

[ComSoft6128]

This is the leaflet that was issued with the two 3" discs or one 3.5" Romdos D20 disk for the British Isles Maps Library. Licensed from Creative Technology (MicroDesign) Ltd, these were originally PCW files converted to MicroDesign CPC strip format files. Reviewed in issue 103 (April 94) of Amstrad Action.

[ComSoft6128]

Front Cover for MicroDesign Plus manual.
Printed using the Star LC-10 9 pin printer set for quadruple density output.
World graphic in centre of page is the loading screen from original release of MicroDesign by Siren Software in 1988.
The enhanced Plus version was released in 1992 and reviewed in issue 90 of Amstrad Computer User and issue 85 of Amstrad Action. All enhancements were by programmer and WACCI member J. Harpur. He also published two articles in Amstrad Action (issues 80 and 81) on modifying the Advanced Art Studio to run with the much larger capacity 3.5" B drives and Romdos.

[ComSoft6128]

The next two scans are photocopies of the 2nd and 3rd on disc help files from the original release of MicroDesign by Siren Software in 1988. Apologies for the 25 year old crossed-out paragraphs in the 2nd scan but the functions described were replaced in MD+ by superior menu options and were therefore redundant.

[ComSoft6128]

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