mini office II

[martinc]

hello, does anyone remember this Office style suite of programs? A word processor, database, spreadsheet and terminal server...
what an awesome concept in 1986


but did you ever hex edit the disc???
[size=78%]i did trying to copy it so my parents business wouldn't grind to a halt if the master disc went faulty[/size]
if you want a window into the world of coding back in those days then my friend you are in luck


there's some choice programmer comments hidden there in the DSK just like I found when I tried to hack that damn piece of software
i can hardly make sense of some of them but obviously many people did find them just like I did and as a programmer today they give me a mighty chuckle. i want to hear your thoughts on this amazing piece of software!


martin

[martinc]

the cpc is where i started programming and i learnt so much to b able to be a programmer these days. i got the vagabond bug and don't care who knows it. i am one of the 8 bit kids so who cares if the power supply on the vic20 is wired wrong and it works.. we're not electricians per se

[dcdrac]

I actually have an original copy of it, once I have a working disk drive again I shall take a look.
I had a hex editor back in the day too...

[TFM]

That remembers me at that Star Office (IIRC), it has quite a good set of functions, even a conncetion via RS232/Modem (in case you have the hardware).

[martinc]

Hi, afraid i had a few beers last night so i do apologise for my 2nd post. i was excited about my rediscovery of the comments in mini office after  and rather got carried away.


here's a small sampler of the stuff you will find on the DSK:


"Hi! I am your Bug...I shall be your guide for a sight seeing tour around the wordprocessor..Before you load Mini Office II, it is advisable to lift the top of the Amstrad and spray liberally with a good insecticide, making sure all available memory is covered"

[Gryzor]

Welcome mate!


Very interesting, I'll take a look into it - back in the day I used to browse through all my disks with Discology's editor to see if there were any obvious messages lying around...


Also, indeed, Mini Office II was the bee's knees.

[dcdrac]

ok doke got Mini Office 2 running today so.....where Do I look...

[Gryzor]

No, you don't need to run it, just examine the disc with a Hex editor. The messages (as I understand it) do not appear in the program.

[martinc]

i used HxD hex editor free to download
I really would like to hear what you make of it, it is a historical artifact perhaps
you can't miss it on the dsk.
i do remember copying the program ok in the end so my parents had a backup copy and they used it till '94 to run their business so the guys did good in the end. i tried to write my own word processor and got quite far most of the hard work was shifting memory around was slow so you had to index the lines and try not to waste memory. i was going to have an interrupt routine that freed up space while waiting for the user to type something. i recon all these programs and games needed to emulate a lot of operating system stuff like memory management
they used a lot of interrupts and hardware outs. i never did crack the speedlock loader, that was really unbelievablly good
yet a lot of the cpc firmware i recon was compiled not hand coded in machine code it's so well written but only a compiler could have done that number of &CD calls. the firmware is good on the cpc and rock solid. i never looked at the basic rom only the firmware one.
some quite big programs were written in basic. i remember light pen was huge and just like something i would write!