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cballero
1024 MB  Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever 
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Reply #15 on: September 21, 2022, 13:52
DTP on a regular Mac program.. well, ClarisWorks was never a 'normal' Mac program!  But in that vein, of the Claris programs I first encountered, while they were very nice indeed, I fell in with the frey of Microsoft Word 4 users and found the breadth of the program was staggering. In college, the campus had various organizations, and one of them actually wanted to start a printed newsletter for their members, so I interviewed and got the gig!  I don't remember now if they had their own Mac, but I believe they did. For one issue, I went around campus interviewing people of interest and they talked about their experiences, but mostly it had member information provided by the director. I drew and scanned the logo and since the prints all were in black and white, I never bothered exploring the possibilities of color until much later. With time I progressed onto Word 5, but likely this happened when I was studying and working overseas. I think Word 5 and the Mac I was using there were all in color and both 68k Macs and the first generation of PowerMacs were introduced, so everything Mac was in full swing outside the US. I even got a chance to demo the Centris 660AV for people and absolutely fell in love with its voice-activated features!  And as far as DTP, I got to see a lot of offices, architects and others in publication using pro DTP software, but I was still quite happy using ClarisWorks and Word 5, at least until I discovered WriteNow! But by then, I had lost any audience to create any newsletter or magazine for!  It was a little later on in life that I produced some business brochures and client reports, een business cards back in the US, all for which I definitely used ClarisWorks 5 and it was all I needed. If something needed a more complex mix of images and design, I used letter versions Photoshop, Illustrator. Those were printed at the business-grade printers, mostly the chain of Kinkos that later became FedEx locations sometime later. Finally, at a large-format event banner printer I also designed trade show pieces also in Illustrator and exported to EPS for the RIP server software to convert everything for large format and a few things also arrived in PDF and Photoshop formats. The ripping itself I learnt a few setups but had no clue of how to tweak any of its magical capabilities. In the end, the pros still tend to use Adobe for their business design and printing needs. |
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #16 on: September 21, 2022, 20:20
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I am a Quark boy to the bone. When it comes to DTP, nothing beats QuarkXPress on 68k - in my oppinion at least.
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #17 on: September 21, 2022, 21:38
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I just never tried a whole lot on it, but I really only got into Illustrator because it was what they were using at the banner shop I worked at and I had to match my resume skill-set! lol I definitely saw quite a number of Quark fans and both Mac User and MacWorld had plenty of good things to say about the program The only other use for Illustrator was to convert them to EPS files for the print shop and besides that for quick edits of PDF files. I suppose I made a few cards on it as well from time to time, but on other PPC Classic Mac and OS X versions
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023
Reply #18 on: September 22, 2022, 10:42
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Quark was BIG name in DTP that even I as a non-DTP person know. Was its success limited mostly to Europe or was it popular worldwide? Reason I'm asking is because I find that there were a handful of programs that were rather successful over here in Europe but many American or Australian Mac users never heard of. RagTime comes to mind. Or StarOffice.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #19 on: September 22, 2022, 12:48
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Quark used to be *the* standard for DTP worldwide up until Windows & Mac moved to 64 bit. From what I read in the DTP forums they botched the transition by waiting far too long with a new version - and then Adobe stepped in with a redesigned AI and swallowed up two thirds of their customer base. Now QXP is just a distant second in a market they once dominated.
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #20 on: September 22, 2022, 14:19
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I heard of RagTime rather later in the game. They produced a free version that I have. But I am not familiar with using it. It struck me as requiring a different mindset than most Mac Programs. I lumped it with Canvas which also felt odd compared to most Mac programs I was familiar with. I was not even aware that Star Office was available for the Mac. I purchased and installed SUSE for PPC on my 8600 at one point and it included Star Office. StarOffice was a very nicely integrated suite and personally I enjoyed using it. Saddly it seems to have disappeared from Linux as well.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #21 on: September 22, 2022, 17:27
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StarOffice became OpenOffice, with a split to LibreOffice once Oracle started their usual corporate proprietarism with the source code (which had originally been aquired by Sun Microsystems, makers of Solaris).
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #22 on: September 22, 2022, 20:01
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Where I worked at a Mac computer and software retail center outside of the US, the demand for QuarkXpress was huge as well and most marketing and design shops as well as magazine and newspaper offices used it along with Adobe PageMaker since they all had enough resources to get professional-grade DTP software. At the office, I sold it to design professionals and graphic design teachers and demoed it for art major students that inquired about discounted Mac versions for their studies.This was all in the early nineties, and I remember that both the older 2.11 as well as the brand new 3.1 versions were very much alive and well back well before InDesign hit the shelves!
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MTT
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256 MB Posts: 394 SSW7 Oldtimer
Reply #23 on: September 23, 2022, 03:19
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Quote from: cballero, who had posted earlier; I even got a chance to demo the Centris 660AV for people and absolutely fell in love with its voice-activated features! When you were demoing the 660AV I was only reading about this Mac. At that time I was just beginning to develop an interest in the Macintosh (early 1990's). I had not long been given a hand-me-down Mac SE FDHD from an in-law, and after using it for a few days, thought this is really interesting. So began my wanting to know more about this Macintosh computering thingy. That week, I bought my first Mac Magazine. In that mag was an article about this new Mac called a "Centris 660AV", and I said to myself; "This will be my first color Macintosh". ...Well it didn't work out quite like that. The Centris brand didn't stay around all that long, and by the time I could afford a new Mac was when the '040 Mac's were in their final production days. My first new Mac was a Quadra 630...Several years passed... One day while walking home from the village where I live, I saw sitting on the green strip between the road and sidewalk footpath, someone had decided to throw out their old computer as junk (our area has what is termed "street collections" where folks can dispose of unwanted consumer goods by placing them out in the street for collection). Anyway, this "throwout" was a Centris 660AV ! I practically flew home, grabbed the car, got back to the Centris and yep, still there, picked it up loaded it into the car. It was in mint condition. Fully maxed out with 68MB RAM, a 250MB HD, and Mac OS 8.1 as the on board OS, plus sundry software. I then swapped out the HD for a 4GB drive partitioned into 4 parts, and installed SSW 7 Pro (7.1.1), which it still has on it today. I love having my own Centris 660AV. Sometimes you can get what you wish for, though perhaps not in the order you wish for them
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #24 on: September 23, 2022, 12:24
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Wow! That's a truly amazing story! Some people's junk are anothers.. well, my first taste of a Mac was in college. And the campus was literally littered with them! So after joining some of the student body and a few other clubs and groups, I beheld a Mac SE I think it was and having only experienced a Commodore Vic20 prior to, this was a gem of an OS! Back then, the dream machines kept shifting but always kept as 'someday' machines.. first the IIci (remotely dreaming of a maxxed-out IIfx of course), then the Quadra 700 and finally the Quadra 840av, although the Powerbooks were also attractive back then, with the Powerbook 180c, Duo 280c and 540c held most favorably with their built-in 68k goodness! Yet of all my dream 68k Macs, I only (but very happily) first owned a Classic II, then worked on IIci past it's prime by then and enjoyed a Quadra 405, then a Performa 580 and Quadra 630, the last one of which I used a gorgeous Triniton 14 AV display with. On the Powerbook side, I frequently 'borrowed' a Powerbook 165c at work and then jumped right in the PPC world, enjoying buying my first eBay Powermac 8500 then a Duo 2300c and later a PM 6400, even though my dreams at that time were the top PB 2400c (which I now own its slower version) and the PM 8600! BUt I went on to describe all of these because at one point I've had the fortune of 'picking up' from a school garbage bin, an all-in-one 5400 or 5500 I believe. Then more recently, I picked up two perfectly functional Triniton displays off the side of a small residential road dropping someone off, both which I still use today! It's truly amazing what you can find discarded if happen to be at the right place and the right time, just like you did that fateful day!!
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #25 on: September 23, 2022, 14:26
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haha, it's great to read your stories! Wish I had my own stories to share, but my youth in Germany was more in line of getting mocked because of using a Mac. ;-) "Yeah, i can copy that game for you. But not for him. He's got a Mac" (school yard discussion regarding pirating of a DOS game). One was always on the defense as for WHY would you use a Macintosh, if you could get a cheap Windows PC instead. "Are you / your parents graphic designers?" "No". "Then why use a Macintosh?". (graphics / layout jobs were somehow the only "acceptable" excuse as for why to use a Mac during the 90's here) School computers were all Windows 3.1 / 95 machines. Later during the college years all was Win XP. "What are you saying? You can't run the software at home? Because you have a Mac?". or "Hey, I got a new game. I got Warcraft for the Mac!" "Nice. But how outdated. We finished that one a year ago. You know what ultra cool new game came out this month? Probably out for the Mac in three years." Talk about peer pressure. :-D What a lucky find that Centris was, @MTT! Yes, those were the days stuff ended up on the side of the road instead of as *ultra rare* item on ebay for 3.000$! :-D Quote from: cballero Back then, the dream machines kept shifting but always kept as 'someday' machines.. Very true! Interestingly, if you check the dates, some of these machines were on the market just for a little over a year. In hindsight, it was such a short period of time! But in my memory, it felt much much longer. As if they accompanied me through my youth. I had my own "found on the road side" event today. A very friendly old lady gave away a boxed copy of Virtuel PC 3 (DOS Edition) in near pristine condition for free. She just felt it'd be sorry to throw it away and hoped someone could still make use of it. Of course, that lady didn't put "Mac" or "Macintosh" up in the ad anywhere so none of the usual ebay scalpers got it. (= getting that stuff cheap on local classifieds; then putting it on ebay for ten times the price they've paid). So I was lucky and just paid her shipping. Sometimes you can still find some of that stuff.
Last Edit: September 23, 2022, 17:42 by Bolkonskij
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #26 on: September 23, 2022, 23:35
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I know nice find!!! It's kind of like a dream pet want-ad, sometimes a purebred won't be prized as a ransom to buy! (couldn't resist..) it was 'virtually' free!!! And I knew Macs were nichy even in the U.S., often the butt of many a PC-user's jokes, but they were also envied for their sleekness, as well as put down for their big price tags! But I made the most of it even when I was jeered by those who didn't think like 'the rest of us'
Last Edit: September 23, 2022, 23:46 by cballero
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Neal_SE30
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256 MB Posts: 401 System 7 Newcomer!
Reply #27 on: September 24, 2022, 17:09
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welcome Mike Neal
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Neal_SE30
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256 MB Posts: 401 System 7 Newcomer!
Reply #28 on: September 24, 2022, 17:30
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DTP - I was trained as a graphic designer back in 1993. At College there were a lot of various Mac II's probably on MacOs 6.0.8 or early system 7. we were trained on Quark Express and adobe illustrator. My parents brought me a colour classic so I could work at home but also take it into college as there was limited time slots for students on the machines in the day. we used to have to draw up designs on paper first them final it on the Mac's. I was lucky to have my own machine, loved the Colour Classic, mine came with macos7.1 and I think 4mb of ram. Just think of the tiny screen for DTP usage today and they would laugh at you but managed just fine, even the college was only using 12, 14 or maybe 15 inch screens. it was those days that got me into macs.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #29 on: September 24, 2022, 21:56
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I had my first DTP experience with an Amiga program whose name I can't even remember anymore. The app itself was quite nifty, but that couldn't compensate for the shortcomings of the operating system: Lack of PS compatible printer drivers, no true WYSIWYG and the eternal flicker pain of high rez display on the Amiga (back then 640x480 did count as "high res" )
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