A blog exploring retro productivity software of the 8/16-bit era.
No games; just work.
#retrocomputing #computerhistory #officeofthefuture #softwarearchaeology #stonetools
| Stone Tools Blog | https://stonetools.ghost.io/ |
| BlueSky | @stonetoolsblog.bsky.social |
🪨 Aldus PageMaker on the Apple Macintosh 🛠️
It wasn't the first desktop publishing app, but it was the first of importance. I use it to rebuild the 40-year defunct #OMNI Magazine, resurrect a 40-year defunct software rivalry, and examine how the effects of the publishing revolution trickled through the public sector.
This post comes with a free gift!
A playthrough of an old game? Always fun, but there are so many... Of ancient office software? Well, that is already covered by @stonetoolsblog .
What remains, then? How about a malware?
Discover with me what the first ransomware looked like, and the bizarre and puzzling history of its creator.
“Aids Info Disk: a playthrough of the first-ever ransomware”
https://marnetto.net/2026/03/14/aids-info-disk
Thanks to @snoffle.bsky.social for collecting this piece of history.
🪨 Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC w/DOS 🛠️
Did you know that #Lotus123 is still referenced in Microsoft #Excel documentation to this day, but not #visicalc I finally spent some time getting to know VisiCalc's literal killer. When I struggled to get a chart made, I turned to the only one who could help me: an AI. From 1986!
#retrocomputing #spreadsheet
I wonder if any readers can help me solve a mystery.
At the beginning of this week, maybe early Monday morning in the United States, I had a sudden spike of 1,000 new readers on the dBase article. That was great to see, but I have no idea what triggered it. The Hacker News boost had already come and gone, and this one leaves behind no discernable referrer.
Is anyone aware of a mention, maybe in a newsletter or podcast, of Stone Tools and the dBase post?
RE: https://mastodon.social/@stonetoolsblog/116071488450412028
Back in the 1980s, technology was advancing so quickly that every other year seemed to produce new hardware that needed new operating systems and new applications, promising new never-before-seen capabilities. But today the pace has slowed if not halted, and it seems like maybe it's worthwhile to go back and figure out what lessons we could learn about solving real problems with a fraction of the storage space or computation speed.
And so I love this blog, where the author makes an honest effort to try these old tools for what they were best at, figure their strengths and weaknesses, and even how hard it would be to use them seriously in a modern computing environment. The extra context about the history of each software package and the people who made it, is the icing on the cake - like if The Digital Antiquarian were about productivity apps rather than games.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@stonetoolsblog/115987139747205973
Un bon 30% des débuts de ma vie professionnelle sur Amiga puis PC.
I was just looking at Scala on Amiga and look how beautiful!
(Source + kudos to Stone Tools: https://stonetools.ghost.io/scala-amiga)
My father built his career on top of dBase, and as a kid I fished one of those luggable CP/M computers out of my school’s garbage dumpster to take home and tinker with. So I read this new Stone Tools article with even greater than usual interest.
Alberto Marnetto
Paolo Amoroso
Screwtapello
Stéphane Anquetil
Marcin Wichary
Patrick Georgi
Jason Lefkowitz