Memories.. and Tinderbox

Excellent insightful article from John C. Dvorak "Media Bias and Technology Reporting", which notes that:

... during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s... all the writers, myself included, used WordStar. Everyone used WordStar. I would run into writers here and there and grill them about what they used. Anne Rice used WordStar, for example. Thus, when a new word processor came out, it was naturally compared to WordStar and, unless it was a clone of WordStar, it was always given poor marks.

Which took me right down memory lane. Yes, I used and loved WordStar too.

The article reminded me of another program I still love which died in the early 90s: Lotus Agenda. To say Agenda was brilliant is an understatement. I (and many other enthusiastic users) have been searching for an Agenda replacement ever since. Note: you can still run Agenda, check out the Lotus Agenda Web Links page.

OK, I've found it, my current nominee for the program "most like Agenda and which I may be able to love as much as I still love and still mourn Lotus Agenda" -- Tinderbox.

Tinderbox resembles Agenda in that:

* It's got a steep learning curve that makes you want to play with it;

* It makes you think about your needs and how you use information;

* It links information and presents it in new ways, ergo, without even firing up one brain cell, it makes you more creative;

* It's what YOU make it -- you can use its agents and attributes to create your own dream computer tool.

Tinderbox is fascinating, and wonderful. Unfortunately currently it's Mac-only, but there's a Windows version in the works.

Technorati Tags: Mac, software