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A Brief History of ClarisWorks
An anonymous user writes, "Bob Hearn, one of the original authors of ClarisWorks, has just updated his own account of the project.
It contains lots of interesting lessons for aspiring programmers."
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That reminds me, whatever happened to Gobe Productive? It doesn't look like you can even order off thier site anymore.
ClarisWorks/AppleWorks is still my favorite productivity tool. When I work on files I need to share, I'm forced to use Office, but when it's just for me, I use AppleWorks every time. The word processor doesn't have as many bells and whistles as Word, but that's fine, because all I want to do is write. I don't need Clippy offering me all sorts of idiotic advice. I know how to write a letter!
The spreadsheet is not as nice as Excel, but it's adequate for most people's needs. The database is lame, I'll admit. But the drawing tools are awesome. And the whole thing is object-oriented and integrated, just like the article says. Want a text box in your draw document? You have the full power of the word processor. Want a spreadsheet in your word processing document? You have the full spreadsheet right there.
It's a shame that the product seems to be languishing in Version 6. I hope that we see a Version 7 soon. The product still has so much potential.
Way back when, there were several 'Works' packages battling it out in the market. As well as ClarisWorks and Microsoft Works, there was LotusWork and PerfectWorks (from the old WordPerfect company), plus a few others whose names escape me.
:)
Now, there is AppleWorks on the Mac, and Microsoft Works on the PC. All the others are gone.
I got Works 2.0 for Windows to go with my first PC back in 1992, and it did sterling service for me until I upgraded to Windows 95, when I rashly decided to migrate to Office. I've seriously considered going back to MS Works again, simply because it would mean one less piece of software to keep patching!
I think it's telling that the core of MS Works hasn't seen that much change in the last couple of versions, a sign that it doesn't have to worry about competition.
-MT.
Of course, the most intriguing part is,
No comment about a certain third possibilty... Note that the above was revealed a week ago by J.-L. Gassée, and also picked up by Mac Rumors.As was pointed out after the recent Macworld and the release of Safari and Keynote, Apple seems to be attacking Microsoft on more and more fronts. If you're looking for a new version of AppleWorks that has the feature set to compete with Office, you may only have to wait. I don't know about Keynote (I don't have much use for presentation software), but if Safari is any indication, such an update would be enough to kill Office for Mac. Hey, Safari is still in beta and already it's good enough to have replaced IE for most purposes on my machine. The only time i still use IE is for playing Go on Yahoo--the applet doesn't work quite right in Safari. Anyway, I'm hoping for a modestly priced (maybe free? I doubt it) Apple-branded competitor to Office X within the next couple of Macworlds. Just idle speculation. Think iWorks.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
I'm sure the same phenomena exists in the linux world, but it seems to be drowned out in all the linux hype. Maybe 10 years from now we'll be hearing some fascinating tales of trials and tribulations in the OpenSource world.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
"Since Apple are no longer obliging, are there any other 'Works'-type packages out there for Windows?
AppleWorks is available for Windows.
What a enjoyable read.
I first used with ClarisWorks nearly 10 years ago, and was totally amazed by the fact that such a seamless integration of 6 powerful tools (text, draw, paint, spreadsheet, database and communication) had only a tiny size of just over 3MB and MS Word alone was more than 20 MB.
How the world comes to prefer the MS bloatware called Office rather than a gem like ClarisWorks is just beyond me. Now Office X takes up 400 MB on my iBook, still not properly integrated like ClarisWorks, and runs as slow as hell even with a 3 pages documents! Apple, please take this guy back and I will wipe out the MS shit in a hear beat!
Has anyone read the reader comments from his site, it brings tears to my eyes. I am particularly moved by the story that Steve Woz always sited at the back of the classroom and learnt something new when someone was teaching the kids to use ClarisWorks.
... to annoy everyone equally.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
When I bought my first Mac, a Quadra 630, I still had my 386/Win 3.1 machine around because it had the printer. I had ClarisWorks 3 on both machines, and could easily swap a floppy back and forth to print or whatever, and my room mates got to use one machine while I used the other.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I would be thinking that you're right on the money with that ;) Apple doesn't want it to be known that they're working on an opposing Office suit until they're ready to ship, otherwise MS will stop producing Office X..
Mr. Hearn seems to like Safari - if you visit his history of ClarisWorks with Safari you get the Safari logo with text that says "Welcome Safari User"