Software spotlight: First Publisher 3
I would like to just share a few thoughts and experiences with First Publisher 3.0, that don't quite fit in the DB entry.
https://winworldpc.com/product/first-publisher/30
First Publisher is an interesting low-end desktop publishing tool. I actually used to use First Publisher 3.0 on a 286 with an Epson dot matrix printer.
Like most publishing tools of the day, it really couldn't be used by itself as a word processor. It was meant that you would import text from a text-only word processor, and then the publishing software would manage the layout, fonts, and graphics. Most word processors could not do that, or do it as well as the dedicated publishing tools.
First Publisher is a DOS application with its own GUI. (There is also a version for Tandy Deskmate). Even on a fast computer, their GUI is kind of sluggish. I'm guessing there are some intentional delays intended as crude "animation", but it doesn't help the feel much.
It includes a variety of high resolution fonts. Many of them look very nice on a document, but its font management is kind of odd. It looks like its fonts are bit-mapped fonts that are pre-rendered elsewhere from scalable fonts. The big catch is that First Publisher can only hold so many font type faces and sizes in memory in once. When you have a lot of fonts, you must manage them manually by inserting your desired fonts of each size in to a "master font" file.
But First Publisher's big strength is that it can print these high resolution fonts even on a 9-pin dot matrix printer. On Epson (and possibly others) printers that support it, it can advance the paper 1/3 of a dot with additional carriage passes to effectively give the resolution of a 24-pin printer.
My recollection is that most programs of the day only supported 1/2 dot increments (compatible with the original IBM branded Epson MX-80), if even that. The end result was First Publisher could produce some relatively sharp text on something like a 9-pin Epson LX-80.
It can also handle several kinds of bitmap and vector graphics, but no formats that were really widely used. I think one of the formats was also used by Harvard Graphics.
Anyway, setting up page formatting is a little clunky, but it was marketed as a low-end/home product and did not really have professional features.
If you needed to print some fancy disk labels or a sharp title page for a report on a 9-pin dot matrix printer, this was a good choice!
https://winworldpc.com/product/first-publisher/30
First Publisher is an interesting low-end desktop publishing tool. I actually used to use First Publisher 3.0 on a 286 with an Epson dot matrix printer.
Like most publishing tools of the day, it really couldn't be used by itself as a word processor. It was meant that you would import text from a text-only word processor, and then the publishing software would manage the layout, fonts, and graphics. Most word processors could not do that, or do it as well as the dedicated publishing tools.
First Publisher is a DOS application with its own GUI. (There is also a version for Tandy Deskmate). Even on a fast computer, their GUI is kind of sluggish. I'm guessing there are some intentional delays intended as crude "animation", but it doesn't help the feel much.
It includes a variety of high resolution fonts. Many of them look very nice on a document, but its font management is kind of odd. It looks like its fonts are bit-mapped fonts that are pre-rendered elsewhere from scalable fonts. The big catch is that First Publisher can only hold so many font type faces and sizes in memory in once. When you have a lot of fonts, you must manage them manually by inserting your desired fonts of each size in to a "master font" file.
But First Publisher's big strength is that it can print these high resolution fonts even on a 9-pin dot matrix printer. On Epson (and possibly others) printers that support it, it can advance the paper 1/3 of a dot with additional carriage passes to effectively give the resolution of a 24-pin printer.
My recollection is that most programs of the day only supported 1/2 dot increments (compatible with the original IBM branded Epson MX-80), if even that. The end result was First Publisher could produce some relatively sharp text on something like a 9-pin Epson LX-80.
It can also handle several kinds of bitmap and vector graphics, but no formats that were really widely used. I think one of the formats was also used by Harvard Graphics.
Anyway, setting up page formatting is a little clunky, but it was marketed as a low-end/home product and did not really have professional features.
If you needed to print some fancy disk labels or a sharp title page for a report on a 9-pin dot matrix printer, this was a good choice!
Comments
At the time some companies chose to port to GEM, GEOS, DeskMate or even that new-fangled OS/2 1.x, but if they had chosen to port to that pathetic little half-vaporware dos shell from Microsoft called "Windows" 1 or 2, they would have been golden