[OFFER] Hello Charlie (IBM PC/PCJr office suite - 1984)

I picked up another piece of software from ibmpc5150's software auction thread - yet another integrated office suite for IBM PCs (there was certainly no shortage of those in the early to mid 80s) called Hello Charlie by Orion Software. The copyright on the disks is 1983, but the manual is copyrighted 1984.

It contains the following applications on 5 5.25-inch floppies (specific size unknown since I haven't imaged them yet, but I assume 360K):

  • Typing 101: a basic typing tutorial
  • CharlieBase: a database program
  • CharlieCalc: a spreadsheet program
  • CharlieWrite: a word processor
  • Sketch-It: a very simple drawing/charting program

The whole package was very complete, including unused labels for the program disks - the instructions specify that you should make working copies of the disks rather than use the originals, and the database program has an additional requirement that you stick a copy of BASIC on the disk along with the application. The manual is also pretty typical for the time - a 3-ring binder with each application given its own section.

System requirements:

  • IBM PC or PCJr
  • 128K of RAM
  • 2 floppy drives
  • MDA or CGA graphics
  • DOS 2.0 or 2.1

I'm hoping to get images of the floppies and scans of the disks made in the next day or so, and I'll add a reply with links when I'm done (assuming the disks are OK, but as everything looks completely unused I'm thinking my odds are fairly good). I'd like to get the manual scanned too, but it's over 100 pages long - at least the pages are loose leaf so scanning them via document feeder would work. Either way, that won't happen right away, but at least the disks can be archived.

Comments

  • Very nice. It is great to see someone else here grab something off of the eBay item lists. Be sure to visually inspect the surface of the disks before putting them in a drive. It is also a good idea to write protect them while reading them (Win9x and newer will write crap to a disk no mater what.)

    100 pages of 3-ring or spiral bound manual is easy work for a document scanner. Permanently bound manuals are a headache unless you want to destroy them. If you have any problems making a PDF, you can send in the PNG files.

  • I don't have any scans of the disks yet (those are coming), but I wanted to get the disk images out there. The link is below:

    https://mega.nz/#!ix0xFKiD!ypI2WegaCmk6AOiXp_RA3cmoYyNQkj1lUHN0_HFngtU

    Some notes:

    • Each disk comes with a pair of batch files (pc.bat/pcjr.bat) that will create copies of the program disks (which is recommended by the developer)
    • Each disk also comes with a pair of batch files (pcexec.bat/pcjrexec.bat) that will run the applications.
    • The database program requires that a copy of basic.com be installed on the program disk (the database program(s) are BASIC, apparently)
    • Files get saved by default to the program disk. There's probably a way to override this but I haven't read the manuals yet

    I've tested these on 86box and they all appear to work OK.

    I'm hoping to get scans of the disks (and the labels for the backup copies) up either today or tomorrow - I'm getting some disks from another program prepared and I'm also trying to do work stuff as well.

    Enjoy!

  • Thanks very much for offer rare program.

  • Not EVERY disk comes with batches. CharlieCalc appears to have only one AUTOEXEC and some other files.

  • Yeah - the whole collection of software is pretty randomly thrown together, which doesn't seem that unusual for older office suite software. There were better options out there even at the time, which seems to fit in with the fact that the copy of the software I have appears to have been completely unused. Unless this software was cheap (less than a couple hundred bucks), I can't imagine that many people would have picked it over alternatives.

  • There is an interesting read about this company and a couple of their game products here: https://retro365.blog/2019/09/23/bits-from-my-personal-collection-the-original-ibm-pc-and-orion-software/

    Low end cloned programs, but very uncommon. Makes it all the more important to get box and manual scans.

  • I think Retro365 blog is for collector only.
    The owner seems not to want to dump any software.

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