Installation, updates, general problem solving and assistance.
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Steven W
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2022-11-13 03:02 »

I'm beginning to have a real appreciation of this thing:

https://sites.google.com/site/vdeeditor/Home

It's not exactly 'user friendly' by modern standards (it use WordStar-style commands), but it is a very useful text editor.
vde.png
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Steven W
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2022-11-18 09:03 »

http://www.photofiltre.com/

There's a shareware version and two versions that are 'free for personal use':

V7 (free for personal use) includes 'layers':

http://www.photofiltre-studio.com/pf7-en.htm

V6 (free for personal use) does not include 'layers':

http://photofiltre.free.fr/

Was looking at the price for the full thing, at 29 Euros, I really may consider...

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Steven W
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2023-04-16 23:36 »

Digging up some old stuff that I used for a time way-back-when.

Some prefacing:

The sites that originally offered these are dead (I believe the companies are too). These aren't the greatest tools in the world, but they're relatively small and work, but are limited in some ways. Really, these should probably only be used on old systems that don't have anything better, such as MS Office of any vintage past Office 6.0 (the last version for Win3x) or OpenOffice/LibreOffice/StarOffice...The only reason I used these at the time was that I was running a system with a relatively small drive.

Sphygmic Software Spreadsheet:

Although I used this on Win9x, I'm fairly certain it's Win3x compatible. I'm assuming it would work on at least up to XP, not sure about anything further. There's obviously no macros, and freezing rows/columns isn't there, but formulas are entered in a way that Excel users will find familiar. The 'currency' button on the toolbar uses the British Pound symbol, but does enter dollars on the systems I used (assuming it goes by locale settings) :lol:.

https://web.archive.org/web/20000611112 ... estuff.htm
sphygmic.jpg
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https://web.archive.org/web/20000611202 ... ssheet.htm
ssheet_2.jpg
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SSSHEET.ZIP
(918 KiB) Downloaded 220 times
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Cetus WordPad:

I just use Cetus Software's description and add a few words:

http://web.archive.org/web/200707240507 ... ordpad.htm
Cetus CWordPad is an enhanced implementation of Windows 95 WordPad. CWordPad provides the basic functionality of WordPad, as well as a spell checker, a thesaurus, and a more complete Help file. (However, please note that CWordPad does not support Word 97 or later documents.) PLEASE NOTE: THIS FREEWARE PROGRAM IS NO LONGER BEING FORMALLY DISTRIBUTED, AND NO SUPPORT FOR IT WILL BE PROVIDED.
Yes, all the limitations of WordPad with a rather limited spellcheck and thesaurus. It does allow entering 'custom' words... Assume the dictionary and thesaurus use U.S English.
cwordpad.jpg
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cwordpad.zip
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Steven W
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2023-04-16 23:45 »

Oops, that should be Cetus CWordPad...

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Steven W
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2023-04-24 06:03 »

Artweaver:

https://www.artweaver.de/en/download

Free and paid versions, Current versions system requirements:
Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 or Windows 11 (each with latest service pack)
Pentium 4 compatible processor, 1000 MHz or greater (1500 MHz recommended)
512 MB RAM (1024 MB recommended)
100 MB of available hard disk space
1024x768 pixels or greater monitor resolution
A pen tablet is recommended

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Steven W
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2023-04-25 07:45 »

CDBurnerXP

https://www.cdburnerxp.se/

The new version still lists OS compatibility back to Win2K. The thing is, it requires the .NET framework 2.0 or above.
Since CDBurnerXP 4, we use the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 as basis for our application.

If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7, you already have .NET 3.0 preinstalled so there is nothing to care about. Any earlier operating system, however, requires that you install it manually.
Obviously, if you're running 2K and above and already have the .NET framework 2.0 or above installed, get it from their site. If you're running an older version of Windows and don't want to install the .NET framework, here's an old version that does NOT require it:
cdbxp_setup_3.0.116.zip
(10.76 MiB) Downloaded 210 times
I've used it one 98SE, 2000, and XP. A word of warning, it will truncate really long filenames, such as those in my XP update downloader/install kit. I really should rewrite my XP update kit to shorten filenames when downloading... Anyway, you've been warned.

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Steven W
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2023-04-28 01:00 »

What have we here? :think:

https://www.shdon.com/software/pcpaint
PC Paint 3.1

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, I enjoyed using GRASP (GRaphics Animation System for Professionals) to make animatons and simple games. GRASP had a relatively easy to use scripting language and had support for many different video modes. It came bundled with Pictor (an updated version of PC Paint). Both GRASP and PC Paint were created by Doug Wolfgram and co-developed by him and John Bridges. Pictor/PC Paint has been my bitmap editor of choice for many years and the bitmap editors I have written for my personal use were heavily influenced by it (to the point where even the Windows versions use the same keyboard shortcuts as PC Paint and have the tool icons listed in the same order).
In May of 2007, I created a small patch for version 3.1 of PC Paint to enable it to run properly in DOSBox. Bill Buckels, a Canadian software developer sent me an e-mail and contacted John Bridges asking him for permission to distribute the program for free. As John graciously agreed, I am delighted to be able to offer you the original version of PC Paint 3.1 for download, including the second disk with clip art and sample images. Since not everybody may be able to set up the program from those disks, I've also added a ZIP file with the installed (and patched) version. The program runs well under DOSBox, but that is by no means required as it also runs beautifully under Windows XP, as long as you select a graphics mode that is supported by your video card.
I downloaded the patched version extracted the files in the ZIP to a directory called 'pcpaint' in the directory I mount for use with DOSBox...
pcpaint_001.png
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Video Modes 'L' and 'M' are probably of the most interest.
pcpaint_000.png
pcpaint_000.png (21.96 KiB) Viewed 12383 times

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Steven W
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2023-04-28 08:20 »

Yeah, I'm on a paint and draw kick.

https://sites.google.com/site/wangzhenzhou/

PaintStar

I won't go into much (maybe sometime later I'll give some of this stuff reviews), but a couple of notes with this one:

You might want to up the number of 'undos' File -- Environment (apparently can be up to 99, but is according to memory/disk space...). I forget what the default was now, but it was really small.

I thought the biggest brush was to small when cloning and erasing from/to modern (large images). Turns out that you can create new circular brushes very easily (perhaps custom brushes from a bitmap too?) -- View -- Brush, then from the Brushes dialog - New Circular Brush, eh, you'll see, you can define the radius up to 50 pixels.

The 'zooming' is a bit annoying, I haven't found a way to do 'custom' zooms, but the magnifying glass on the toolbar zooms in when you click, and zooms out when you hold the Ctrl key + click. Pay attention to your zoom at the bottom of the image window. The only way I see to get the image size is, from the image window, Image -- Canvas Size, note the original size at the top. Apparently you use the bottom of the same dialog to resize.

The program is supposedly compatible with Win95 and it's Ctrl+Click to define the point at which you want to clone from when using the Clone brush...

Also, I don't want to make you use the author's download sites:
paintstar.zip
(2.58 MiB) Downloaded 225 times

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Steven W
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2023-04-29 17:45 »

Microsoft Gif Animator

https://web.archive.org/web/20040218092 ... fsetup.exe
gifsetup.exe
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Steven W
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2023-05-03 01:27 »

I found reference to a word processing program for Win95:

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/best ... st-7036661

The link is long dead. I was curious. I easily found links to slight older versions. Well, after much digging, I found the thing.

Major prefacing:

It's adware!

It apparently made it's rounds back-when in CDs that came with computing magazines in Europe. From a note in an earlier versions included in one of the mags:
WordWright 09-07-99

Lextek International
H O T C L I C K S

Yahoo! Messenger

Today's Free File

Weekly Top 10



If the best word processor you have on your system is WordPad, you might want to consider downloading WordWright. Thanks to banner advertising, it's free. The program offers most of WordPad's functionality along with several extras that are usually found only in expensive word processors. You'll find a spelling checker; the ability to work with multiple documents at once; import filters for .rtf, .doc, HTML, and .txt formats; and export filters for .rtf, .doc, and .txt files. Other features include search and replace, undo/redo, easy image insertion, and a table editor. Plus, it provides support for justification, tabs, indents, hanging indents, and margin/page size adjustment. Despite a few rough edges, WordWright should make a nice addition to your system.
Reviewed on Aug 08 1999.

System Requirements
Windows 95, 98, or NT

Purchase Information
Free

Version Number
1.6

Downloads to Date
926

Compressed Size
4,940,479 bytes
Anyhow, here's a couple of links the latest version I can find reference to (1.62):

From a Chinese site:

https://softsqdownd.51xiazai.cn/down/wordwright.zip

I backed to the WebArchive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230501184 ... wright.zip

The thing doesn't allow for wrapping text around images. It allows for embedding images other than BMP files, but it's JPEG/JPG filter seems limited (it doesn't like all JPEG/JPG) files... It does have tables, but when opening in other word processors or Microsoft's Word Viewer, the tables are render 'a little left' of the left margin...

This is another one of those things that isn't for everybody, but I suspect someone out there would like to take a look at it. I can see why someone would have recommended it back then. I'm going to take a better look at it sometime later.

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