Downloads for collectors of ancient software -- a couple of old products to which I happen to have the rights.

Time Planner Deluxe

Originally for Windows 3.1 (1992); runs on contemporary XP machines without problems.

In 1991, Apple was intolerably arrogant, IBM dazed and confused, and Linus still in college. Windows 3.0 came as a breath of fresh air; a "good enough" GUI for the rest of us that ran just fine on a computer we could afford. Charles Petzold wrote the indispensable one-volume explanation for developers; Borland introduced a very respectable C++ compiler. Windows 3.1, released in 1992, raised the ante. Every red-blooded programmer quit his day job and became an entrepreneur.

"Personal Information Managers" had a short run as a hot category around this time. Time Planner Deluxe was my entry, a hybrid between a lightweight project management system and a personal calendar. It offered the usual calendar functions plus integrated drag-and-drop Gantt charts with time and rate calculations. I suppose today I would pitch it as an indispensable tool for the agile project manager (particularly Scrum, with all its lists). Although it received very nice reviews in both Windows magazine and PC Magazine, I don't think anyone ever quite figured what to make of it.

Jeff Goldberg and I wrote Time Planner Deluxe, releasing version 1.0 sometime in 1992. We got lucky: it was licensed and relabeled by SoftKey as "Key Project Manager" and also bundled with Microsoft Office (this was before Outlook and they needed a placeholder) in the USAF Desktop IV contract.

At the time Borland's look and feel, which we adopted, was considered very hip and snazzy; to me it now looks dated. Happily, the program's feature set and architecture still look plenty competent.

License: feel free to download and use Time Planner Deluxe for personal and/or educational purposes. No redistribution, please. [ download ]

Telios Asynchronous Communications

Originally for DOS 2.0 (1983); runs on Win95/98 and possibly XP (if COM1 available to DOS).

This was written in the early days for the original IBM PC.

Looking back, I find it hard to believe I wrote this thing in 8086 assembler -- so much effort for such modest results. What on earth could I have been thinking? Anyway, Telios implements full VT-100 emulation, Kermit, Z-modem, command files - all the features that an up-to-date comm package had to have back in 1983. It may even have been the first commercial implementation of Kermit.

Telios directly accesses the old PC's 8250 UART, 8259 PIC and works around several early 8088 microcode bugs. These chips disappeared from the hardware at least 15 years ago; it's amazing that this runs on any contemporary machines at all.

License: feel free to download and use Telios for personal and/or educational purposes. No redistribution, please. [ download ]