[HN Gopher] A word processor from 1990s for Atari ST/TOS is stil...
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A word processor from 1990s for Atari ST/TOS is still supported by
enthusiasts
Author : muzzy19
Score : 104 points
Date : 2026-02-16 18:44 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (tempus-word.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (tempus-word.de)
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| English not their first language?
| celsius1414 wrote:
| tempus-word.de
| stockerta wrote:
| What is so surprising about that?
| qsi wrote:
| Some of the best ST software came from Germany, where the it
| had a high market share driven by DTP applications. IIRC at one
| point the ST had a bigger installed DTP base in Germany than
| the Mac.
|
| There was an annual fair in Dusseldorf, the Atari ST Messe,
| which was impressive in its size. I went for several years in a
| row until the ST sadly started losing its relevance.
| manoDev wrote:
| The list of features is impressive even today!
|
| https://tempus-word.de/en/info/index
| drcongo wrote:
| Those were the glory days of word processors, I used to have
| something similar on the Amiga. I'd still rather write on
| something like this than Word, Pages or Google Docs.
| scherlock wrote:
| At least Word has an outline mode, GDocs is the worst. A text
| editor with markdown support is better than GDocs.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I don't remember seeing the outline function on the online
| version of Word.
| thom wrote:
| It's maddening that the Windows, macOS, iOS and web
| versions of Word all have completely random subsets of
| functionality.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| Google Docs is in fact a text editor with Markdown support,
| see https://support.google.com/docs/answer/12014036
| VerifiedReports wrote:
| Word's outline mode is a sham. You can't export the text in
| the outline format. Stupid AF.
|
| Word used to be a great product. Today it's a shambolic
| testament to incompetent design and dereliction.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| I wonder why they don't just make it open source at this point?
| Aldipower wrote:
| Usage of licensed 3rd-party libraries for example!
| prmoustache wrote:
| Apparently they still hope to make a bit of money out of it:
|
| "I never had a license! Well, even then you can have one - if
| you absolutely want to. . Depending on your bid, we will then
| contact you." https://tempus-word.de/en/download/index
|
| I guess they found out they make out more that way than setting
| up a ko-fi account. It also insures the soft and its legacy
| doesn't become bloated over time. It is also possible that
| given it uses old tech (GEM) and probably assembly code, the
| software as it is would not be more easily portable than it is
| now using emulators.
| pdw wrote:
| I think that's out of date. The banner at the top of the page
| says "you can request a free license for version 5.4 from
| us." According to archive.org that was added later than the
| text you quoted, somewhere between 2022 and 2024.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Why should they? It's their work, not for others to steal.
| Maken wrote:
| Maybe they never got the source code or the license to
| distribute it. This is not the original company after all.
| jaffa2 wrote:
| I used to use First Word on the ST back in the day.
| tjansen wrote:
| The ST had some awesome productivity programs. Tempus Word,
| Papyrus, Calamus... All running on a 8 Mhz computer with 1 or 2
| MB, but with feature sets that do not need to hide from today's
| software.
| mhd wrote:
| People doing DTP with Calamus on their Ataris stuck around for
| a _long_ time after the systems weren 't used for much else -
| MIDI tooling excepted, of course.
|
| On the other hand, there you didn't have that many powerful
| packages on _any_ system, besides Quark & the various Adobe
| tools du jour everything paled in comparison.
|
| For word processing, being forced to use Word was/is usually
| worse than for DTP, though. But feature-wise, everything seemed
| to converge during the 90s, so "having" to use Word instead of
| e.g. WordPerfect was less and less of an issue.
|
| With some exceptions of course, most famously GRRM and other
| people who got into things _very early_ sticking with the first
| thing they learned (i.e. WordStar), or apparently some
| journalists being _really_ into XyWrite.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| DTP? GRRM?
| bux93 wrote:
| DeskTop Publishing - WYSIWYG design of printed matter (What
| You See Is What You Get) on PC(Personal Computer)s.
|
| George R.R. Martin (No idea about the Rs), author of A Song
| of Ice and Fire which was adapted into Game of Thrones.
| buescher wrote:
| It's not surprising that people who write professionally
| would learn one tool to the point it gets out of the way and
| then not want to change. It's not just sticking with the
| first thing they learned - there's a constant churn of "tools
| for distraction-free writing" that address some of the
| complaints that people that still use older word processors
| have about more up-to-date systems.
|
| Once you know the pattern, every so often you'll see a piece
| about a writer or journalist and the funky software they use
| and you can just wait for it... it's going to be Wordstar,
| XyWrite, one of the XEDIT editors, sometimes Wordperfect for
| DOS. Rarely Word for DOS. Neal Stephenson uses emacs, but
| he's an outlier in a lot of ways. I think there was a piece
| linked here recently by a journalist who uses the macOS
| TextEdit for note-taking, which dates back to NeXSTEP. (not
| exactly the same thing, but consider)
| p_l wrote:
| Late 1990s supposedly a considerable extension on use of Macs
| for DTP was that Quark could get significantly automated with
| AppleScript, and some publishing houses had non-trivial
| workflows done that way to reduce time spent on preparation.
| outofmyshed wrote:
| ST Writer was freeware and did the job, but Tempus was gold
| standard, even better than 1st Word Plus.
| gmac wrote:
| Huh, 1st Word Plus was what I had! Sudden recollection of
| pressing a rhombus-shaped F10 key to reflow after editing ...
| prmoustache wrote:
| Their non cookie popup is the perfect example how user cookies
| should be managed.
|
| https://tempus-word.de/en/impress/policy#the-website
| nosianu wrote:
| I used Application System Heidelberg's Script II on an Atari
| 1040STFM with 72 Hz SM 124 black/white monitor and an Epson LQ
| 550 24 pin printer. That was some superb publishing system for
| the time (1991), for a low budget.
|
| 1 MB RAM, 1.44 MB floppy drive
|
| SM 124: 640x400 pixels, monochrome
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST
| https://www.atarimuseum.de/1040st.htm
|
| The software used a special driver to get better than standard
| quality from the then most common 24 pin printers (laser printers
| where much expensive) by kind of double-printing, I forgot the
| details. It looked really good though.
|
| https://www.planetemu.net/screenshots/Atari%20ST%20-%20Appli...
|
| https://stcarchiv.de/tos/1990/11/script-2 (German)
|
| "Script" was the cheap version of their better product "Signum".
|
| https://www.application-systems.de/signum/screenshots.html
|
| https://www.atariuptodate.de/img/signum.png
| billygoat wrote:
| I'm curious: the "Script" screenshot looks like it's using
| standard GEM Desktop, while the "Signum" is some other desktop.
| Are these both for ST? Was Signum written using some other
| full-screen graphic environment?
| qsi wrote:
| Signum! was highly opinionated. It ran on the Atari ST but
| did its own thing for the user interface. You could access a
| lower layer of drawing primitives and obviate GEM. In those
| days multitasking did not exist.
|
| There were a good number of these kinds of application back
| then. Steve was one, GFA Basic another.
| qsi wrote:
| Ah, it was actually STeve:
|
| https://ataricrypt.blogspot.com/2024/03/steve.html
|
| An application that was more a random selection of tools
| than a cohesive whole but some people swore by it.
| qsi wrote:
| Signum! (don't forget the exclamation point!) was an amazing
| piece of software. The key to its incredible print quality:
| carefully hand-crafted pixel fonts with incredible attention to
| detail.
|
| With a 24-pin printer the output beat vector fonts on a 300dpi
| laser printer at the time. The actual resolution was higher
| than a single pass of printing with the 24 pins. Signum! would
| advance the print head in minute amounts and overprint to
| achieve its remarkable quality.
|
| Printing a single page at maximum quality took a while... Think
| minutes per page instead of pages per minute. But it was very
| impressive.
|
| Fond memories!
| m-i-l wrote:
| > _" The software used a special driver to get better than
| standard quality from the then most common 24 pin printers
| (laser printers where much expensive) by kind of double-
| printing, I forgot the details. It looked really good though."_
|
| In opening up a few ancient files to answer another question
| about formatting, I found some long forgotten notes on how to
| make my Epson LQ400 24 pin printer work at 360dpi rather
| 180dpi, which may have been the same for you: First you had to
| install it as a NEC 24-pin 360dpi printer rather than 180dpi
| printer. Then, because it used fonts of half the size, you
| needed to switch fonts. So I had two fonts disks, one with
| 180dpi installed fonts and one with 360dpi fonts, and used the
| ASSIGN.SYS file to switch between them. It also seems to have
| taken twice as long to print out at 360dpi, and used twice as
| much printer ribbon:-)
| bombcar wrote:
| I remember some printers had a "draft" mode and a "fine" mode
| (and you could simulate the fine even on those that didn't by
| printing, and then carefully going back and printing _again_
| but off by a tiny, tiny bit vertically).
| Thoreandan wrote:
| Similar technique was used in Daisy Dot II
|
| https://www.atarimagazines.com/v7n3/daisydot2.php
| Beijinger wrote:
| There is another one still alive today: https://papyrus.de/en/
|
| I don't use it. But i tried an old version and it was fast as
| f...
|
| It is written now in C++
| m-i-l wrote:
| I used ST Writer which came bundled with my ST. I still have all
| my ST Writer files (last modified in 1993!), and quite
| impressively they open just fine in LibreOffice with formatting
| and everything preserved (unlike some later .doc files I have).
| klondike_klive wrote:
| That is genuinely remarkable! Even indentation?
| m-i-l wrote:
| Yes. Just opened some files to check. There was one including
| a table which I thought at first was a little wonky, but then
| I realised the column that looked off had currency where I'd
| right aligned on the decimal point, so even that seems to
| have been preserved!
| p_l wrote:
| .DOC was never meant to be interoperable, even across Word
| versions (much), you were supposed to save "final" or
| "exchange" versions in RTF :)
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Ah. You will also like another story that popped up here some
| time back.
|
| A Canadian science-fiction writer, Robert J. Sawyer, made an
| Archive available complete with extensive resources on how to use
| it. In addition, fully text-searchable PDFs of the original
| manuals, totaling over 1,000 pages, were also available. He is a
| dedicated WordStar user.
|
| https://sfwriter.com/ws7.htm
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Wasn't there a post a few weeks ago by the author of it?
| WillAdams wrote:
| I wish WriteNow was similarly available/supported --- it was
| probably one of the last major applications written in assembly
| language (~100,000 lines).
|
| XyWrite is supported in a similar fashion:
| https://mendelson.org/xywin.html (but I just helped folks use
| that, never actually found it comfortable myself).
|
| I kind of wish all these small/tight/efficient programs could be
| gathered up and ported to an optimized OS for the Raspberry
| Pi....
| bombcar wrote:
| It's too bad the architecture is different, a Raspberry Pi
| compatible with peak Win98SE software would be an amazing low-
| power computer.
|
| There were _tons_ of amazingly well-made commercial software
| packages that have just been lost to time; in a large part due
| to open-source and other free options getting "good enough" -
| but many had features that simply don't exist anymore.
| qsi wrote:
| I still have the printed documentation and floppy for Tempus, the
| editor which I think is the predecessor to the linked word
| processor. It was blazing fast because it had been written in
| 68000 assembly IIRC. Even then it would handle giant documents
| with ease.
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