Love this! I really enjoy using the old Amiga office docs. I use turbo calc but this has given me sone ideas for others to try! Thanks for uploading! I really hope they release an a500 maxi with keyboard as sadly, I sold my a1200 years ago.
Thanks for this. Most Amiga videos are game oriented and I never had any interest in games and demos. People do go on about hardware and such but for me looking back really what made the Amiga interesting was that it gave a taste of the Unix world with a GUI too. At that time we did not have the likes of Ubuntu. The Amiga combined a GUI with the power of multitasking and a rich command interface. Sadly it took until Workbench 2.04 to get something reasonably complete. It was a crash waiting to happen though with no memory protection or resource tracking. Now with PiStorm I am enjoying Amiga again.
What a splendid piece of video! I've been playing with Amiga spreadsheets for two years and Maxiplan proved to be enough for home budget balancing and recording expanses.
My cousin got made redundant as a delivery driver from FedEx in the late 80s (when they withdrew from the UK). He setup his own business and I helped him setup running everything on Amiga using spreadsheet software. He used it for years before eventually moving to PC.
Mikey, In Maxiplan IV, I could wrote a macro to import a data table from Superbase and manipulate the data and then print it out. Macros worked well and it also did Charting and unlike Turbocalc it was all in English. I used it for several years until I had to switch to a PC at work. In my opinion a very good Spreadsheet for home or small office use. Thanks for your video
I never owned one, but I fell in love with the Amiga since I gave it a try out of curiosity on UAE. I also got well prepped with Workbench3.1 and Scalos on my MisterFpga. I am actually using it for day to day computing, so those videos are pure gold, as I am a noobie here and don't even know which software to use for basic stuff. Thank you for making those!. The only downside I discovered from your videos: I am using Linux, and Fs-UAE seems terribly lacking in options. At least many I see you using are not documented on the manuals, and these options just don't exist on the launcher.
Hello, glad you are enjoying the videos and the Amiga. The MisterFPGA is a nice solution and closet you will get without real Amiga hardware. You can run WinUAE in Wine on Linux as I know what you mean about FS-UAE. It is good for alot of things but miss some features. Let me know what other types of software you would like to see on the Amiga
Great video. I loved the Amiga, had a 500+ and then a 1200. Can't help but imagine how things might have been different if Microsoft had made a version of Office for the Amiga. Could have looked better than both Mac and Windows versions at the time.
Yep, if Commodore management was different and more development we may of seen a different landscape but Microsoft and IBM PC would of been a big to battle anyway.
@@MikeyGRetro true. But given the headstart on technology Amiga had over the Mac, it's realistic to think Amiga could have gone on to best Apple and still be around today, most likely running arm based Amigas.
An excellent video! I've just subscribed as I love learning about Amiga productivity software. FinalCalc looks great... I may not have a reason to use my Amiga for productivity these days, but I could be tempted to use it for recording a simple catalogue of my games and systems.
I use Final Calc and you have to ask what functions Excel has that Final Calc does not which you absolutely need, not many I bet. For fairly advanced stuff Final Calc is all you need. If you are a very serious power user I would go back to Excel (Cannot abide google docs) Plus you get to use the Amiga (or emulation in my case) which is a far more pleasant way to work. Well done Mikey as always
I actually had a similar reason for wanting an Alphasmart of some model, something a little more spartan that doesn't have an addiction to the internet. For now, I have an old laptop whose WiFi adapter remains off and PyRoom on Linux for that purpose, but the additional battery life would be a diving save for any bouts of writer's block I might encounter.
I still use it for some personal data to keep track of some healtdata for myselv. Main reason I do it on the Amiga is that it is more enjoyable and that it is not cloud based (off course that could be done with libreoffice as well). It is fairly safe. inside a diskimage that is inside a encrypted home directory. :) Fun fact is that I was working on a video myself about this topic. did not plan to show them all. I will for sure link to your video in the description of mine when it is out.
Great series; thank you. I think on productivity software the graphical foundation of the Amiga really doesn't work. The resolution doesn't feel quite high enough (had an Amiga 500 back in the day) and the amount of CPU grunt to move the pixels about is a bit of a compromise. Even when scrolling, compared to today, you don't get smooth scrolling and I must admit back in the day when using a word processor the slowness of screen updates was just painful. The IBM PC in DOS was lightning quick when moving about a document, in text mode. Still, this is the charm of these computers now, where really the boundary was being constantly pushed and for the home user, it was the first time that we could get, on the cheap, amazing productivity applications. Unfortunately, I probably didn't appreciate what a spreadsheet could do for me...on the amiga I was probably too busy loading Civilisation.
Nice video. What amiga did you use to run the spreadsheet apps? 020 or 030 or smth else? Coz when you have 30 rows and a few columns, that should be fine but when you've got like 1000 rows and 100 colums...that might be a little problematic for Amiga, unless you've got PPC 240Mhz ...at least :D
Clearly shows that one of the most important features missing was... high resolution in at least 50 Hz built in latest when the A2000 was launched... Think of all the office suites and DTP that just happened on other systems because of that. 640x412 in at least 16 colors (out of 4.096) and 50 Hz would have been enough and then the A3000 shoud have trumped that with 1280x1024 (or similra)
Finalcalc flows better for general use and entry. Better in some ways than TurboCalc, although TurboCalc can deal with xls and other formats. The only other issue with TurboCalc is that it is written poorly and will not run on MorphOS without UAE where TurboCalc runs fine.
Hello, to answer your question, I will tell you that there is a great Amiga emulator for Nintendo 3ds that turns 3ds into a portable computer. And I want to have the equivalent of Word and Excel on it, so that I can work on a small computer while traveling. It looks very nice🙂
TurboCalc CD is on EAB, I know because I uploaded it in 2010... look for "TurboCalc_V5.0_Plus_Update_ADF" it's a great program and I used it frequently when I ran an eBay business. Really enjoying these serious Amiga videos... thank you for doing them and keep up the good work!
I used Final Calc (and Final Copy) up until the late 90s at home. I had heard of Maxiplan but never TurboCalc so seeing these here, even if 20 years after the fact is a lot of fun. Where did the time go?! Hey don't be so hard on Infospread, their example allowed nearly as much $$ for fun as rent. BTW I missed Analyze! it was the first spreadsheet I ever used, came out the Amiga's first year. Same company that published Scribble! and Online! I had 'em all. Please give Analyze! a try, it's automation demo is worth a watch alone. In another rant let me add that Final Calc had a 'solve for' function that was 'fantastic' at the debut (early 90s) and otherwise only to be found in Excel. They really put a lot of effort into the product. Under the heading of "What might have been." I'm really sorry Amiga never had native network support, that could have gotten more of them into offices with Macs and PCs, I know that's what I was thinking at the time were several people at our place were on Macs and network connectivity made that invisible. Capabilities was only what mattered. Thanks too for the details on printer setup (PDF) I've got a Superbase database I need a fresh print of, also from my Amiga dominant days.
Thanks for the info on Analyze! will be checking that out. It was a quick video so thought I'd be missing out some feature somewhere in Final Calc. Networking plus 3D graphics AAA chip would of giving the Amiga some fight but alas it wasn't to be. I want to cover Databases soon, Superbase is on my list as well as Interbase. If there are any database ones you want me to cover let me know.
Love this! I really enjoy using the old Amiga office docs. I use turbo calc but this has given me sone ideas for others to try! Thanks for uploading! I really hope they release an a500 maxi with keyboard as sadly, I sold my a1200 years ago.
Thanks for this. Most Amiga videos are game oriented and I never had any interest in games and demos. People do go on about hardware and such but for me looking back really what made the Amiga interesting was that it gave a taste of the Unix world with a GUI too. At that time we did not have the likes of Ubuntu. The Amiga combined a GUI with the power of multitasking and a rich command interface. Sadly it took until Workbench 2.04 to get something reasonably complete. It was a crash waiting to happen though with no memory protection or resource tracking. Now with PiStorm I am enjoying Amiga again.
What a splendid piece of video! I've been playing with Amiga spreadsheets for two years and Maxiplan proved to be enough for home budget balancing and recording expanses.
Brilliant again. I mainly used my Amiga for serious work oddly. Word processing and spreadsheets!!
Thank you for this series! I am Really lookin forward to the next videos!
My cousin got made redundant as a delivery driver from FedEx in the late 80s (when they withdrew from the UK). He setup his own business and I helped him setup running everything on Amiga using spreadsheet software. He used it for years before eventually moving to PC.
Really enjoying this series 👌
Mikey, In Maxiplan IV, I could wrote a macro to import a data table from Superbase and manipulate the data and then print it out. Macros worked well and it also did Charting and unlike Turbocalc it was all in English. I used it for several years until I had to switch to a PC at work.
In my opinion a very good Spreadsheet for home or small office use.
Thanks for your video
I never owned one, but I fell in love with the Amiga since I gave it a try out of curiosity on UAE. I also got well prepped with Workbench3.1 and Scalos on my MisterFpga. I am actually using it for day to day computing, so those videos are pure gold, as I am a noobie here and don't even know which software to use for basic stuff. Thank you for making those!. The only downside I discovered from your videos: I am using Linux, and Fs-UAE seems terribly lacking in options. At least many I see you using are not documented on the manuals, and these options just don't exist on the launcher.
Hello, glad you are enjoying the videos and the Amiga.
The MisterFPGA is a nice solution and closet you will get without real Amiga hardware.
You can run WinUAE in Wine on Linux as I know what you mean about FS-UAE. It is good for alot of things but miss some features.
Let me know what other types of software you would like to see on the Amiga
A free spreadsheet program in 1992, nice.
Great video. I loved the Amiga, had a 500+ and then a 1200. Can't help but imagine how things might have been different if Microsoft had made a version of Office for the Amiga. Could have looked better than both Mac and Windows versions at the time.
Yep, if Commodore management was different and more development we may of seen a different landscape but Microsoft and IBM PC would of been a big to battle anyway.
@@MikeyGRetro true. But given the headstart on technology Amiga had over the Mac, it's realistic to think Amiga could have gone on to best Apple and still be around today, most likely running arm based Amigas.
Never had an Amiga, but the machine was definitely capable of doing the office work. It was the time of WordPerfect and Lotus 123 under dos.
Thanks for this series. Enjoying it
An excellent video! I've just subscribed as I love learning about Amiga productivity software.
FinalCalc looks great... I may not have a reason to use my Amiga for productivity these days, but I could be tempted to use it for recording a simple catalogue of my games and systems.
I use Final Calc and you have to ask what functions Excel has that Final Calc does not which you absolutely need, not many I bet. For fairly advanced stuff Final Calc is all you need. If you are a very serious power user I would go back to Excel (Cannot abide google docs) Plus you get to use the Amiga (or emulation in my case) which is a far more pleasant way to work. Well done Mikey as always
I actually had a similar reason for wanting an Alphasmart of some model, something a little more spartan that doesn't have an addiction to the internet. For now, I have an old laptop whose WiFi adapter remains off and PyRoom on Linux for that purpose, but the additional battery life would be a diving save for any bouts of writer's block I might encounter.
I still use it for some personal data to keep track of some healtdata for myselv. Main reason I do it on the Amiga is that it is more enjoyable and that it is not cloud based (off course that could be done with libreoffice as well). It is fairly safe. inside a diskimage that is inside a encrypted home directory. :)
Fun fact is that I was working on a video myself about this topic. did not plan to show them all. I will for sure link to your video in the description of mine when it is out.
Great series; thank you. I think on productivity software the graphical foundation of the Amiga really doesn't work. The resolution doesn't feel quite high enough (had an Amiga 500 back in the day) and the amount of CPU grunt to move the pixels about is a bit of a compromise. Even when scrolling, compared to today, you don't get smooth scrolling and I must admit back in the day when using a word processor the slowness of screen updates was just painful. The IBM PC in DOS was lightning quick when moving about a document, in text mode. Still, this is the charm of these computers now, where really the boundary was being constantly pushed and for the home user, it was the first time that we could get, on the cheap, amazing productivity applications. Unfortunately, I probably didn't appreciate what a spreadsheet could do for me...on the amiga I was probably too busy loading Civilisation.
As a German, it is extremely interesting to see German files.
I used TurboCalc 5. Works fine, reads and saves xls.
Nice video. What amiga did you use to run the spreadsheet apps? 020 or 030 or smth else?
Coz when you have 30 rows and a few columns, that should be fine but when you've got like 1000 rows and 100 colums...that might be a little problematic for Amiga, unless you've got PPC 240Mhz ...at least :D
Me personally an Amiga 1200 no accelerator, back in the day so 020.
I remember cataloguing my coverdisks but it didn't go as far as 1000 rows.
Very Nice.
Clearly shows that one of the most important features missing was... high resolution in at least 50 Hz built in latest when the A2000 was launched... Think of all the office suites and DTP that just happened on other systems because of that. 640x412 in at least 16 colors (out of 4.096) and 50 Hz would have been enough and then the A3000 shoud have trumped that with 1280x1024 (or similra)
But can it run Crysis?
Finalcalc flows better for general use and entry. Better in some ways than TurboCalc, although TurboCalc can deal with xls and other formats. The only other issue with TurboCalc is that it is written poorly and will not run on MorphOS without UAE where TurboCalc runs fine.
Hello, to answer your question, I will tell you that there is a great Amiga emulator for Nintendo 3ds that turns 3ds into a portable computer. And I want to have the equivalent of Word and Excel on it, so that I can work on a small computer while traveling. It looks very nice🙂
It's not an "exciting" topic but interesting.... You should test out how usable the saved files are on Google docs or modern office
Ah your right, should of saved it as Excel 4 and tried it in Google Sheets. Maybe a follow up video in the future. :-)
TurboCalc CD is on EAB, I know because I uploaded it in 2010... look for "TurboCalc_V5.0_Plus_Update_ADF" it's a great program and I used it frequently when I ran an eBay business. Really enjoying these serious Amiga videos... thank you for doing them and keep up the good work!
I used Final Calc (and Final Copy) up until the late 90s at home. I had heard of Maxiplan but never TurboCalc so seeing these here, even if 20 years after the fact is a lot of fun. Where did the time go?! Hey don't be so hard on Infospread, their example allowed nearly as much $$ for fun as rent.
BTW I missed Analyze! it was the first spreadsheet I ever used, came out the Amiga's first year. Same company that published Scribble! and Online! I had 'em all. Please give Analyze! a try, it's automation demo is worth a watch alone. In another rant let me add that Final Calc had a 'solve for' function that was 'fantastic' at the debut (early 90s) and otherwise only to be found in Excel. They really put a lot of effort into the product.
Under the heading of "What might have been." I'm really sorry Amiga never had native network support, that could have gotten more of them into offices with Macs and PCs, I know that's what I was thinking at the time were several people at our place were on Macs and network connectivity made that invisible. Capabilities was only what mattered.
Thanks too for the details on printer setup (PDF) I've got a Superbase database I need a fresh print of, also from my Amiga dominant days.
Thanks for the info on Analyze! will be checking that out.
It was a quick video so thought I'd be missing out some feature somewhere in Final Calc.
Networking plus 3D graphics AAA chip would of giving the Amiga some fight but alas it wasn't to be.
I want to cover Databases soon, Superbase is on my list as well as Interbase. If there are any database ones you want me to cover let me know.