[Blindapple] Interesting Textalker discoveries

[Tony Baechler]

Yes, your theory makes sense as far as it goes, but it still doesn't seem
right to me.  I can accept no 2.x releases, but I still think it's weird
that there would be a gap of four years between 1.3 and 3.1 with no 3.0 in
between.  Even if we say that 2.x never really existed, that doesn't explain
the jump to 3.1 without a 3.0 version.  With Bex, that's most likely because
Braille Edit came first and Bex was simply a rewrite and continuation of
that product, at least from my understanding.  Apparently there was a
Braille Edit 2.5 which was a kind of transition release between 2.45 and Bex
2.X, designed for people to export their old files to the new Bex format.

On 11/8/2013 3:55 PM, Jayson Smith wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have a theory, and it's just that, a theory. According to BEX newsletters,
> the version numbering for BEX was a bit nonstandard. First there was an
> early beta which was version 1.0, and then a later beta which was 1.5.
> Neither of these versions seems to have survived. The first public version
> was 2.0. If Street did much the same thing, it's possible that Textalker 2.X
> versions were internal or private betas, and were never publicly released.
> That would explain why no copies of Textalker 2.X seem to exist, at least
> none that we've been able to find.
> 
> A similar thing happened with Apple DOS. Apparently, when the developer
> turned over his copy of DOS to Apple, the version number he was using was
> 2.8. Apple decided they couldn't release something called DOS 2.8, so they
> bumped it up to 3.0 for the beta release, and 3.1 for the initial public
> release.
> Jayson
> 
> On 11/8/2013 2:45 PM, Tony Baechler wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Before anyone asks, I'm sorry, but I can't share the disk images.  I have
>> been asked not to do so and I respect the person's wishes.  He is on this
>> list and can choose to share them if he wishes.  He gave them to me along
>> with a lot of other material from a business who developed accessible
>> software.
>>
>> I was looking at some old disks of software for the blind and made a few
>> interesting discoveries.  First, a while ago, people have asked about
>> putting multiple versions of Textalker on one disk.  I can confirm that yes,
>> it can be done.  You will have four files, textalker.ram and textalker.obj
>> for 3.1.X and textalker.whatever and textalker.ram.obj for version 1.3,
>> replacing ".whatever" with something unique.  The particular disks called it
>> textalker.plus.  I was able to confirm that versions 1.3 and 3.1.2 can
>> happily coexist on a disk together.  I'm not exactly sure why they did it
>> that way, but there you go.
>>
>> Secondly, I found an old version of Textalker not yet on any of the
>> available disk images.  It's 3.1 and doesn't have the APH copyright.  I
>> remember using 3.1.1 a long time ago, but I've never seen anything between
>> 1.3 and 3.1.1 until now.  I find 3.1 interesting because it was the last
>> version released by Street Electronics before APH took over development.  In
>> both versions 3.1 and 3.1.1, speech doesn't stop when a key is pressed.
>> That was a new feature added in 3.1.2, but other than that, I don't know
>> what else changed.  Version 3.1 is dated 1985 while 3.1.1 and on are dated
>> 1986 or later by APH.
>>
>> As I said, I can't actually share these disks due to a request not to do so,
>> but they're out there.  Perhaps someone should compile a Textalker museum or
>> something.  I'm still looking for the illusive 2.X if it exists.  I find it
>> hard to believe that no development was done between 1981 with 1.3 and 1985
>> with 3.1 and that 3.0 doesn't exist out there.  Ah well, the search goes on.
>>
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>>
> 
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-- 
Have a good day,
Tony Baechler
tony at baechler.net