Clares "Tempest" DTP

I was looking at something I’d written a while back, which made me remember that there were supposed to be four DTP packages for the Archimedes – namely Acorn’s own, Impression, Ovation, and Tempest.

It looks like it was advertised around early 1990 (?) to cost £90. Some people have mentioned a demo version.

Then it completely vanished.

[cue the X-Files theme]

Does anybody know what happened? I can imagine that a lot of work and investment must have gone into creating it (David Pilling implies that it took about a year and a half to bring Ovation to being), so it seems weird that it is done to the point of being demonstrable, and then abandoned…?

Does anybody know if the demo disc is available, or screenshots?

I’m just wondering how it would have compared against the others.

I’ve got a copy on floppy here somewhere, along with a letter from Clares outlining the issues and delays. I’ll see if I can dig them out and then see if I can load up the floppy somehow, for a few screenshots.

Wow, I never thought this made it beyond an advert, to be honest. Would definitely be interested in seeing what it looked like.

Wasn’t all the Clares stuff part of the David Holden estate and presumably with Aaron now?
Might be a set of source there. Given the antiquity that would be more historical curiosity I suppose.

Okay, I fired up the RiscStation to get to the floppy, and after being appalled by the super slow speed of the RiscStation, I transferred it to RPCEmu running RISC OS 6! Surprisingly it just worked!

So, here are a few screenshots and other ephemera:

Prior to opening the Tempest folder:

Once the window is opened, Tempest changes the IconSprites to, I guess, era specific variants:

It also bungs a TinyDir onto the icon bar… We should probably remember this is RISC OS 2:

Initial window:

Menu Options:

A sample document template:

One of the example documents:

Another example document, outlining how Frames work:

In use as a DTP programme:

A text file that can be dropped into a frame (you can’t type into them directly! You have to drop the text in, it seems…):

The explanatory letter that came with the disc:

And a Disc image! :-)

Overall, it feels so much more like AcornDTP than say, Ovation or Impression. To be fair, the letter actually says that, in a roundabout sort of way. Consider it AcornDTP Pro, in that respect.

It’s very clunky, but hasn’t crashed yet. Given that it’s 30-odd years old, though, I won’t be using it much!

Clearly, I can make the disc image available for historical purposes, if anyone would like it and no-one objects?

Yes, I’d like to fire up Archie and give it a whirl.

And well done for being able to lay your hands on an obscure thirty year old letter!

Tempest changes the IconSprites

Naughty!

It also bungs a TinyDir onto the icon bar… We should probably remember this is RISC OS 2:

Wasn’t it 3 that introduced TinyDirs?

you can’t type into them directly! You have to drop the text in, it seems…

Ah, very much in the style of Acorn DTP.

I see from your letter that they appear to have given up on that nonsense and gone for a more WYSIWYG style (akin to Impression and Ovation). I’m sure you can imagine the magazine reviews of a DTP package that didn’t match Impression…I dimly recall reading one of Ovation that was quite unkind, and unjustified given the primary point seemed to be “it’s not Impression therefore it sucks”.

Perhaps the amount of rewrites necessary to do the editing that way was just too much to continue with the project?

Yes, I’d like to fire up Archie and give it a whirl.

Yahoo! ;-)

(I was looking at something I’d written a while back, which made me remember that there were supposed to be four DTP packages for the Archimedes – namely Acorn’s own, Impression, Ovation, and Tempest.)

There was also ‘Textease’ by Softease I think.

I still use it today on Windows occasionally.

There was also “First Page” by Longman Logotron (?), not sure when that appeared. Textease was quite a late-comer IIRC.

Perhaps the amount of rewrites necessary to do the editing that way was just too much to continue with the project?

Quite possible. I remember a fairly extended version history of Impression, where only near the end the creators mentioned that they finally had succeeded in placing the caret properly!

I don’t remember First Page (or do I… murky memory), but there was certainly Pendown DTP later on from Longman, steming from their Pendown/Pendown+ education WP programs. I’m wondering if there was some connection there.