What is the oldest application you use?

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 13, 2017 at 05:18 PM

xtabber wrote:
>If you want to try Kedit, the demo version will only save the first 75
>lines of a file, but is otherwise fully functional, and full
>documentation can be downloaded from the web site.

A word of caution from the developers http://kedit.com/features.ia1.html

“Before you spend time learning about KEDIT for Windows, you should be aware of the current status of the product:

- Mansfield Software Group is no longer actively working on major upgrades of KEDIT, and we are in the process of gradually winding the company down. For these reasons, we generally do not recommend KEDIT to new users or organizations not already familiar with the program.

- However, because organizations that already use KEDIT, as well as KEDIT users who change jobs, etc., may have a continuing need for additional KEDIT licenses, we plan to continue selling KEDIT through our web site until at least the end of 2017.

- We plan to provide e-mail technical support for KEDIT, on a part-time basis, until at least June 2018.”

(For once, I have an effective reason to control my CRIMP tendencies.)

Re line-aware editors, if I properly understand the desired features, you may want to check out Em Editor https://www.emeditor.com/ It can sort lines, recognise and manipulate CSV files, and much more. It is lighting fast and regularly developed. The main downside is that it recently switched to a subscription model (which only influences updates). There is a lifetime subscription though.

Many thanks for the heads up on John McPhee’s book from me as well; I’m sure it will be worth reading even beyond Kedit.

On the broader subject of legacy software, my understanding was that the original question, at the start of this thread, referred to software that has _not_ been updated. In this context, I can’t help thinking of Visicalc, the spreadsheet introduced for the IBM PC in 1981 (it was originally developed for Apple II in 1979). It can still be downloaded and will run happily in contemporary Windows http://www.bricklin.com/visicalc.htm

I find this brilliant and, by the way, I’m sure I read about this here some time ago.