一款来自 1990 年代的 Atari ST/TOS 文本处理器,至今仍受到爱好者支持。
A word processor from 1990s for Atari ST/TOS is still supported by enthusiasts

原始链接: https://tempus-word.de/en/index

尽管是20世纪90年代的产品,Tempus-Word在2023年仍然拥有一小批忠实用户。这款最初为Atari开发的文字处理器在当时非常先进,尤其擅长处理包含大量脚注的复杂大型文档——即使是现代程序也难以胜任。 虽然不再积极维护(最后版本发布于2004年),并且现在通过模拟器运行,但Tempus-Word对于那些在软件中建立长期项目的用户来说仍然至关重要。该网站继续存在以支持这些用户,提供5.4版本的免费许可,并协助导出旧文件。 然而,开发者承认Tempus-Word在现代操作系统中是一个“异物”,并劝阻新用户采用它,理由是重新开发成本高昂,并且有LibreOffice和OpenOffice等当代替代品。该网站主要用于为现有用户保留访问权限,以便他们维护或迁移其工作。

## 复古文字处理器依然活跃 爱好者们仍在积极支持Tempus-Word,这是一款最初于1990年代为Atari ST创作的文字处理器(tempus-word.de)。Hacker News上的讨论反映了对那个时代制作精良、高效软件的怀旧之情,并引发了与WriteNow和XyWrite等程序的比较。 用户们回忆起旧系统上强大的生产力软件——尽管硬件有限,但往往超越了现代软件的能力。许多人表达了希望将这些程序移植到现代平台,如树莓派的愿望。人们对Microsoft Word和Google Docs等现代文字处理器缺乏旧软件中的功能,或变得臃肿和设计不良表示担忧。 Tempus-Word NG因其独特的數據结构而能够高效处理大型文档,并具有集成数据库和自动排版等功能。对话还涉及其他经典的Atari软件,如Script II和Signum!,展示了围绕该平台的充满活力的创作场景。Tempus-Word的开发者继续维护该软件,甚至提供付费许可,而不是将其开源。
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原文

Why this website (still) exists…

Even in the year 2023 there are still people who mourn Tempus-Word. Those who deal a little with word processors can - possibly - understand that. Because Tempus-Word was very far ahead of its time in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the people responsible at that time had created a visionary software, but reality caught up with it: With the demise of Atari, the market for Tempus Word died. It was technologically very closely linked to the computer and its operating system. True, it can still be run today (2023) with emulators on Windows and Mac computers. But due to the advancement in the field of operating systems and technologies, the program - used in this way - is a foreign body that has fallen out of time.

However, there are some very long-running text projects that still work with Tempus Word. The reason for this is that there is hardly any modern word processor that allows smooth work in thousand-page documents with footnotes over several pages (!!) without complaint and without noticeable delay - despite emulation (!). If you need that, you can overlook some of the optical and technical shortcomings.

Active product maintenance was discontinued almost two decades ago, but we still receive requests for updates of old versions to the "current" one (from 2004…). Or old texts should be exported, but the program for it is missing.

For whatever reason you may need this or whatever you (still) want to do with Tempus-Word: You can request a free license for version 5.4 from us. It may take a while for us to get back to you and we will need your full address details to create a license file.

For these cases, there is still this website, if those interested want to download the latest version of Tempus-Word or just indulge in a bit of history.

Tempus Word 5.4 will be "the last version""

In the early 1990s Tempus Word was developed for the Atari. In 2003 former employees and users found together, to exceed the life cycle of the product by using an emulator.

In spite of the fact, that some of the features of Tempus-Word are still outstanding with today´s point of view: it is a program developed for GEM an therefore it represents a foreign body on newer operating systems. I new development for those OS has to face the fact of enormous costs for that and the acknowledgement, that the world has rotated over the years and new products were born, for example Libre- or OpenOffice, and several other more or less specialized software solutions, where Tempus-Word would need to find its place between.

This ist the reason, because "current version 5.40" very likely will be the last version of Tempus-Word. We have to advice against buying it as a new customer on this behave. Updates are only of interest to former users who need to preserve existing documents in their original printing. The trial version offered here, allows to export existing documents as an RTF file. Special properties will be lost, but you will save the content for further processing.

Norbert Simon, November 2023
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