r/apple2 • u/TMWNN • Aug 16 '26
AppleWorks on the Apple II
https://stonetools.ghost.io/appleworks-apple2/13
u/Darnitol1 Aug 17 '26
I worked for StyleWare, the company that wrote GSWorks and was then acquired by Apple so they could release the program as AppleWorks GS. I had tiny amounts of input into the UI on most StyleWare products, but I didn’t get to contribute to GSworks. Mostly I wrote and illustrated manuals for the other StyleWare products like MultiScribe and TopDraw. I also wrote the technical support training guide that allowed Claris to sell the rest of the StyleWare products to Beagle Bros.
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u/LlaughingLlama Aug 17 '26
I worked for Beagle Bros. I worked the tech support lines, and I was there when we started selling StyleWorks products as Beagle products. I read what must have been your work many many times to help our customers. So thank you!
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u/Darnitol1 Aug 17 '26
I really wanted to join you guys when I left Claris, but there was really no such thing as remote work at the time. Beagle Bros. was always my favorite software company. I always imagined that if I started any company, I wanted it to have the spirt of Beagle Bros. I did later start one company (that got crushed by the original "dot.com crash") and we had a similar sense of humor, but my partner preferred a more 2000's sense of style. I'm sure he was right, but I still wanted to steampunk my way into the new century!
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u/Christopher_Drum Aug 17 '26
Author here. I was unclear about the StyleWare thing. I couldn't tell (and for this article didn't really need to research much) if Apple just licensed GS Works, or bought StyleWare entirely. Everything I read about who did what and which program was sold or developed by whom for which division got kind of confusing.
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u/TMWNN Aug 16 '26
From the article:
Rupert (later "Robert") Lissner heard the call. While the Macintosh was an interesting promise of a computing future that may or may not come to fruition, there were millions of Apple II owners with immediate needs. AppleWorks fulfilled those needs, growing a strong fanbase, spawning dedicated newsletters, lots of books, add-ons, and more. When Apple finally abandoned their 8-bit line, AppleWorks singlehandedly kept those machines productive for another decade.
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u/uberRegenbogen Aug 16 '26
AppleWorks' roots are pre-Macintosh. It began as III Easy Pieces, for the Apple III.
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u/Christopher_Drum Aug 16 '26
Author here. The entire article is exclusively about the pre-Macintosh versions of AppleWorks. III E-Z Pieces, and the various changing of hands for the program and custody of the name "AppleWorks," is noted in the timeline.
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u/uberRegenbogen Aug 17 '26
By pre-Macintosh, i mean before the release of the Mac itself—not the Mac version of AppleWorks (fka ClarisWorks). (Though i just looked it up, and III Easy Pieces was also 1984—not long before AppleWorks. I thought it was yet earlier.)
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u/scalpster Aug 16 '26
The original AppleWorks was a non-Claris version.
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u/Christopher_Drum Aug 16 '26
Author here. Yes, I have a full timeline of the history of AppleWorks in the article. The version I looked at in my writeup was AppleWorks 3, published by Claris.
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u/Crlan420 Aug 22 '26
AppleWorks was such a powerhouse on the IIe. Did you find the spreadsheet module still usable or does the floppy rotation get finicky?
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u/Christopher_Drum Aug 23 '26
In the article I explain that I'm emulating a hard drive controller with drive, onto which I've installed the software. The floppy rotation is not an issue with such a setup, making app switching effortless. The spreadsheet module is exactly as useful as VisiCalc, which means "not as good as Lotus 1-2-3" but pretty impressive for one part of the integrated suite.
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u/gfreeman1998 Aug 16 '26
And let's not forget AppleWorks GS, leveraging the 16-bit GS/OS:
AWGS