Popular Computing Weekly reported our short-lived venture into business software on 28 November 1985. Ski Writer was a word processor written by one Ken Skier and had been released in the USA by Prentice-Hall. (There are magazine references to a Ski Writer II at this time as well). I tested it before release on the C64 and in so far as that computer was capable of doing worthwhile word processing (not much) the product was ok. I don’t think we ever did release it on cassette and the disk sales, not surprisingly, were poor, amounting to about 1000 units. We learned the lesson and avoided business software from then on, apart from releasing Compact Office for the Spectrum in October 1987.
I am indebted to Mat Corne for the scan of the box of Ski Writer, the disk and the keyboard overlay, and to Matthew Younce, who had the program on his Apple IIc, for the image of the US version of the floppy disk.
I always wondered why it was called Ski Writer so that makes sense now.
This did come out on cassette. Let me know if you want photos of that I have it. Side 1 of the tape is labelled Ski Writer and side 2 is Help Files.
Slightly contrary to Anthony’s thought in this article, Ski Writer definitely was released on cassette for Commodore 64 – I’ve got a copy! (In fact, it’s the disc version I still need to find…and I’ve never yet seen an Apple II edition.)
Although now I look at the pictures properly…I see the C64 & Apple II disc is one and the same thing.
I can’t remember if my copy is cassette or disk (or If I’ve actually got both versions!) but there’s also a database that was licensed for re-release as well, not counting the Office set that came out for the Spectrum.
OK, I was wrong about it being on cassette. My only memory of using it was with the disc version.