by iamthepieman on 12/27/24, 3:04 AM
I had print shop as a 10-15 year old and made all my own and many of my families birthday, anniversary and Christmas cards with it. I was the "computer guy" in my household and was therefore entrusted with this duty. I also printed advertisements for lawn mowing services, jewelry my brother and I made and sold in consignment shops, lost dogs for neighbors, playbills, schedules, wedding invitations. All printed on a dot matrix printer.
Printshop and early computer magazines with two-three pages of examples code I would type into qbasic are the reason I'm in this career.
by JohnBooty on 12/27/24, 1:17 PM
If you weren't around during this era, it's absolutely impossible to understand what a killer app Print Shop was.
It was like a... like a meta killer app.
It was available on all major platforms so it wasn't a killer app for one platform; it was like a killer app for HOME COMPUTING IN GENERAL at a time when regular people still weren't exactly sure wtf these newfangled machines were good for.
Sure, everybody knew you could play games on computers, but you could also do that on a $100 Atari VCS that in some ways outperformed a $2,000 Apple II setup. You could do spreadsheets, but honestly most people didn't know what spreadsheets were. You could do word processing, which was obviously pretty useful, but early word processors didn't even have things like spell checking and it wasn't immediately obvious that they were that much better than just using a typewriter and a bottle of correction fluid.
But Print Shop?
It was brilliantly easy to use, and the ability to print out signs -- and banners! -- was just revelatory. Even the 62 year-old secretary in primary school could use it, and she absolutely did.
It's a strong contender for the most influential home computing app of all time, and it has zero peers in terms of how underrated/overlooked it is in the history of home computing.
by maremmano on 12/27/24, 3:25 AM
For those interested in PrintMaster (often dismissed as a PrintShop copycat, though I disagree with this) there are preserved examples on:
https://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?i...
The relationship between these programs is quite fascinating, as it led to legal action between Brøderbund (PrintShop) and Mindscape (PrintMaster).
Interesting passage from the case:
For example, in the "Custom Layout" screen of "Print Shop," the user is instructed to press the "Return" key on the Apple keyboard. Similarly, in the "Custom Layout" screen of "Printmaster," the user is instructed to press the "Return" key on the IBM keyboard. Actually, the IBM keyboard contains no "Return" key, only an "Enter" key. Lodge admitted that Unison's failure to change "Return" to "Enter" was a result of its programmers' intense concentration on copying
Print Shop
by glimshe on 12/27/24, 1:07 AM
One of the most useful pieces of software of all time. You couldn't go far without seeing a mini banner made in Print Shop.
by accrual on 12/27/24, 3:01 AM
I remember playing around with Print Shop Deluxe on my parent's PC in the early 90s. I don't recall the hardware, but it may have been either an XT clone or a 286/386. I was too young to remember what it was.
We had a dot matrix printer too and oh did I enjoy printing out the various included graphics and peeling the perforated strips off the edges so I could show the results to everyone. The palm tree graphics were my favorite.
WinWorldPC has a nice collection if anyone is itching to fire up an 86Box VM to revisit the software:
https://winworldpc.com/product/the-print-shop/deluxe-win
by superultra on 12/27/24, 1:19 AM
Loved The Print Shop but was an even bigger fan of The Newsroom, which I used in elementary school to publish an underground gossip rag with a circulation of dozens. Dozens!
by pupppet on 12/27/24, 2:18 AM
We had this in our elementary school lab in the mid 80's, I remember every other boy using this to print something along the lines of "No girls allowed" to put on their bedroom doors.
by MPSimmons on 12/27/24, 12:53 AM
Print Shop is what we used in my 1994 elementary school "special topics" class to do the student newspaper. One of the factoids was like, "the world record for balancing golf balls on top of each other is 8" and the person making that part of the paper inserted and visually stacked all 8 golf balls, and I remember thinking, "this is so cool!"
What a world!
by 51Cards on 12/27/24, 1:41 AM
At the time the computer store I worked for sold countless copies of Print Shop. We also had a service at our store where we would lay out and print banners for people. I think it was one of the first tools that got people to consider their PC could be used for more than word processing... that practical graphics were in reach of the average home user.
by blooalien on 12/27/24, 4:49 AM
I burned out my Epson 9 pin dot matrix printer using this program on Apple ][+ back in the day (literally worked the poor thing to death), and had to upgrade to a 24 pin Epson compatible printer (made by "Star") that ended up bein' worth every thin dime. Burned out a 9 cent (at the local Radio Shack) heat-sink transistor in that printer runnin' it during a thunderstorm to finish up a big print job I needed done before morning. Fun times! Ah, the nostalgia... :)
by NBJack on 12/27/24, 1:48 AM
Whoa. People remember this thing.
I recall doing as much as I could with my Apple //c and a dot matrix printer. My art skills were crap, but that didn't stop me. Browsing the border styles, trying to use the custom.. something.. mode where you could make graphics yourself.
I think I even got a color ribbon for the printer once!
by mrbluecoat on 12/27/24, 2:22 AM
> sitting in McDonald’s eating your Big Mac alone, plotting your revenge against Hallmark for engineering the single greatest extortion racket in the history of rackets
Having sent off a rediculous number of stamped Christmas cards last week, I can completely empathize!
by tumnus on 12/27/24, 3:22 AM
The humor doesn't quite hit - it feels a little over-aggressive and not clever, but the details in the article are accurate and well organized.
by ofrzeta on 12/27/24, 6:12 AM
Maybe it's not obvious that this site actually contains an emulated version of The Print Shop on its homepage
https://theprintshop.club It includes an emulated printer that prints to a PDF, so you can even print the produced artifact on a 21th century printer.
by JohnicBoom on 12/27/24, 1:08 AM
I had The Print Shop Deluxe and remember thinking it was the future, and that we woull all be making our own holiday cards, signs, etc. in no time. Every holiday, I'm amazed that everyone I know (including me) is now back to using store-bought cards. I was surprised to just find out that there is a modern version, though it is Windows-only.
by StanislavPetrov on 12/27/24, 2:33 AM
Print Shop will forever remain burned in my memory of that era along with Zork, Wizardry and Bank Street Writer.
by eesmith on 12/27/24, 5:49 AM
by grahamj on 12/27/24, 2:30 AM
ha I used to love Print Shop on our Apple ][ clone. I can still hear my (dad's) old 80s tractor-fed dot matrix buzzing out whatever my young mind thought up. Signs for my bedroom door and breakfast in bed menus as examples.
by maremmano on 12/27/24, 3:07 AM
Woah! Print shop and PrintMaster was awesome on IBM AT with EGA or, maybe VGA (I don't remember exactly). I remember I was selling prints in my school back then.
by ryao on 12/27/24, 4:55 AM
I used to use this program when I was young. Then I lost one of the art disks and started using it less out of disappointment.
by sedatk on 12/27/24, 1:09 AM
The Print Shop and Bannermania have been extremely popular in Turkey in the 80’s and 90’s.
by block_dagger on 12/27/24, 3:07 AM
The Print Shop is one of the first pieces of software I ever used. I was nine years old. My parents had bought me a used Apple IIe and dot matrix printer. Included were ~200 5.25" floppy disks containing random software, many of them games. I ended up using The Print Shop more than anything else (except Dig Dug). It was very user friendly. I still have vivid and fond memories of the printer whining away late at night, slowly spewing out my graphical creations. Many thanks to the developers!
by buildsjets on 12/27/24, 3:09 AM
Sooo many thank-you notes written with this software during my childhood.
by calebio on 12/27/24, 3:19 AM
Mostly unrelated but did anyone else use FlamingText.com in the early 2000s?
by drweevil on 12/27/24, 3:24 AM
Brøderbund. Now there’s a name I haven’t seen in decades. Thanks for the blast from the past!