Software Person ???

[Gino]

I’m not sure if this is the correct topic, but it’s as close as I can figure.
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As stated in another thread, in our shop, we use ANAgraph [ANA], along with many other programs to produce signs.
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We’re rather good with ANA and have had it in use since 1987 on several computers.
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We’re in need of someone that is considered an expert on an ANA system. We’re involved with a legal matter and our own input is not considered ‘Kosher’, since it was our equipment involved. %^$#@*%$ LAWYERS. Anyway, we need someone that is rather familiar when ANA was still going from v2.0 to v3.0 and then to v3.5. This procedure took place around 1995, when ANA was upgrading and going strong. This was when CD readers were just coming on the scene. Our main computer at the time was a Pentium- 90 MHz. Our issue in this matter is the speed of computers/software/CD readers and it’s actual speed for downloading fonts, graphics and jobs at the speed then vs. what everyone thinks of in today’s terms as speed. Almost everything we did back then was done virtually with 5-1/4” floppies. Okay, so we now all know the speed of things [or lack of].
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We’re explaining a timeframe in which it took to download all kinds of files at P90 speed from 5-1/4” floppies. Remember, the Internet was only in its infancy stages and wasn’t really being used by too many people other than ‘Al Gore’ [couldn’t resist that one]. You couldn’t get CD’s w/1,000 fonts for $129. and load them in a few minutes. There were eight or nine fonts on a big floppy and it had to be loaded into ‘Classic 2’… converted to 3.0… then converted to 3.5 and each font had to go through a complete loading process which was available through ANA only. I realize today it is much different and we do it in seconds, but no one seems to remember how cumbersome and time consuming it really was ten, eleven twelve years ago… especially the other side.
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So if anyone is… or knows of someone that we could contact to represent us as an ‘Expert’ we’d love to talk to them.
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Thanks…
Gino


PS.. contacting the new company representing ANAgraph will not work, due to none of them know or understand the older systems... nor speak 'English'.

 

[Checkers]

Good luck there Gino!
IMHO, your best bet is to try to find an old system that still has the same hardware and software set up and do a live demo.
No questions asked, the internet transfers information a lot faster now. But, from what I recall, the limit back then was the data connection on the server end.
Back in the mid 90's they had 56k modems and I recall connection speeds averaged between 14.4k and 28.8k. But, if you used a modem that had a maximum connection speed of 9600 baud rate, or the server on the other end was restricted you were pretty much screwed.

Checkers

 

[Fred Weiss]

Back in the day Gino, we sold a software collection in which we supported a number of signmaking file formats including Anagraph by providing the files preconverted to the native format of each program.. When Design Art 3.0 was released, it was not forward compatible with their own version 2 files ... something I had never seen before or since.

You had to convert the files with a separate utility into 3.0 format. The problem we had was that we supplied our files on CD-ROM and the idiots at Anagraph designed their utility to overwrite the files instead of allowing you to choose a destination directory on your hard drive or, better yet, import them and convert them in the process. Since you can't overwrite files on a CD-ROM, this meant that the user had to copy the files to their hard drive to convert them and use them. If you consider, as you already have, the available hard drive space and average skill set of a computer user in 1995, you will recognize the tech support problem that caused for us.

Needless to say, we do not think much of the Anagraph product or the company that developed it.

 

[geb]

Not much good to say about the Ana software here. I started after the period you mention with the software. I did enjoy using 3.5 when I started using computers, but the upgrade to 2000 was a big disappointment, and tech support tried, but never solved the issues we had with their software.

George