Retro Finds of the Week! (Vol. 2)
August 28 - September 3, 2022
Back in early August I shared an article featuring a collection of retro tech that I’d stumbled upon that week. Well, since then I’ve been too busy to really go looking for anything like that but I did take my kids to our local library this week. It was my first time going to that library since moving here so I wanted to try and find my favorite sections — the tech, religion, and history sections. The latter two didn’t have much of interest, but man, that tech section had a time capsule of new millennium learning! Let me show you the good stuff!
Somebody was learning MS Office
First up we have a few books in the Step by Step series. These appeared to have been published in 2001 and were course books for learning the ins and outs of some of the apps in the Professional version of Microsoft Office. For the uninitiated:
PowerPoint is the program for creating presentation slide shows.
FrontPage was a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor for creating websites. It was discontinued in Office 2007.
Access is Microsoft’s entry-level database software. It’s not really fit for enterprise use (one of the SQL server applications would be better), but it’s bundled with MS Office Professional, and is useful for basic database needs.
Continuing down the Office rabbit hole we have easy Microsoft Office Excel 2003! And it’s in full color! Fun fact: I found a copy of this listed on Amazon for almost $500. I guess the market for learning Excel 2003 is insane right now…
MCSE Cert Guide
Someone must have been looking for that IT promotion back in the day — and check out that Windows 2000 logo in the corner. Beautiful!
Web 1.0 Design Books
Moving away from the Microsoft world, we find a gateway into late 90’s web design with The Non-Designer’s Web Book and Easy Web Graphics.
Lovable Penguin Books
It’s always nice to find Linux books in libraries. Years ago when I first started using Linux I didn’t have internet at home so I had to rely on these kinds of guides to learn the basics and some of the more intermediate concepts, and while I may not need them these days it might be worth going through to see what things were like with Linux back in the early days. First up is Everyday Linux by Kathy Miles and Ethan Metsger.
I love the list of “leading Linux applications” on the cover:
StarOffice: the predecessor of OpenOffice.org which was later forked to give us the venerable LibreOffice that comes default on so many distros today.
WordPerfect: Did you know that we had a Linux release of WordPerfect? WordPerfect 8, to be exact. Well I sure didn’t. Shoot, I didn’t even know WordPerfect was still around, but it sure is! And just look at it, in it’s blocky, late 90’s goodness.
Next up we have a book that gave me a sensible chuckle. I didn’t bother looking inside, but I did end up finding a copy on Amazon for about $5 USD and the reviews seemed promising. Maybe I’ll check it out next time I’m at the library.
Some Vintage Apple Goodness
These two jumped out at me for two reasons. The first was a book for using an iMac. I could tell it was old based on the spine font alone. Note the use of the old Apple Garamond which was used on desktops, laptops, and even the early iPods in the mid-90’s through the early 2000’s.
The last find was probably the coolest, in my opinion, and is likely one that I’ll be checking out at some point in the near future. The Macintosh Bible is a monster of a book and features some very 90’s graphics on the front cover. The main reason I’m interested in this one is the level of detail I noticed while flipping through a bit on the sections covering Mac OS 9, which I am running on my PowerMac G3 Blue & White.
Final Thought
Overall this was a fun trip to the library. You’ll usually find at least some tech books at any library — some sections bigger than others — but they do tend to try to keep up somewhat. This small town library, however, clearly doesn’t care about that and I’m here for it.