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I've been looking for the DOS menu/program launcher software I used as a kid for years, hoping someone here might have some ideas. The problem is I never wrote down the manufacturer name as a kid and the machine was long gone before I got interested in looking for it.
There are a few things that can tell you to see if they jog any ideas:
It was a blue background with white or yellow text
It definitely supported a main menu with submenus
I believe that the menus and programs were identified with letters you would press A) B) etc. instead of numbers like many of the menuing software used
There was no mouse support (we're talking much older than that) or any faux windowing/tiling, etc. it was just a series of "flat" screens
It used ASCII characters to create borders (double line borders, not singles)
I believe, though am not certain, that function keys were used to go into menu editing mode, about screen, etc. and that these were listed at the bottom of the main menu screen, possibly in a separate ASCII drawn box
I believe the about screen had a logo which took up a good part of the screen which was an equilateral triangle drawn out of ASCII blocks (possibly with a circular hole in the center) I'm pretty sure these logo blocks at least were in yellow
This would have been out by 1987ish at least I would say
That's what I can think of for now. Any ideas are appreciated, I know it's not a lot to go on, one of those things I'll know it if I see it...
is it Da5 you are looking for? direct access 5 its a menu system that can be run in dos.
also you can edit the startup logo to the way you want it but only in 8 or 16bit if I remember
it was good for its time
I have 2 types
Disk01 img file
Disk01 iso file
if need be I can make a boot cd with dos 6.22 and with windows 3.11 and da5
it will also work on windows 95 have never tested it under 98
or you can get it then make your own changes to it to the way you want it.
im on cb/ham radio you can get hold of me on skip days/night 41LWC407 41 is section new zealand and LWC407 is my call sig on 27.385 mhz and thats chn 38
Excellent! I'm pretty sure that's it, well close to it anyway. You set me on the right path. DA5 didn't look quite right, but closer than anything else I've seen. What I was able to find out based on that bit of information though is that Fifth Generation Systems, actually acquired the system from original developer Delta Technology International Inc. This information led me to this advertisement for DA5 which shows the original Delta Technology International logo, which is exactly as I remember it in the menu system. I'm pretty sure we had an older version... 4.x or probably even earlier given this was DOS 3.3 on an 8088 system from 1985. Now to track down a copy of it to play around with...
im on cb/ham radio you can get hold of me on skip days/night 41LWC407 41 is section new zealand and LWC407 is my call sig on 27.385 mhz and thats chn 38
Thanks, I found 5.0 and 5.1 on the BA FTP site too. After playing with them a bit this is definitely the software we used, but it was definitely an earlier version (probably 4.0, maybe 4.1). I'm going to keep my eyes open for earlier versions. If anyone else runs across them please let me know.