Dan Bricklin

This is the User Manual for Dan Bricklin's PageGarden, a printing utility program. It facilitates printing on Hewlett Packard LaserJet printers. (The preceding declarative sentences are too understated to give PageGarden software and documentation their just due. These sentences should be printed in boldface and 72-pt type!)

PageGarden is a DOS program written for an IBM PC, AT, PS/2 or 100% IBM-compatible PC. Minimum requirements include DOS 2.0 or later, 256KB RAM, and at least one 3. 5" floppy disk drive. The software works with HP LaserJet Plus, HP LaserJet series II, HP LaserJet HD, and 100% compatible laser printers.

This program was first released in 1989. Alas, it quickly dropped into obscurity. People were becoming satisfied with WYSIWYG word processing applications. They did not perceive a need for the level of control that PageGarden provided for their HP LaserJet printers. I guess PageGarden became obsolete because it was not the latest and greatest piece of bloatware to be foisted on a gullible public as PC hardware quickly advanced in power and speed.

Is there a Software Hall of Fame? That's where PageGarden belongs. No other program has ever been written that will let users exploit every printing feature that the HP LaserJet is capable of producing.

The PageGarden manual, as well as the software itself, is written by Dan Bricklin. I believe it is the best software and documentation combination ever published. This is the same Dan Bricklin who, with Bob Frankston, developed the VisiCalc spreadsheet program in the late 1970s, the first "killer app" for microcomputers.

As of October 2008, I still use PageGarden weekly for printing attractive reports from data processing files spooled as plain text. PageGarden works just fine on my Windows XP machine running in a DOS emulation window.

Why is it that software as good as PageGarden fades into oblivion or that software equal to or better than PageGarden never takes its place?

LSR, PageGarden's executable program, has a tiny 110KB footprint. The program itself plus all of its associated configuration files and demo applications will fit on a 720K floppy disk with room to spare.

It is sad that there is no way for new users to discover the joy of employing software and documentation of this caliber in their everyday computing experience.

PageGarden -- gone but not forgotten by this user.… (altro)