My first real introduction to modern computing was with an Atari ST, which I was given by my parents as a birthday present when I was 18. The first ST I had was a 1Mb STFM hooked to a 12" portable TV, which I eventually replaced with a 4Mb STE with twin floppy drives and a 'high res' (600x400) mono monitor. This served me all the way through University, but fell by the wayside after Atari went under and I changed to Apple to get a similar look and feel.
Anyway, I used to do some DTP for a number of newsletters and such using a powerful little package called 'Calamus'. Even in its initial iteration (v1.09n) it was a match for the likes of Pagemaker (which was admittedly in the process of being trounced by Quark at that time). It was one of the packages I was sad to loose, and I've never really been able to justify purchasing a copy of InDesign or Pagemaker to replace it.
This position stands even more at the moment because neither Adobe's Creative Suite or Microsoft's Office Suite are Universal Binaries. I'm not going to buy any software that will need to run under Rosetta emulation on a future Mac because the code hasn't been prepared for the Intel Processors. Why buy obsolescence deliberately?
Anyway, in MacWorld's last issue, there was a reference to iCalamus on the cover disk. I followed this up, and found a website with a new iteration of Calamus, built in Cocoa (one of the programming frameworks that Apple provides). I downloaded the demo, and instantly fell in love with it, as it was a new shiny version of what I loved on the Atari. Needless to say, I've licensed it and now have a tool that means perhaps I can do some of the layout stuff that I've been meaning to for a long time. Child permitting, of course....
(Edit: Link updated to new owner of iCalamus)
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