• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

Microsoft Logo for Mac

Crutch

Well-known member
I picked this up on eBay recently for $39 and couldn't find it online anywhere so just posted it to the Garden:

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/microsoft-logo-demo

Microsoft Logo for Mac.  The version I got is a demo version (it silently fails to save ... meaning it writes an empty file to the disk but doesn't actually tell you it's not saving anything ... in fairness, the accompanying literature does say saving doesn't work!) that came in the original "package" (a Microsoft-branded folder with some brochures).  The enclosed 400k floppy is pristine and probably never before used, but works perfectly.

It's a fairly clunky Logo implementation, and the turtle graphics are very slow compared to my recollection of running ExperLogo on a 128k Mac, but it's still fun to play with and some nice features were included for the use of multiple windows, QuickDraw graphics, etc.  Also the multi-legged turtle is rather cute.

I don't even remember hearing about Microsoft Logo in the '80s, though I've seen it mentioned in a few product lists here and there ... was a final commercial product ever even produced?  (This version runs on a 128k or 512k Mac only ... it crashes with an "Out of memory" error on my 512ke upgraded to 2MB with a Dove MacSnap, and the documentation dated January 1986 says it won't run on a Plus.)

I like the fact that one of the demos is called "Quix" (sic) and is clearly inspired by the contemporary arcade game.

IMG_5079 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

IMG_5080 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

IMG_5081 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

IMG_5082 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

IMG_5083 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

IMG_5084 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

IMG_5085 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

IMG_5086 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

IMG_5087 11.34.22 AM.jpeg

 

PB145B

Well-known member
That’s pretty cool. I’ll have to check this out eventually. I like the early Microsoft software for the Macintosh. :)  

 

Mu0n

Well-known member
I think I might have tried this once back in the day. Probably during the time when my older brother was in a special computer-infused primary school class (years 5 and 6) where they had 2-3 macs inside the class and had special projects regularly. They could borrow some of the softwares and it was always exciting to test stuff out. I remember being underwhelmed by that Logo version since I was already used to the CGA color version on PCs called Logo Writer with a French interface and keywords! Despite the lower resolution, you couldn't beat color + easy icon/sprite stuff.

 

Mu0n

Well-known member
An assignment I had to do for our "computers" class when I was in 9th grade (3rd year secondary school over here in Quebec) was: make 1 logo writer game. I made 3, with a title screen menu. One was an adventure-multiple choice game with graphic screens + text, another was a gambling sort of game where you drop a ball from the top and it bounces through a pyramid of sticks and you must guess in which cup it falls into and the 3rd game was a top down 1-screen racing game which detected collision using color detection. You could easily make new tracks if you wanted, they were just images

 

NJRoadfan

Well-known member
We had the Macintosh version of LogoWRITER installed on the LCIIs in middle school. It was light years ahead of the Apple II versions.

 

james_w

Well-known member
Fairly sure this is from the short lived period of Microsoft publishing other company's software for Macintosh, under the "MacLibrary" name.

Here's the box for my copy... although I don't have the disk!


 
Last edited by a moderator:

Crutch

Well-known member
Nice.  I would love a boxed copy of the full edition.  I’m not on Instagram because I am quite anti-Facebook these days ... but if I were, I would follow yours! Some really interesting pics there.

 

james_w

Well-known member
Nice.  I would love a boxed copy of the full edition.  I’m not on Instagram because I am quite anti-Facebook these days ... but if I were, I would follow yours! Some really interesting pics there.


Thanks!

Yeah totally understand, I feel the same. But I've had quite some fun running my instagram account over the years and I'm not quite ready to give that up...

 
Top