Palantir Word Processing
We Don't Have to Beef Up Our Guarantee With A Lot Of Bull
The Company
Palantir Inc. was incorporated on November 14th, 1980. During the company’s history, they also filed paperwork to trade under Designer Software and Palantir Software. In February of 1994, the company was dissolved as part of a tax forfeiture.
A more recent organization is Palantir Technologies, which was founded in the early 2000s and focuses on software for government and industry.
Palantir is a reference to the Lord of the Rings. They are basically crystal balls that characters use to communicate or see into the future.
The Application
Now, let’s talk about the application. I couldn’t find a ton of information. Here is the ad copy from the above ad:
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
We've changed the name of our product line. Originally, we called our products "Phoenix" because we saw the phoenix as an appropriate symbol of quality. Unfortunately, a lot of other companies chose Phoenix as well and there was some concern that the market place would become confused.
Our new name, PALANTIR (pronounced pal'anteer), is not a new name for us since it's our corporate name. It comes from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and describes a black crystal ball, a "seeing stone", used to see things at a distance.
Whatever the name on the package, the software in the package hasn't changed. It is still the highest quality business software you can buy for your microcomputer.
WORD PROCESSING
We know word processing. A year-and-a-half ago the owners of Designer Software wrote a well-known word processor for another company. In the last 18 months we've learned about other features you want in a word processing package. PALANTIR Word Processing reflects our experience. It is more powerful than other word processing packages you can buy and can compete, feature for feature, with expensive dedicated word processors.
Many people have remarked that the user's manual we wrote earlier was the best ever for microcomputer software. Even so, we felt that we could have made it more accessible to the non-technical user. With PALANTIR Word Processing we have a separate Training Manual with beginning, intermediate and advanced levels. By allowing you to work at your own level, we have made the learning process easier and less intimidating.
Microcomputing Magazine carried a short review in their June 1983 issue.
Designer Software (3400 Montrose, Suite 718, Houston, TX 77006) has made its Palantir word processing system ($400) available for the PC. The system has been rewritten to run on the IBM's 16-bit processor. Text is formatted on the screen as it will appear on the printer, boldface characters are highlighted, underlines are underlined and everything is done well.
Palantir has a good menu-choice system, a built-in mail-merge facility and onboard macro definition (you can define frequently-used phrases with a single key).
Also, Palantir allows specification of the printer to be used at printing time. For example, you can have both an Epson and a NEC hooked up to your machine, and output drafts to the Epson and finished copy to the NEC.
Documentation provided with Palantir is generally excellent, and the system comes with on-line help and tutorial files as well. If that isn't enough, you can use either the color monitor (so you can have boldface in red, for example) or monochrome for your word processing needs. So why aren't I raving about this word processor? Because it didn't work, that's why! It wouldn't read or write files from the disk and it would sometimes refuse to exit to DOS when asked (the system would hang). And when an error was committed, prompts would be put on the screen only long enough for Superman to read them.
I called Designer about these "little problems," and it turns out that all disks shipped before January 10, 1983 (read the last three digits on your serial number) had a flaw in the Install program. A corrected disk was sent to me, and it worked flawlessly.
In addition, there's a patch to fix earlier disks; contact Palantir if you need it. You'll want to look at the revised system; add a spelling checker (I recommend Proofreader) and you'll have a solid and complete word processing system.
Byte Magazine had a small mention in their “User to User” section:
There is a program that enables you to use the arrow keys, the home keys, the Back Tab (it's used for decimal tab, I believe), and most of the function keys and special keys to do word processing in what appears to be a dedicated wordprocessing environment. It's Palantir Word Processing, and it's just the ticket for a lot of people. It's easy to use and conceptually easier to understand for a lot of people who are not computer literate. Unfortunately, Palantir supplies little labels (which come off and get lost) instead of key-caps, but its program is good, and its mail-merge-Iike utility is built in and included in the price (and more like a language than simply a "mail-merge"). It's a good product.
Have you ever used Palantir Word Processing? Do you know anything about its history? Tell us about it in the comments below.
