Jane is a discontinued

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

-based

integrated software Integrated software is a software for personal computers that combines the most commonly used functions of many productivity software programs into one application. The integrated software genre has been largely overshadowed by fully functional o ...

package for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

and

Commodore 128 The Commodore 128, also known as the C128, C-128, C= 128,The "C=" represents the graphical part of the logo. is the last 8-bit home computer that was commercially released by Commodore Business Machines (CBM). Introduced in January 1985 at the ...

personal computers. It was developed by Arktronics in 1984, and the Commodore version was published by Commodore in 1985. Like Commodore's earlier

Magic Desk Magic Desk was a planned series of productivity software by Commodore Business Machines for the Commodore 64. Only the first entry, Type and File, was ever released. It was introduced at the summer edition of the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show i ...

software, it used a literal

desktop metaphor In computing, the desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is t ...

with the interface consisting of an onscreen graphic of a desktop with

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...

representing associated business tools - a typewriter represented the word processor component (JaneWrite), a filing cabinet for the database (JaneList), a calculator for the spreadsheet (JaneCalc) and so on. It was designed to be controlled by either a

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...

or a

mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

. Like most of the other examples of

for home computers, Jane's components were criticized for being slow and limited.Jane review in Info magazine
/ref> It was not a success in the marketplace but represented an early example of a graphical interface on an

8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...

computer. Arktronics was a software development company in

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...

, founded by Howard Marks and

Bobby Kotick Robert A. Kotick (born 1963) is an American businessman who serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard. He became CEO of Activision in 1991 after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick engineered a merger ...

. Jane was originally intended to be a package not only for the Apple and Commodore lines, but also for the Atari 8-bit family and others. This transportability was engineered by a combination of higher level systems written in the C language and machine specific drivers written in the assembly language for each machine (6502 Assembly for the Apple II and Commodore 64). For the C64, DOS manager was written by Howard K. Weiner, and the font manager/windows manager was written by Daniel J. Weiner. The Weiner brothers, both went on to attend the University of Michigan Integrated Pre-medical-Medical (Inteflex) Program. Other programmers included Andrew Marcheff (z”l) and Thomas Naughton.

References

Apple II software Commodore 64 software 1984 software 1985 software {{software-stub