Red Ryder is a communications and

terminal emulation A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote termi ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

program released for the

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

in 1984. Initially distributed as a shareware, the application offered rich features and configuration settings. Red Ryder was discontinued in 1989 and replaced by White Knight.

History

First released in 1984 for

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

computers, early versions of Red Ryder were written by Wat Buchanon as a

Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ...

program with documentation included on the disk filled with humor aimed at

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

and programmers. After Wat Buchanon died, his friend Scott Watson entirely rewrote Red Ryder keeping the manual in a similar humorous style. Watson's releases were a standalone Macintosh applications programmed in C and the new author expanded features taking into account requests from Red Ryder users. The application was distributed as a shareware until version 9.4, starting with release 10.0 in 1987 Red Ryder became a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

program. Red Ryder was discontinued in 1989 (10.3 being the last release) and replaced by White Knight (starting in version 11).

Features

Red Ryder was the first Mac telecommunication application to support big screens and choice of fonts. The program emulates several terminals (ASCII TTY (

teletype A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...

VT52 The VT50 was a CRT-based computer terminal introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in July 1974. It provided a display with 12 rows and 80 columns of upper-case text, and used an expanded set of control characters and forward-only scro ...

and

VT100 The VT100 is a video terminal, introduced in August 1978 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was one of the first terminals to support ANSI escape codes for cursor control and other tasks, and added a number of extended codes for special ...

) and supports many file transfer protocols (uploading/downloading using XMODEM,

YMODEM YMODEM is a file transfer protocol used between microcomputers connected together using modems. It was primarily used to transfer files to and from bulletin board systems. YMODEM was developed by Chuck Forsberg as an expansion of XMODEM and was ...

or Kermit; downloading using the CompuServe B protocol) with

MacBinary MacBinary is a file format that combines the two ''forks'' of a classic Mac OS file into a single file, along with HFS's extended metadata. The resulting file is suitable for transmission over FTP, the World Wide Web, and electronic mail. The do ...

file format. The application includes a procedure language and can be controlled by user defined macros. Registered users could set up their own Bulletin board system using Red Ryder Host. Highly flexible settings allow to use nearly any

modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...

and Red Ryder also offers phone books for often used phone numbers and services.

Reception

Both Macintosh and general computing

magazines A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination ...

rated Red Ryder highly. Commended were its inexpensive price, rich settings and features and excellent support (answering user questions by phone). However, documentation included only few examples and with so many configuration options Red Ryder was somewhat hard to learn. Commercial release 10 was also not compatible with version 9.x procedures. Despite powerful features and popularity among home users, Red Ryder was never successful in the business market, which preferred MacTerminal by Apple or Smartcom II by Hayes. By words of an ''InfoWorld'' review, Red Ryder "tries to be too many things at once" and "it's not practical for a typical business user".

References

External links

Electronic Marketing Manual - Chapter 18-3
{{Terminal emulator Macintosh-only software Terminal emulators Discontinued software