| Red Ryder | |
| Author: | Wat Buchanon, Scott Watson |
| Developer: | The FreeSoft Company |
| Discontinued: | yes |
| Latest Release Version: | 10.3 |
| Programming Language: | BASIC, C |
| Operating System: | Classic Mac OS |
| Genre: | Terminal emulation, BBS |
| License: | Proprietary software
|
Red Ryder is a communications and terminal emulation software program released for the Apple Macintosh 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.
First released in 1984 for Macintosh computers,[1] early versions of Red Ryder were written by Wat Buchanon as a Microsoft BASIC program with documentation included on the disk filled with humor aimed at Apple and programmers.[2] After Wat Buchanon died, his friend Scott Watson entirely rewrote Red Ryder keeping the manual in a similar humorous style.[3] Watson's releases were a standalone Macintosh applications[2] programmed in C and the new author expanded features taking into account requests from Red Ryder users.[4] The application was distributed as a shareware until version 9.4, starting with release 10.0 in 1987 Red Ryder became a commercial program.[2] Red Ryder was discontinued in 1989 (10.3 being the last release) and replaced by White Knight (starting in version 11).[5]
Red Ryder was the first Mac telecommunication application to support big screens and choice of fonts.[4] The program emulates several terminals (ASCII TTY (teletype), VT52 and VT100) and supports many file transfer protocols (uploading/downloading using XMODEM, YMODEM or Kermit; downloading using the CompuServe B protocol) with MacBinary file format. The application includes a procedure language and can be controlled by user defined macros.[2] Registered users could set up their own Bulletin board system using Red Ryder Host.[3] Highly flexible settings allow to use nearly any modem and Red Ryder also offers phone books for often used phone numbers and services.[2]
Both Macintosh and general computing magazines rated Red Ryder highly.[2] [1] Commended were its inexpensive price,[6] rich settings and features and excellent support (answering user questions by phone).[2] 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.[2] 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.[2] 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".[7]