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Concept
Framework (office suite)
Summary
Framework, launched in 1984, was an office suite to run on the (x86) IBM PC and compatibles with the MS-DOS operating system.
Unlike other integrated products, Framework was not created as "plug-in" modules with a similar look and feel, but as a single windowing workspace representing a desktop metaphor that could manage and outline "Frames" sharing a common underlying format.
Framework could be considered a predecessor to the present graphical user interface window metaphor: it was the first all-in-one package to run on any PC platform to offer a GUI, WYSIWYG typography on the display and printer output, as well as integrated interpreters.
ValDocs, an even earlier integrated suite, and actually comparable to the original Macintosh of 1984 and Apple Lisa of 1982, was produced by Epson, a complete integrated work station that ran on the previous-generation Zilog Z80 CPU and CP/M operating system, with a graphical user interface (GUI) and "WYSIWYG" typography on the monitor and printing. Despite several iterations, ValDocs was too slow on the hardware that it was released on.
A few months before Framework, its close rival Lotus Symphony was released.
Framework offered all of the above ValDocs' functionality in the first all-in-one package to run on any PC platform.
Programmers at Work credits Robert Carr as the designer and principal developer of Framework.
Robert Carr and Marty Mazner founded Forefront Corporation to develop Framework in 1983. In July of that year, they approached Ashton-Tate to provide the capital and to later market the product. Together with a team of six other individuals, Carr and company released the original Framework.
The initial release of Framework included about a dozen or so frame types (identified by a FRED function, @frametype). Frame types included containers which could be filled up with other frames, empty frames which could become other type of frames based on user input, formulas embedded in them or program output targeting them, word processor frames, flat-database frames and spreadsheet as well as graphic frames.
Official source
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