Throwback Thursday: “At last, the tool I needed!”

Having been around since the dawn of time, I have many old Mac magazines collecting dust and spiders in my basement. Between those and some of the retro gear that Dave and I have laying around, we thought it would be fun to take the occasional walk down memory lane. Today, we present for your amusement and education an ad from the premiere issue (October 1985) of MacUser Magazine.

The company in the ad? Silicon Beach Software, a pioneering Mac development firm famous for later coming out with SuperPaint, SuperCard, Airborne! and PersonalPress. The company was acquired by Aldus (makers of PageMaker) in 1990, which was in turn swallowed up by Adobe in 1994.

What’s not to love about this? Spending $40 (that’s $89 in today’s dollars) on a floppy disk that gives you a handful of accessories was quite common in the day. Paint Cutter let you display a MacPaint file using the full screen of the Mac, scrolling as you moved to the side — inconceivable! Rulers on your screen! A screen saver (sadly not the Flying Toasters)! And a desk accessory to “quickly eject all floppy disks that are on-line and restart the system.” WOW!

My favorite part of this ad is the drawing of the guy with 1980’s hair and pants, fist-pumping with glee! AT LAST!!!!

There’s more where this came from. If you were a Mac user back in these days and used any of the great products from Silicon Beach Software, be sure to leave your memories in the comments below.