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 consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

program released for the

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

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 A white knight is a mythological figure and literary stock character. They are portrayed alongside a black knight as diametric opposites. A white knight usually represents a heroic warrior fighting against evil, with the role in medieval literatu ...

History

First released in 1984 for

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

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 v ...

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

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

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 Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

until version 9.4, starting with release 10.0 in 1987 Red Ryder became a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

program. Red Ryder was discontinued in 1989 (10.3 being the last release) and replaced by

(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 is a CRT-based computer terminal that was 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 forwar ...

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 XMODEM is a simple file transfer protocol developed as a quick hack by Ward Christensen for use in his 1977 MODEM.ASM terminal program. It allowed users to transmit files between their computers when both sides used MODEM. Keith Petersen made a ...

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 f ...

or Kermit; downloading using the CompuServe B protocol) with

MacBinary MacBinary is a file format that combines the data fork and the resource fork of a classic Mac OS file into a single file, along with Hierarchical File System (Apple), HFS's extended metadata. The resulting file is suitable for transmission over Fil ...

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 A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running list of BBS software, software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user perfor ...

using Red Ryder Host. Highly flexible settings allow to use nearly any

modem The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...

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 literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

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 MacTerminal was the first telecommunications and terminal emulation application software program available for the Mac. MacTerminal enabled users to connect via modem or serial port to bulletin board systems and online services (e.g., The Sour ...

by Apple or Smartcom II by

Hayes Hayes may refer to: * Hayes (surname), including a list of people with the name ** Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th president of the United States * Hayes (given name) Businesses * Hayes Brake, an American designer and manufacturer of disc brakes * Hay ...

. 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