40th Floor Software: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 00:14, 30 July 2022

A small company run as a part-time concern by Cornel H. Huth that is based in San Antonio, Texas, USA, but prior to founding his own software company Mr Huth had contributed articles on QuickBASIC programming to fanzines and a few print magazines. Started life as a developer of OS/2 multimedia related software, including enhanced drivers and mixers for sound cards. It also sold a database engine for DOS and OS/2 called Bullet, that was intended for developers and used an industry standard .dbf file formats as database containers. Over time, the company ported the Bullet engine to a number of other operating systems and added front end support to a number of popular development packages.

No one appears to know what exactly happened, or why, but one day in 1998 or 99 the 40th Floor website was gone and had been replaced with a strange rant directed towards OS/2, IBM and their own customers, that was later removed and replaced by a blank page for about a year. When the website re-appeared the company had not only removed any mention of OS/2 from the site and removed all OS/2 related software and documentation as well even though support and listings for all other operating systems remained, but Mr Huth had actually taken the time out to go through the documentation of his other software and remove any sideways mention of OS/2 from them as well, this from a company that was pretty much an OS/2 specialist a year earlier. In addition, all resellers of his products were instructed to remove OS/2 software from their catalogues and any e-mail requests for support for products already purchased either got ignored or responded to in what can only be referred to as a snarky or even bizarre manner, with even those that needed replacement executables/packages due to disk failures, corruption or similar getting the same treatment.

2006 re-appearance

In an almost surreal move, after having for seven years answered requests for purchases of their products with anything from silence to outright hostility, there suddenly appears on the 40th Floor website a link in a tiny typeface size that simply stated "Back catalog" that was probably missed by most that did visit it. And there the company was offering all their OS/2 software for sale in what they described as a "Tire Fire software sale". If you associate a "fire sale" with discounts you are sorely mistaken since they were now all being offered at considerably higher prices than they had been when last listed, Bullet licences were 250 USD for instance, but they had been USD 149 previously. But no support documents available and in fact the website stated that the software was only provided as is, and no support of any kind would be available and "All sales are final".

But it was the relative strangeness of the offer of software that had seen no development for a decade that made it all the more intriguing, except for some of the mixers, all the application the company had offered had since been replaced with better freeware and open source options, the mixers were all for old ISA hardware that had been out of the market for six to twelve years, even the company's best product in the form of the Bullet database engine had not only been caught up with in most respects by free and open source products such as SQLite but mostly surpassed as well and any developer long since given up on contacting the company anyway.

So what you basically got was a 2006 webpage with a white fixed width typeface on a black background like it was 1993 all over again, offering you software from 1997 at 1982 prices, with a promise that in no circumstances would you get your money back even if the author did not actually manage to locate a copy of the software to send to you, all from a vendor who had for the last seven years refused to ship even software products people had already paid for. Offensive really, if it was not for the fact that the site implied that this was all done as a favour to people, which, frankly, made the whole episode deeply comical.

OS/2 products

Bullet - Database engine for developers
Validate - Database integrity checker
Bullet/REXX
XG-DSP

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-A small company run as a part time concern by [[Cornel Huth]] that is based in San Antonio, Texas, USA, but prior to founding his own software company Mr Huth had contributed articles on [[QuickBasic]] programming to fanzines and a few print magazines. Started life as a developer of OS/2 multimedia related software including enhanced drivers and mixers for soundcards. Also sold a database engine for DOS and OS/2 called '''Bullet''', that was intended for developers and used an industry standard .dbf file formats as database containers. Over time the company ported the Bullet engine to a number of other operating systems and added front end support to a number of popular development packages.
+A small company run as a part-time concern by [[Cornel H. Huth]] that is based in San Antonio, Texas, USA, but prior to founding his own software company Mr Huth had contributed articles on [[QuickBASIC]] programming to fanzines and a few print magazines. Started life as a developer of OS/2 multimedia related software, including enhanced drivers and mixers for sound cards. It also sold a database engine for DOS and OS/2 called [[Bullet]], that was intended for developers and used an industry standard .dbf file formats as database containers. Over time, the company ported the Bullet engine to a number of other operating systems and added front end support to a number of popular development packages.
-No one appears to know what exactly happened, but one day in 1998 or 99 the 40th Floor website was gone and had been replaced with a strange rant directed towards OS/2, IBM and their own customers, that was later removed and replaced by a blank page for about a year. When the website re-appeared the company had not only removed any mention of OS/2 from the site and removed all OS/2 software and documentation from there as well even though support and listings for all other operating systems remained, but they had actually taken the time to go through other documentation and lists for its software and remove any sideways mention of OS/2 from them on top of everything else, this from a company that was pretty much an OS/2 specialist a year earlier. In addition all e-mail requests for support for products already purchased either got ignored or responded to in what can only be referred to as a snarky or even bizarre manner, with even those that needed replacement executables/packages due to disk failures, corruption or similar were refused any support. At the same time at the least one reseller [[BMT-Micro]] was still selling the 40th floor products and those that had purchased the software through them managed to get replacement packages and some rudimentary support direct from them.
+No one appears to know what exactly happened, or why, but one day in 1998 or 99 the 40th Floor website was gone and had been replaced with a strange rant directed towards OS/2, IBM and their own customers, that was later removed and replaced by a blank page for about a year. When the website re-appeared the company had not only removed any mention of OS/2 from the site and removed all OS/2 related software and documentation as well even though support and listings for all other operating systems remained, but Mr Huth had actually taken the time out to go through the documentation of his other software and remove any sideways mention of OS/2 from them as well, this from a company that was pretty much an OS/2 specialist a year earlier. In addition, all resellers of his products were instructed to remove OS/2 software from their catalogues and any e-mail requests for support for products already purchased either got ignored or responded to in what can only be referred to as a snarky or even bizarre manner, with even those that needed replacement executables/packages due to disk failures, corruption or similar getting the same treatment.
-====2006 re-appearance====
+===2006 re-appearance===
-The website disappeared again after about a year although an update of the Bullet database engine for Win32 to version 3.1 was announced in another forum but the announcement linked to a non-existing web page and an unresponsive mail address. 40th Floor then suddenly pops up again in 2006 listing a couple of WinCE products in addition to a Win32 encrypted database engine called '''GT40''' but offered no other information on the product other than it existed, although it appeared to be a development of the older Bullet engine. But more strangely the company suddenly offered all their OS/2 software for sale, some seven years or more after they had taken them off their site but at considerably higher prices that they had been when last listed, Bullet licenses were offered at 250 USD for instance but they had been USD 149 previously and so on and so forth. But at the same time there were no support documents available and in fact the website stated that the software was only provided as is, and no support of any kind was available.
+In an almost surreal move, after having for seven years answered requests for purchases of their products with anything from silence to outright hostility, there suddenly appears on the 40th Floor website a link in a tiny typeface size that simply stated "Back catalog" that was probably missed by most that did visit it. And there the company was offering all their OS/2 software for sale in what they described as a "Tire Fire software sale". If you associate a "fire sale" with discounts you are sorely mistaken since they were now all being offered at considerably higher prices than they had been when last listed, Bullet licences were 250 USD for instance, but they had been USD 149 previously. But no support documents available and in fact the website stated that the software was only provided as is, and no support of any kind would be available and "All sales are final".
-It goes without saying that no-one noticed in the OS/2 world, not only was it the best part of a decade since people had stopped visiting the site looking for updates on their OS/2 versions of their software but furthermore the link to the "Tire Fire software sale" on the company's home page was in an extra small typeface size that simply stated "Back catalog" and probably not even noticed by those that did visit it.
+But it was the relative strangeness of the offer of software that had seen no development for a decade that made it all the more intriguing, except for some of the mixers, all the application the company had offered had since been replaced with better freeware and open source options, the mixers were all for old ISA hardware that had been out of the market for six to twelve years, even the company's best product in the form of the Bullet database engine had not only been caught up with in most respects by free and open source products such as [[SQLite]] but mostly surpassed as well and any developer long since given up on contacting the company anyway.
-But it was the relative strangeness of the offer that made it all the more intriguing, "fire sales" usually imply discounts and not price increases for starters, the software was all by then so outdated that reading about it for sale gave you a sense of having entered an alternative history time warp. The MIDI players had long been replaced with better freeware options, and at 50 USD for each app and mixer separately would have been considered somewhat overpriced even when they were new, absurd as unsupported vintage software downloads, the drivers all supported old ISA hardware that had been out of sale for six to ten years and ISA motherboards had disappeared off the market some 4 years earlier except as expensive specialist products such as industrial boards. Even the company's best product in the form of the Bullet database engine had not only been caught up with in most respects by free and open source products such as [[SQLite]] but mostly surpassed as well, the only advantage that Bullet had left lay in the relative speed and size due to its hard crafted assembly code, but even there the advantages were not as great as they once were and advances in CPU speed and memory prices made the differences rather minuscule.
+So what you basically got was a 2006 webpage with a white fixed width typeface on a black background like it was 1993 all over again, offering you software from 1997 at 1982 prices, with a promise that in no circumstances would you get your money back <em>even if the author did not actually manage to locate a copy of the software to send to you</em>, all from a vendor who had for the last seven years refused to ship even software products people had already paid for. Offensive really, if it was not for the fact that the site implied that this was all done as a favour to people, which, frankly, made the whole episode deeply comical.
-Even even if by chance you just happened to have all the vintage computer gear needed to utilise the audio products from 40th Floor the full package of mixers and players for one XG enhanced sound-card would have set you back 250 USD and for that money you got an admittedly good mixer alongside some very rudimentary and outdated audio recorder and audio and MIDI players that were not all that hot even when they were new. By that time hardware had commoditised to such a degree that we could (and did) locally get a full Windows box complete with OS, drives and all other needed hardware, including sound-card for just under USD 200 or a full setup including screen for 250, all including local taxes. That windows box having much better media playback than the 40th floor products BTW.
+==OS/2 products==
-Staring at a webpage with a white fixed width typeface on a black background like it was 1993 all over again, that in an somewhat arrogant tone announces that as a special favour to you they will sell you a download copy of some 10 year+ old software for only about 63%+ more than it used to cost, or in other words for the same price as a new computer would cost you, with the disclaimers that "Availability is subject to the item's ability to be located" and "All sales are final", was memorable if nothing else. The Website and the "back catalog" disappeared again after about a year or less, although some support and sales pages for his Windows mobile software remained hidden behind the front page, but could be found from the owners sales postings on Windows phone/mobile forums.
-====2014 re-re-appearance====
-The company appears again in 2014 out of the blue as a developer of of live video camera support software for Windows desktop and Windows Phone operating systems. Although it should be noted that the owner has stated that in regards to software sales it is "I am making it policy: US customers only, forever, no exceptions", so your mileage may vary.
-==Known OS/2 products==
 * [[Bullet]] - Database engine for developers
-* [[Validate]] - Database integrity checker
+* Validate - Database integrity checker
-* [[Bullet/REXX]]
+* Bullet/REXX
 * XG-DSP
-==Links==
+[[Category:Defunct companies]]
-* [http://40th.com Homepage]
-[[Category:Companies]]