05/06/2017: Pelican / Toucan Software Collection Published by Queue
This is a big haul of creative 8-bit educational software on 3.5" disk, most of which was not previously archived on either 3.5" or 5.25" disk formats. This collection is from the publisher Queue, with titles created by Toucan and Pelican software, all using the same underlying software engine to enable kids and the young at heart to produce banner books and other printable formats with their own unique creative flair. Thanks go to both Antoine Vignau (LoGo) and 4am for this collaborative archiving effort!
After the success of Super Print and Super Print II, Pelican Software seemed to stumble upon a winning formula for their software – milk the 'engine' for all it's worth by putting out different themed versions (create wacky Robots, zany monsters, crazy methods of transportation, to name but a few) of their simple but effective 'Big Book' or banner composition layout tools.
Each Pelican and Toucan title includes the same simple menu driven interface where you can choose backgrounds, multiple foreground characters and/or objects, as well as frames, positioning different elements in a composition to view on screen or print on a tried and true dot matrix printer. Finalised designs can be saved anywhere on a ProDOS volume, so these 800k disk images not only provide easy access to artwork without disk swapping, but there's also a good deal of storage left on each 3.5" disk to save work as well. Not to mention that you can save to hard drives as well!
Super Print II can utilise ALL the artwork from each of these Queue titles, so that's a heap of artwork to draw from for use with Super Print II. I've had a quick try to see if titles can use the art from other Pelican titles, but they appeared 'greyed out' when you enter their folders. Some titles may allow it, but your mileage may vary. Super Print II is the best way to go to combine artwork from multiple Pelican titles.
Many of these Pelican titles support speech support with an Echo sound device, so if you're lucky to have one, that would give these titles an extra dimension as well.
Another great feature of all these is that they are ALL hard drive installable - you can copy them to any folder or sub directory and they still continue to work.
Have fun - all these titles combined, along with some available printers, should provide a fun day for youngsters to be creative in a fun retro way!
These are the new titles now archived:
Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz (1992-Queue) v1.4
Animals with an Attitude (1992-Queue) v1.4
Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid (1992-Queue) v1.4
Big Book Maker - Cute and Cuddly (1992-Queue) v?
Big Book Maker - Favorite Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes (1990-Pelican Software) v?
Big Book Maker - Feel Good About Yourself (1992-Pelican Software) v?
Big Book Maker - Let's Pretend (1992-Queue) v?
Big Book Maker - Letters, Numbers, Shapes (1992-Pelican Software) v?
Big Book Maker - Myths and Legends (1992-Queue) v?
Big Book Maker - Quentin (1992-Queue) v?
Big Book Maker - Tall Tales and American Folk Heroes (1992-Queue) v?
Big Book Maker - The Rain Forest (1993-Queue) v?
Dinosaur Days Plus (1988-Pelican Software)[Also includes a Learning Disk]
Robin Hood and Peter Pan (1992-Queue) v1.4
Robot Writer Plus (1988-Pellican Software)
Big Book Maker - The Three Princesses (1992-Queue)
Transportation Transformation (1991-Pelican Software)
Adding to the titles that were already archived:
Story Starters - Science (1988-Pelican Software)
Story Starters - Social Studies (1988-Pelican Software)
Pow-Zap-Kerplunk Comic Book Maker
Reading and Writing with the Boars
While we have a large collection, it's only almost complete; these are the titles we still require on archive, if they exist, as we can only reference the back of each of the boxes which included a catalogue of all the Queue published titles.
Letters, Pictures & Words
The Boars 1, 2, 3
The Boars Tell Time
Reading Riddles
Fraction Fairy Tales
The Boars in Camelot
Quentin Around the House
Quentin Visits a Factory
Quentin Goes to School
Quentin Visits the Big City
