FastBack (software)
Encyclopedia
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
and Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
computers. It was originally written by Fifth Generation Systems
Fifth Generation Systems
Fifth Generation Systems was a computer security company founded October 1984 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States by Bob Mitchell, Roger Ibey, and Bruce Ray. All three later left the company...
Inc, a company located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. When the company wanted to expand into the Apple market they purchased and rebranded a product from TouchStone Software
Touchstone software
TouchStone Software Corporation, Inc. is an American software developer for the personal computer industry, specializing in system update technology. It also owns and operates a network of Internet Web properties...
Corporation.
The original Fastback was unique in the industry in that it was able to read from a computer hard drive and write to the floppy drive simultaneously using the full capability of the dual-channel DMA chip found in personal computers of that time. When combined with compression techniques and a proprietary disk format that got more data on each floppy disk, this easily made Fastback the fastest computer backup program of the time.
In 1987, FastBack Plus 1.0 for DOS was released. This version, or subsequent DOS versions, was released with an unconditional guarantee against harm resulting from use of the software in the terms and conditions. The guarantee contrasted itself with industry norms.
In February 1992 the company released Fastback Plus 1.0 for Windows, written for PCs running Windows 3.0
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.0, a graphical environment, is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, and was released on 22 May 1990. It became the first widely successful version of Windows and a rival to Apple Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga on the GUI front...
.
FastBack Plus 2.0 was included with Novell DOS 7 in 1994.
FastBack II http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-051.html was bundled with Drive 2.4 to provide read/write compatibility with most Macintosh 3.5" floppy disk formats.