I am trying to find reference pictures for the original Poser release. I've searched around the net, but haven't been able to find anything. The closest I can find is images of the Poser 2 manual and box.

The Wikipedia entry states that Poser 1 was only released for the Amiga, but I could swear that I purchased a copy for the IBM PC in 1995. I distinctly remember finding it on the rack at the J&R Music World back when they had dedicated stores for software.

The timeline also fits because my first entry into this software was discovering VistaPro v3 in 1994. I know I experimented with it for about a year first. At the time, it was the most I had ever spent on one software package. I think it was ~$150 at an Egghead Software. And purchased on a whim... with inflation that was over $250 in today's dollars.

The day is kind of burned into my memory because I had only just moved in with my future wife, was working a job that only paid $500 every two weeks, and had gone into the store to "just look around" while she was in a different store. That meant there was going to be a very rough conversation if I didn't use every dollar of that investment.

Poser 1 was before my time, but the Google suggests it was available in Windows and Mac.

https://twitter.com/hugocguerra/status/1237746466627751937

https://www.wap.org/journal/poser/poser.html

Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for... and the box that I remember.

I thought that the Wikipedia entry used to say that it was Amiga or possibly Apple only. The article isn't specific now, and I checked the edit history of the article but could find no record of edits. So it might just have been my imagination.

I did find that wap.org link, but since it only talked about Mac usage, it seemed to reinforced my memory of no PC version.

I tried searching for "original Poser" and "Poser 1" but couldn't find anything. Nice Google skills. :)

I'm also amazed that the spine of the box advertised "Pixar Renderman" export... Who would have even known what that was at the time? Was anything consumer level even using RIB files at the time?

Toy Story didn't come out until the end of 1995... If I recall, it was a popular movie but I don't recall it being an important release at the time. I kind of remember it opening and just continuing to go, before it was regarded as anything special.

JasonGalterio posted at 4:01AM Tue, 05 January 2021 - #4409443

I'm also amazed that the spine of the box advertised "Pixar Renderman" export... Who would have even known what that was at the time? Was anything consumer level even using RIB files at the time?

Toy Story didn't come out until the end of 1995... If I recall, it was a popular movie but I don't recall it being an important release at the time. I kind of remember it opening and just continuing to go, before it was regarded as anything special.

Toy Story was considered - even at the time - one of the most important developments in CG, because Pixar already had a stellar reputation based on their animated shorts. Everyone in the industry, from gamers to developers, watched what Pixar were doing in the hope of picking up some useful info and, at the very least, being well entertained.

Okay, you're missing my point...

Toy Story came out in late November of 1995. Pre-internet and, I would argue, pre-gamers as a concept too. The N64 wouldn't come out for another year and the Playstation had only come out a couple of months before that.

Poser 1.0 came out in 1995. I can't find an exact month, but I would guess summer time at a minimum as that is when I remember finding the box in a store. The boxes for the software had to have been printed months before that. So that would be the box concept at early Summer / Spring of 1995.

What general customer, at that time, pre-release of Toy Story, would be aware of Pixar as a selling point? Who would even have access to the Renderman software and have the ability to import RIB files into it?

This is the same time era where I was salivating over the chance to put 8x2 Megs of RAM in my 386, which I had just scraped up enough money for.

Sure, in early 1995 industry people might have had an idea of the impact Toy Story might have had. But the impact on the wider public wouldn't start to be felt until December of 1995. Making it an odd sales point to emphasize in early 1995.

I was working at Fry's Electronics at that time and distinctly recall selling Poser ... BUT before that in 1994 I was working at a Print shop in Milpitas and they had Poser 1 (I was the Desktop Publisher ... forerunner to Graphic Designer).

The BEST person to ask this is Larry Weinberg, who was Poser's original creator. I gave him a heads up on this thread. Hopefully he'll come over and we can get the official low down.

It's really nothing dire. :)

I was just making an off hand comment of how odd it seemed to have the Pixar reference so long ago.

The whole trip down my memory lane came about because I was digging through old models and couldn't believe how long I had been at it. The "Vistapro Event" came vividly to mind... which was the conversation with my significant other on the way home. Trying to explain why I spent a weeks salary on a software I had never heard of.

Pre gamers? Oh dear. Atari ST and Commodore Amiga were massive long before consoles. Prior to those, the 8 bit machines had huge numbers of users, and way before even they existed, there were the old, cartridge based systems such as the Atari 2600 and Intellivision.

SamTherapy posted at 12:18PM Tue, 05 January 2021 - #4409480

Pre gamers? Oh dear. Atari ST and Commodore Amiga were massive long before consoles. Prior to those, the 8 bit machines had huge numbers of users, and way before even they existed, there were the old, cartridge based systems such as the Atari 2600 and Intellivision.

I had an Atari 2600 after begging for it for half the year... I also had a C64 which was a glorified video game machine for most people.

My point was "Gamers" was not really prevalent phrase until the N64 / PlayStation age. It wasn't even really a term during the SuperNES days.

I apologize for whatever I said that offended you so badly. It was just meant as a humorous aside about an odd, ahead of its time, pitch line. It wasn't meant a serious exploration of the history of video games.

My Jo's daughter had the first Atari/Commodore , but her dad was the one who played it!! Pretty funny when you think about it! If I recall these used cassette tapes. My interests lay elsewhere at the time.

Boni posted at 1:45PM Tue, 05 January 2021 - #4409491

My Jo's daughter had the first Atari/Commodore , but her dad was the one who played it!! Pretty funny when you think about it! If I recall these used cassette tapes. My interests lay elsewhere at the time.

I remember the cassette tapes well. And the noises it used to make.

When I retired my C-128, it had a 14.4 baud modem (which could never connect that fast because the phone line wasn't clear enough) and a 3.5 inch drive (which held a whopping 1.44 MB if memory serves).

The nasty "bad disk" clicking sound still haunts my nightmares to this day.

Oh you young whipper snappers....

Before Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft sucked you into Console Game Systems to play Graphic Games, we used our Desktop Systems. Who here remembers Babbages and the other Computer Gaming Stores of the day. Shoot, Best Buy and Circuit City were hot beds for games through out the 90's for Home PCs. Back then most Video Cards came with at least one game and if you chose the right components you might score a couple more.

I used to go and check out the latest releases once a month and think about buying, though I limited myself to one a year in most cases. Friends would swap games after they ran the course or you could pick them up cheap at Yard Sales.

When Windows 95 was released there were even more games... Windows 98 Microsoft even tried to make the OS like a Game (who remembers Home... Hate to admit it, but I thought it was fun... loved messing with that resource hog!)

I stopped playing games until my kids were older during the early years of consoles. Still have my Wii and my kids still play that. Bought an XBox with the 360 Camera for Poser testing. The only one I do not have is a PlayStation and the newer Nintendos. My original XBox gave up the ghost, so I now only have the Wii and an XBox One.

Oh, John! Those were the days I worked at Fry's Software dept., it was thrilling to be in the middle of the computer revolution! I haTed the job and lived it in retrospect.

I can't edit, I meant I loved working there in hindsight ... Not so much at the time.

Hey to the forum, I was wondering, I've been sick for a while and its been a year or so since I opened my Poser but I'm told that it needs to validate again, what's going on did it turn off when Poser 12 came out? Just confused.

redwulf - Poser 11 should work fine. Most people have not upgraded to Poser 12. It's not even available for Mac yet.

However, Poser has a "phone home" function. Smith Micro shut down their Poser authentication server, since they no longer own Poser, so if you haven't installed the Bondware version of Poser 11, you have to do that.

If you have done that...you have to let Poser phone home. Make sure it has access to the Internet.

ratscloset posted at 5:16AM Wed, 06 January 2021 - #4409516

Oh you young whipper snappers....

Hey now! :)

I remember when if you wanted a computer, and weren't willing to build it yourself, you had to go to some shady Mom and Pop store and have them build it for you. Even if you were going to do your own work, you had to go to them to buy at least some of the parts. At which point they'd pull out the mystical analog all text catalog to find the prices of the parts... Which they couldn't guarantee until the parts actually showed up.

If you wanted to buy software / games you had three choices... Order by mail... Find one of the bookstores that also sold software... Or go to the mall for the Software Etc, Babbage's, Electronics Boutique, CompUSA, or Egghead.

I can picture the bookstores with the false interior walls to separate the software, so that it wouldn't be stolen. I can't remember the store names to save my life, but remember exactly where they were... And what it was like to pick through the shelves of mostly unorganized boxes.

I remember the days of PC gaming. Heck, that's still the way I play games. (Thinking about buying Hades on Steam. Windows version.)

I spent so many hours playing DOOM and its ilk. I bought most of my games at Circuit City. There was also a smaller Gamestop-type store. The prices were higher there, but they bought and sold used games as well. And Blockbuster rented games.

I bought Poser off Amazon. I saw a friend's art, and wanted to try it myself. Turns out it was a few days before Poser 5 came out. It would have been a lot cheaper if I'd bought it directly from Curious Labs or from here or 3DCommune or something.

post-Atari games, this is what I remember. It was on a Commodore 64. My gandpa had a Vic20 the 2 games I remember were reaction (which times your reaction speed to a sound) and Hangman. I had a friend who had Pong. My son did a report on the history of gaming for school. The first home gaming systems came out in the 70s.

No, the general population may not have known much about computers and gaming systems, but the "geeks" did. Computing and gaming didn't become mainstream until smartphones came out.

I was a kid in the '70s. My neighbors had Pong. I was so jealous. We didn't even have a colored TV back then.

I recall I've had a Poser 1 demo or was it a video ? I was somewhat interested but not impressed at all. At the time I was doing 2D drawings for my games and was looking for a software to make animated sprites.
It is only with Poser 3 that I started to get hooked. I never did any sprite with Poser :)

yarp posted at 1:58PM Wed, 06 January 2021 - #4409549

I recall I've had a Poser 1 demo or was it a video ? I was somewhat interested but not impressed at all. At the time I was doing 2D drawings for my games and was looking for a software to make animated sprites.
It is only with Poser 3 that I started to get hooked. I never did any sprite with Poser :)

The only used I had for Poser 1 was for generating blank posed characters to illustrate them in other programs for RPGs I used to run.

I don't think that Poser 1 allowed for morphing of the characters (muscles, size, etc)... So it was very rudimentary.

I have a vague memory of getting Poser come free with a computer magazine - and being rather disppointed with the fact that you could twist the figure like a corkscrew. I eventually got P4 and P5, but didn't really use it till Poser6. Poser 4 is still on my (1997) Powermac 7300. (Though rather slow now...) Now I have Poser 11.3 on my iMac and Poser 7 (or 7.5?) on my G5 (2005) which is still running and also starting up a damn sight faster than my 2015 iMac! Best new feature was the introduction of external runtimes; and V4. I would like to use Daz Studio but just cannot wrap my brain around it (too damn old now, I fear!)

JasonGalterio posted at 11:15AM Thu, 07 January 2021 - #4409483

I apologize for whatever I said that offended you so badly. It was just meant as a humorous aside about an odd, ahead of its time, pitch line. It wasn't meant a serious exploration of the history of video games.

Blimey, who said you offended me? Seems the thin skinned one around here is you, sunshine, what with your passive/aggressive reply. Oh well.

Anyhow, having worked in the games industry from 1984 to 2004, I can assure you the term was very much in use.

JasonGalterio posted at 2:40PM Sat, 09 January 2021 - #4409529

ratscloset posted at 5:16AM Wed, 06 January 2021 - #4409516

Oh you young whipper snappers....

Hey now! :)

I remember when if you wanted a computer, and weren't willing to build it yourself, you had to go to some shady Mom and Pop store and have them build it for you. Even if you were going to do your own work, you had to go to them to buy at least some of the parts. At which point they'd pull out the mystical analog all text catalog to find the prices of the parts... Which they couldn't guarantee until the parts actually showed up.

Computers existed long before that. I remember wanting to get my first computer from Radio Shack. Basically they sold you the computer for about $600 if I recall correctly, but you had to use your TV. I think it was the TRS-80. My brother eventually did get one.

Personally, I never got into the games. There weren't a lot for the Mac, but eventually I did get into Specter Tank, Pong and such. But I was more of an arcade kid. I finally got my first computer back when I was into writing.

I never had a Trash-80 myself, but I learned to use one in school. Programming in BASIC! ?

randym77 posted at 8:28PM Sat, 09 January 2021 - #4409832

I never had a Trash-80 myself, but I learned to use one in school. Programming in BASIC! ?

That's nothing. When I first started using computers, I was taking a class in college learning Fortran and using Keypunch cards. I gave it about a month and then quit. About a month later, I discovered the Mac and never looked back. This was well before Windows 3xx. People were still using MS-DOS.

I learned FORTRAN in college. My first program was on keypunch cards, but it was just so we knew how they worked. The rest of the class we used computer terminals. Not PCs, terminals that connected to the college's IBM mainframe.

My first computer was the Sinclair Spectrum 48k, which I think was sold in the US under the Timex brand. It had a huge fan base in Europe, not so much in the US. Later, I had several Amigas, a 500, 500 + then a 1200. I expanded 'em all with all kinds of add ons but sadly - and foolishly - let 'em go. Now, I use an emulator on me PC when I want some retro gaming action.

I learned progamming BASIC on the Spectrum, then COBOL on a Pr1me mini, and later taught myself Microsloth BASIC at work by hacking into various applications. I figured that, since you could effectively treat parts of Excel as a programming language, I'd chop into it to see what it could do.

As I said, I took Fortran in college for about a month, then quit. I didn't actually get around to learning how to program a computer unilt I taught myself C++ to program my Mac. That was just before I got into Poser.

EClark1894 posted at 9:48PM Sun, 10 January 2021 - #4409876

As I said, I took Fortran in college for about a month, then quit. I didn't actually get around to learning how to program a computer unilt I taught myself C++ to program my Mac. That was just before I got into Poser.

FORTRAN is, or was, the precursor to BASIC, IIRC. I never got into C or its derivatives. No incentive to learn now, either. I keep telling meself I should learn Python, though; it doesn't look too different from BASIC.

I started with Fortran 4 and hand-punched cards which were posted to Imperial College London. Later used a card-punching machine with keyboard. Next was a terminal which connected to Honeywell Glasgow via a modem (wait for reply then put phone headset into modem holder), and BASIC on punched tape.

Didn't get a home computer till 1997, when I bought a PowerMac 7300.

A_Sunbeam posted at 9:30AM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409900

I started with Fortran 4 and hand-punched cards which were posted to Imperial College London. Later used a card-punching machine with keyboard. Next was a terminal which connected to Honeywell Glasgow via a modem (wait for reply then put phone headset into modem holder), and BASIC on punched tape.

Didn't get a home computer till 1997, when I bought a PowerMac 7300.

Luxury. There were 150 of us programming in a cardboard box in t' middle of t' road. :D

SamTherapy posted at 11:39AM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409912

A_Sunbeam posted at 9:30AM Mon, 11 January 2021 - #4409900

I started with Fortran 4 and hand-punched cards which were posted to Imperial College London. Later used a card-punching machine with keyboard. Next was a terminal which connected to Honeywell Glasgow via a modem (wait for reply then put phone headset into modem holder), and BASIC on punched tape.

Didn't get a home computer till 1997, when I bought a PowerMac 7300.

Luxury. There were 150 of us programming in a cardboard box in t' middle of t' road. :D

Rubbish. I remember when I had to program in the dark, without power. :D