There was lots of cool productivity software also for the Atari ST. I like the Timeworks stuff because it was simple to use, clean looking and was cheap. Here are some sceens of WordWriter and DataManager for the ST. I also use PartnerST, which was an address book, calendar, file manager, calculator, text editor and expense tracker all in one!
Tons of features, cool consistent interface, fast fast fast
and under 150k each! (Word 6.0 it's not...)
Notice the 1986 copyright.
PartnerST and a fine shareware Fractal Planet program.
Today, as in the earliest days of the ST line, public domain and shareware offer some of the best software out there. I use many great products such as DSlide, AutoMouse and Superboot and I always paid the fee ;-). A lot of great code went through these circuits and that pioneering "HAM radio" type of hands dirty spirit is not as common these days. Maybe I'll make a Shrine of the Unknown Programmer for those underpaid and overworked shareware troopers...
The most cool and righteous thing to have happened recently, albeit embryonically, is a program called MagicMac, which is a port of the MagicOS, an alternative OS for the Atari, to the Mac. This means that any program that could run under MagicOS for the Atari will run under MagicMac on my PowerPC, as long as it doesn't make any funky hardware calls. This is because MagicMac isn't an emulator, it's just another 680x0/PPC operating system, and the Mac architecture is different than the Atari's. Still, I have run all of the Timeworks programs featured on this page on my Mac, and they are incredibly fast. The ST programs actually run faster on my PowerMac than Mac programs do! There are still some kinks to work out, but it still cranks. For more info, check out the MagicMac site.