We present a page of information and downloads dedicated to Lotus Agenda, the venerable DOS information manager, which is now over 30 years old, and judging by the email we get, not yet completely forgotten.

Big News

Agenda runs on Android! Using a product called Magic Dosbox we were able to get Agenda running on a couple of Android phones and Android tablets. Magic Dosbox, which costs a few dollars, has a transparent pop-up soft keyboard that emulates 100% of Agenda keys and key combos. It all works well. With a decent Bluetooth keyboard, text input is much easier, although given the iffiness and lack of keys and key combinations on many Bluetooth keyboards you may possibly need the pop-up keyboard for certain things. On a fair-sized tablet Agenda is a reasonable success. The only lack is printing, but there are workarounds for that.

We've received a report that Agenda runs quite well on an iPad using DOS emulation. That's good news for Apple users.

And finally, we've found a way to run Agenda in a web browser using a Javascript port of DOSBox. We do need to explore this further. Right now it's proof-of-concept only, with the major (and fatal) flaw being the inability to save files. If we can just get past that ...

We're Often Asked

Do we still use Agenda? As of now (January 2022) we use EMACS Org Mode in daily life. Org Mode is wonderful but we miss many things about Agenda. We do still use Agenda on occasion, and of course we retain our enthusiasm.

If You Need A Little Help

We are delighted to hear from Agenda users and do the best we can to answer occasional, brief questions via email as our (very) limited free time permits. Of course, given that it's a no-charge, volunteer effort, we have to make the unfortunate usual legal disclaimers. WE MAKE NO PROMISES OF ANY SORT AND ACCEPT NO LIABILITIES OF ANY SORT. This is specifically not an offer of support. If you write to us, we may or may not respond, at our sole option. We do not guarantee the correctness or applicability of any reply we choose to send, and you use any information provided by us entirely at your own risk. You and you alone are responsible for evaluating the accuracy and safety of information that we may supply.

If You Need Help Beyond Casual Questions

Write and tell us what you need. Note that this is not to be construed as a solicitation for, or an offer to provide, for-hire consulting services.

We're Linux Users

Please note that we're not Windows or Mac people (we don't currently have any Windows machines or partitions and we've never even used a Mac) and probably can't help with specifically Windows or Mac related problems. Get DosBox for Windows or the equivalent for Mac. Agenda will run perfectly under DosBox.

Agenda Resources

Our old, defunct Agenda Forum is here. It contains some interesting info although the links in it are unreliable now.

We also offer various files and notes for Lotus Agenda. While Agenda material isn't quite so easy to locate, we've gotten together this modest collection, and supplemented it with some of our own applications. If you have something you're willing to share, send it as an e-mail attachment, with a description of some sort, to

agenda@bobnewell.net

and it should appear in due course. If you find any broken links, please let us know directly.

Pre-installed version of Agenda 2.0b:

If you have trouble with the official release, which requires creating 720k diskettes, you can try our pre-installed self-extracting version; get it here.

You must extract this at the root of your C drive to create the c:\agenda directory. Nothing else will work!

This pre-installed version is set up with a few representative printers and screen displays. This has worked out for a number of people; please let us know how you fare. Write to agenda@bobnewell.net .

We've recently been sent a different pre-installed version of Agenda, which includes a large variety of printer and screen drivers; if you wish to try it, you can get it here.

Web-Based Agenda Efforts

We're aware of a couple of attempts to develop a new version of Agenda-like software on the web, but these seem to have been discontinued without completion. There's no point in listing dead links, so we just note this in passing with the hope that some day a similar effort might succeed.

Agenda Manuals

An Agenda benefactor has made all six Agenda manuals available. These include Quick Start, Setting Up Agenda, Starter Applications, User's Guide, Working With Definition Files and Working With Macros. You can obtain them as follows.

  1. Browse to www.mydrive.ch.
  2. Login as 'guest@agendadudester' with password 'guestdude'.
  3. Download the manuals from the main file folder.

The Beyond 2.0 manual can now also be found in the same place.

Files and applications by others:

  • Agenda Courses Tutorial presentations on Lotus Agenda, suitable for classroom use, by Phil Robinson; also some great information on printing, including printer drivers.
  • Recipe database provided by Wallace Audley and written by Katherine Fritz.
  • Some legal applications originally from the Lotus FTP site.
  • Personal Efficiency Planner, a souped up version of the Planner application. The installation instructions and explanations have gone off-line; we are trying to recover a copy.
  • First Things First, based on Steven Covey's book, written by David Mc_Court, on Michael Stocker's web page.
  • President's Planner, a very advanced PIM add-on from Alex Todd, once again available from our web site.
  • President's Planner documentation in PDF format (hosted locally, thanks to a helpful correspondent).
  • Partner's Planner takes President's Planner into the world of practice management. Also from Alex Todd, and again now available from our website.
  • Supermacros is another Alex Todd product and finally reconstructed for download. Quick-add of names, companies, and projects, and the unique "Point and View" utility.
  • Partner's Planner documentation in PDF format, once again available from our web site.
  • Preinstalled Agenda and President's Planner Combo; we haven't tested this but it's surely worth a try.
  • Agenda Tutorial, supplied and created by Dez Ellis. Written for a specific industrial application, this is a very nice Agenda tutorial, containing some highly instructive and useful macro examples.
  • Agenda HTML Help, contributed by Michael Rourke. Michael has extracted all of the (extensive) Agenda help and organized it into an HTML file. Keep this open in your browser while you work. If you don't have a full set of manuals handy (but see above as you can download them now), you can print this out and have a hard-copy manual that is quite serviceable.
  • Agenda Tech Notes in Agenda database format, assembled and developed by Steven Hawkins.
  • Beyond 2.0, the classic extension to Agenda for printing, calendars, and much more, in a preinstalled version thanks to Tony Kan. See the README file for installation instructions. The complete manual is also available; see the section above for where and how to download Agenda manuals.
  • Revised Agenda FAQ, in Agenda database format, assembled by Tony Kan. An updated 2006 version of Agenda FAQs with corrected links and new material.
  • Agenda 2 Overview, an informative look at the Agenda 2.0 release in PDF format.
  • Handling Damaged Agenda Files, another look at this important topic, in PDF format.
  • Creating ASCII Files from Agenda, a PDF file with advice on this often important task.
  • Books About Using Agenda, a nice bibliography in PDF format which may send you off on a bit of a treasure hunt, as these may be a little hard to find nowadays.

Files and applications of our own devising:

  • Small Macro Package, v1.0, containing sample macros to switch databases, run external DOS programs from a menu, and capture the output of external DOS programs into a new item.
  • Simple checkbook register/balancer, v1.0. We don't use this one but plan to "get around to it."
  • Bill payment reminder, v1.0; we use this to be sure we don't pay bills late (or early).
  • Daf Yomi Calculator, v1.0 is perhaps of direct interest only to Jewish scholars, but is an example of how Agenda macros can do unexpectedly complex things.
  • Pinball Scoring application, v1.10; can be used for video pinball, card games, etc. Individual game and Challenge mode is supported. Perhaps this has a "serious" use as well, but we certainly didn't plan it that way! (Release 1.10 cleans up the Challenge Mode code and has other minor improvements.)
  • Transcendental Functions for Agenda, v1.01 (seriously). Includes square root, sine, cosine, tangent, secant, cosecant, cotangent, ln, exp, and x to the y. Can easily be extended if you wish.
  • Bicycle Ride Log, v1.01, for keeping track of just about every aspect of your bike rides. Includes a gearing calculator and a (probably inaccurate) spoke length calculator.
  • Learn By Agenda, v1.0, a usable proof of concept text mode learning system based on spaced interval recall techniques. Includes a (very) small sample Hawaiian vocabulary tutor.
  • BG Log, v1.0, a very simple logbook for blood glucose levels, food intake, and exercise tracking.
  • RPN Calculator, v1.0, really a prototype, sure to be expanded in the future. Comments needed!
  • Copy from Clipboard, v1.0, a less-wealthy cousin of the "Zooter" to allow relatively quick creation of new items and note text from the contents of the Windoze clipboard. Tested only with Windoze 98, and so a bit obsolete.
  • Stardate Calculator 1.0 as in Star Trek. Very useful!

To use these, download and then unzip into either your AGENDA\APPS directory, or a directory as specified in an enclosed "readme" file.

We don't announce bug fix or feature updates; watch the version number listed next to the title (as of August 2012, updates are very infrequent).

Tips and techniques:

Ron Stern has provided a number of files from the old Compuserve Agenda Forum.

Here is a paper we wrote, now very seriously out of date, which has gotten a bit of attention here and there.

  • PIMs Compared, a rambling article of our own that looks at an eclectic group of PIMs including Agenda.

On-line Agenda Reference as contributed by Michael Rourke (can also be downloaded, see above).

Links

Most if not all Agenda links seem to have gone off the air. If you know of any please let us know. However we've just recently discovered a great one written by Travis Ormandy:

https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/lotusagenda.html

It's filled with great information. Travis runs Agenda on DOSEMU2 and he gives detailed setup information.

Bob Newell, Honolulu, Hawai'i; last updated on 06 August 2023.