When you say “software drove hardware sales” do you mean complete software application systems or do you mean compilers available for the hardware so the software teams had variety in what they could program? Up to the ‘90’s, companies had big, expensive hardware and little to no canned software applications so companies also had relatively cheaper software developers to make custom programs. Sent from my iPhone

I'm a youngster when it comes to this hobby, being manufactured myself in the early years of the 90's. As such i cannot really quote from my experiences "at the time", but i have spent many an hour tinkering with old machines and researching for this vintage (and modern) computing hobby of mine, as well as working with some modern enterprise gear that makes me, in some ways, probably quite well versed in this sort of subject. The demands for software and hardware definitely differ greatly between business requirements and home user requirements. Businesses have always had strict needs that must be fulfilled by the hardware they purchase, namely performing the operations they require. In the "early days", this might have been payroll tasks, document processing, inventory, computer aided manufacturing etc. Software to perform such tasks was often developed "in house", especially in the 60's, and the demands from the software would often dictate what hardware was required. Remember, computers were (and in some senses still are) expensive bits of kit, and savings should be made where possible. Sure, you could use an IBM System/360 to do manufacturing automation, but it would be much more cost effective to use a PDP-8, PDP-11, or DG Nova. On the flip side, that PDP-8 is not going to have the hardware support or speed to handle large volumes of ASCII characters to run a flight booking system for a major airline. You purchase the hardware that runs the software you require. Of course, in the later years of the "early days", more software was available "off the shelf", which would definitely steer more purchasers to a certain platform, with the System/360 and PDP-11 being two notable examples of major platforms for which a multitude of software was available from 3rd parties, which would have no doubt bolstered their dominance. Even today, a modern rack of servers will be specced for the tasks it will run. Whilst the differences are by no means what they used to be, there's still no point putting a 96 core Threadripper in a machine running an Exchange server for a medium sized business. Some servers will be built specifically for the tasks they will run, and embedded applications being a prime example of commercial gear which has to cater for the software market. For the industrial and embedded market, for example, a lot of software still exists and is distributed that runs on MS-DOS and compatibles, requiring even modern boards to support BIOS level calls, as well as ISA and PCI slots for custom hardware. Industrial and embedded is a prime example of where the software needs dictate the hardware solution. For some companies that /still/ rely on PDP-11 gear, there are vendors out there that can interface your custom QBUS and UNIBUS hardware to interact with a virtualised PDP-11 running on an Intel PC box. "technical debt", as some call it, is rife in many industrial sectors, and will not be fully replaced with a "modern" solution for decades to come. However, lets contrast it with the home market. For most, it's not the "computer you want", but the "computer you can afford". Back in the "early days" (and i'm calling the early days the mid 70's here), computers were still very new and novel for the home user. Those that might have been used to VAXen and PDP-11's at work may have lusted after one to tinker with at home, but their budget probably stretched to an Altair 8800 at best. Which is great if all you're doing is tinkering with it and writing some assembly yourself, as many hobbyists did. Of course, each platform gained it's own following and software became available, but for the home user, there was largely no "killer apps" that dictated the hardware purchase. Later on in the 80's, as home computers became more mature, some platforms became more powerful and dominant than others, but for those that couldn't afford a top end home computer, the cheaper end often sufficed. Most of the tasks that home users wanted to complete (gaming, word processing, maybe some spreadsheets) had software packages available for most home computing systems, with lower graphical performance or computing power usually correlating with what the user could afford at the time. Every system had it's own quirks, and users often had to sacrifice something. Compare it to the world of modern home computing. Whether your own a Macbook or Windows PC, each has competent software packages for performing your tasks. In some ways, for most non-gaming tasks, the platform just does not matter any more. If you're a gamer, the size of your paycheck will be the biggest determining factor in your hardware purchases, and whether you can support running games in 4K at 144FPS or if you can access the full library of modern console titles. So in some senses, nothing has changed. Business are always worried about costs, so will often buy exactly what they require, and nothing more, dictated by the task it will perform. However, home users will buy what they can afford, and live with the platform limitations and software library available to them. Thanks for reading my TED talk, Josh Rice On 27/04/2024 18:15, Tarek Hoteit via cctalk wrote: > Do you guys* think that software drove hardware sales rather than the other way around for businesses in the early days? I recall that computer hardware salespeople would be knocking on businesses office doors rather than software salesmen. Just seeking your opinion now that we are far ahead from 1981. > > (*I do wish we have female gender engaged in the classic computing discussions threads as well. Maybe there is.) > > Regards, > Tarek Hoteit > AI Consultant, PhD > +1 360-838-3675 >

Not PCs, but the first systems I worked on for DEC were turnkey PDP-11 based systems for newspaper production. Clearly the customer wanted to publish newspapers, and the hardware involved wasn't what drove the decision. A lot of our competitors were specialized companies concentrating on that particular business, not computer makers. For example, arguably the top company at the time (Atex, if I remember right) also used PDP-11s. That was around 1978. Also about that time, I worked with some people running a computer store in the LA area ("Rainbow Computing") on a proposal for a business application. That was a work scheduling and routing system for hospitals, and there too the point of it was the application needed to solve the business problem, not the hardware on which it would run. paul

Interesting discussion, but don't forget software was free until on June 23, 1969, when IBM announced its unbundled offerings! The computer manufacturers then separately priced their software but at it is what sold the hardware for some time thereafter. It was, for quite some time, always safe for business to buy IBM, regardless of price. But the 1970s represented a transition period when independent software vendors starting selling software for specific machines but then thanks to Unix (?) across hardware. There were plug compatible computers for IBM and even DEC. The price of the hardware was such that this was business oriented commerce and I think hardware drove the sales, but with specific software sometimes being a requirement for a specific application. The advent of personal computers in the late 70s made computing available to the home but I'm not sure whether the impulse to buy was the hardware, Apple v IBM. or software, possibly games or more likely software one needed at home for work purposes, WordPress, VisiCalc, etc And the plug compatible PCs changed the market all again. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Tarek Hoteit <tarek(a)infocom.ai> Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2024 10:16 AM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: [cctalk] PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s) I came across this paragraph from the July 1981 Popular Science magazine edition in the article titled “Compute power - pro models at almost home-unit prices.” “ ‘Personal-computer buffs may buy a machine, bring it home, and then spend the rest of their time looking for things it can do’, said …. ‘In business, it’s the other way around. Here you know the job, you have to find a machine that will do it. More precisely, you have to find software that will do the job. Finding a computer to use the software you’ve selected becomes secondary.”. Do you guys* think that software drove hardware sales rather than the other way around for businesses in the early days? I recall that computer hardware salespeople would be knocking on businesses office doors rather than software salesmen. Just seeking your opinion now that we are far ahead from 1981. (*I do wish we have female gender engaged in the classic computing discussions threads as well. Maybe there is.) Regards, Tarek Hoteit AI Consultant, PhD +1 360-838-3675