20 Jul
2008
20 Jul
'08
5:14 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Well, if we're going to have fun with
"first" claims, there's a
Washington Post article by Kenneth Baer that contains the following
interesting claim:
"Computers were quickly becoming more pervasive, too. VisiCalc, an
early spreadsheet program, was introduced in 1978 and quickly became
the first commercially successful piece of software"
I seem to recall there being a thriving market for commercial software
for IBM mainframes by the early 1970s.
I suppose the claim depends on how you define "commercial success". If
you measure it by units sold (rather than dollars), and set a high
enough bar, VisiCalc could be a "first".
Eric