26 Nov
2019
26 Nov
'19
7:15 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Cisin via cctalk" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2019 9:51 PM
Subject: Re: First Internet message and ...
On Tue, 26 Nov 2019, TeoZ via cctalk wrote:
------------------------
WordPro, Paper Clip (written by local boys) and PaperMate for the Commodore PET (and later
for the C64)
The only reason Apple sold so many Apple II's
was because some software
designer came out with Visicalc.
Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston ("Software Arts")
They sold it through "Personal Software", who became "VisiCorp"
http://www.bricklin.com/history/sai.htm
Frankly, I think that word processing was more responsible than
spreadsheet for microcomputer sales.
But, Apple had a headstart by having both.
A far from complete and only partially chronological list:
Electric Pencil (Michael Shrayer)
Electric Pencil for CP/M (with a program to transfer files from Electric
Pencil disks to and from CP/M disks)
Wordstar for CP/M (MicroPro (later WordStar, Inc))
Easy Writer (Apple II, by John Draper)
Scripsit (TRS80)
Electric Pencil for TRS80
Easy Writer for IBm PC
Wordstar for PC
Electric Pencil for PC (Harv Pennington)
Microsoft Word (PC and Apple)
WordPervert
PC-Write (Bob Wallace)