New subject: First "threshold" apps? (Was: "First PC" and other nonsense

23 Apr 1999

I have to agree with you on this one.  The business community lent some
measure of legitimacy to the "pre-IBM-PC" systems by putting them on the
desktop to do "useful" work.  They didn't care so much about "Space
Invaders" or some other game.  Without Visicalc and Wordstar, the
micromputers of yesteryear would have been nothing more than video toys.

Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: allisonp(a)world.std.com &lt;allisonp(a)world.std.com&gt;
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
Date: Friday, April 23, 1999 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: The "FIRST PC" and personal timelines (Was: And what were

...

"standards of usability", and considers that the "unusable"
predecessors
 "don't count" towards being "FIRST".  For some it's PRICE;
for some it's
 internal characteristics; but for MOST, it's the ability to run the
 software that that user thinks is significant. 
I'd say it's fair to differentiate those that had to be toggled to life or
some such but there were already many systems that were turnkey and ran
significant software without investing in an engineering degree.  However
in the age of retro-revisionism and the advent of the dumbing down of the
populace I would then contend the machine that wipes ones fanny is still
wanting.  While games are a real challenge and make their authors big
bucks  Its relevence to a word processor or spread sheet (two killer apps)
is barely there.  I would contend that the apple and cpm machine that
could run visicalc (Dbase, Multiplan and so on) are the real contenders
for the  PC revolution.

Somewhere in all this pony manure is the pony I always wanted.  In the
mean time I keep digging..   ;)

Allison