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The First Killer App: VisiCalc
Sabah Arif writes "The first electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc, helped transform the Apple II from a home computer into a business computer. Without VisiCalc, it is possible IBM would not have introduced the IBM PC in 1981. Read about the software at VisiCalc's creator Dan Bricklin's site and a brief history at Braeburn."
networked computers weren't the norm back then. People did back ups onto dozens of floppy disks one at a time.
What do you mean, floppy disks? We used audio cassettes.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
And here is the original article :)
Simply amazing, Slashdot is these days.
we discovered a new way to think.
To be fair, I'd argue the first killer app was cracking. The very reason the first computers were ever built was to do this task which really was a matter of life or death.
Ironic, when you think about it: The first killer app, the reason computers first got built, the app that saved civilization, was encryption cracking. Now we have the DMCA to save us from it and the MPAA arresting sixteen year old Swedish kids for doing it.
I thought the first killer app was email?
Not for a Microsoft MS-DOS PC it wasn't. These PCs didn't even have any other viable networking option with the OS until Novell came along. Microsoft didn't really get much networking until Windows 3.0 and it was a hacked up mess. So how could a PC transmit email? It didn't unless you loaded Novell with ccMail or some other similar infrastructure add in. Novell got a start here as people were tired of copying to floppies (sneakernet).
VisiCalc, SuperCalc and later Lotus was the rage that drove the PCs in business. For home, but shorty after business it was Procomm to a local Fido BBS or perhaps to a UNIX system running mmdf or uucp. For PCs, email was second or perhaps third.
The raw fact of the mater is Microsoft has invented nothing but FUD. Every technology they use or sell has been borrowed from someone else, except perhaps for NETBIOS that no one wants to use any more. The only thing really innovative about Microsoft is the strong arm marketing tactics used to create a monopoly. History of the technology is best gotten from more neutral sources than Microsoft that would have you believe they invented the internet.
So I hope you were being funny.
The most recent software install on my current notebook was 1.8GB.
>>So how could a PC transmit email? It didn't unless you loaded Novell with ccMail or some other similar infrastructure add in.
Well, there was the serial port and a Hayes Modem. A popular communications app was a shareware one: ProComm. Email was available via Compuserve, a BBS, perhaps a university, and later AOL.
So the PC could send and receive email. It just wasn't a straightforward thing to set up, at least for the business types.
Atari Cassette Recorder
Sharp MZ80K
ZX Spectrum +2
Each cassette typically had a play/recording speed of 300 baud. So a 32K program would take around 15 minutes to load.
And you hoped that your tape would never stretch or shrink due to usage or changing weather conditions. Not forgetting having to maintain a log of where the tape counter was when each program was saved to tape.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Actually, wouldn't the first KILLER app be the Therac-25 controlling software? I mean, it actually did kill people when it malfunctioned. More info
Umm...guys, VisiCalc first came out on Apple ]['s, not MS-DOS PC's. I worked at Apple during those years, and nearly every unit we sold was because of that app. 8086 PC's came in much later on in the piece. We were working on our first duck quack synthesizer when IBM brought out their competitor -- the one with the heavy steel plate in the keyboard to make it feel more solid (closest they could come to those big iron plates they put in the base of their mainframes).
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear