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Ten Applications That Changed Computing
bfire writes "The term 'killer app' gets tossed around quite liberally these days. Nearly every piece of software released seems to be pitched as having the potential to send shockwaves throughout the IT world. In reality, there have been precious few applications which have truly changed the computing industry over the years. This article lists some of the top ten true killer apps that changed computing, from Phil Zimmermann's gold standard in encryption, PGP, to Dr Solomon's groundbreaking anti-virus toolkit, to Mitch Kapor who took the idea of VisiCalc for Apple and created Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS." Typical for top-10 lists, the choices seem pretty arbitrary — what changed your corner of the computing world?
The earliest C and Pascal compilers on a home computer really changed the landscape of who had access to serious software development tools. I believe this is what made the difference and created a vibrant Shareware scene.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
In a day when serious compilers cost $300 or more, most people used the free Basic that came with DOS.
Then Turbo Pascal came out at $49.95, and proved that there was more than a niche market for compilers.
I leanred ed on a teletype. vi changed everything.
Shape table on the Apple were the next big change in my life.
Although I am sure 123 and all the clones are interesting, and Excel does deserve a place of it's own, visicalc changed the way I think.
Same thing for Mathematics.
I am not going to say anything about WYSIWG editing, because I truly think that combining content and presentation is a bad thing. It was a good idea, but it shouldn't be done on a regular basis. For any non trivial project, content and presentation has to be kept separate. I blame the fact that it isn't for all the bad code in the world.
Autodesk inventor was an excellent way to migrate from the drawing board to the computer. However Solidworks and later Inventor actually provided the means by onw which should draw on the computer. There is no reason to pretend that the computer is a drawing board.
It is kind of the same with C++. Lets us look at coding by modeling the world, but does not hide the code of the model behind arbitrary gibberish.
Anti virus software is very important because it allows us to used the cheap PC. Without it we have to buy the drones expensive computers.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
1. WordStar/WordPerfect/Word
2. Visicalc/SuperCalc/123/Multiplan-Excel
3. AutoCad
4. dBase/Oracle7/MySQL
5. Duke Nukem/Wolfenstein 3D/Quake
6. Zelda.....WoW....etc with a branch to Second Life
7. Mozilla/Apache/Tomcat/II6 ad naseum
8. C/Java/php (note the absence of VB)
9. Napster/xTorrent/Amazon/iTunes/eBay/and other Business Distribution online apps
10. McAfee/Norton/AVG/etc.
Ten is too short a number for categories, but these IMHO all started billion dollar industry segments
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I used to sell Macs in '84. I once gave a demo to a group of guys that came in from CERN. I showed them Mac Paint and Mac Write, I copied and pasted between the two apps and they were fascinated. At one point someone asked about the price and I quoted the price in French Francs. Someone asked what that was in Swiss Francs, and one of them had a watch with a built in calculator so he spoke up and asked for the conversion rate. Meanwhile, I pulled down the apple menu and brought up the calculator and typed in the same numbers. I cut the converted price and posted it in the Mac Write document I was typing. The guy with the watch calculator was frozen staring at the Mac. So was the rest of the group. I found out after the demo that they were part of the UA1 team that had just won the nobel prize in physics. Just a simple calculator that could easily integrate with other apps left them completely speechless. Today an application that doesn't support infinite undo is not worthy of a second look, but back then the notion of a GUI, with [limited] multi-tasking, was amazing even to guys who had access to most advanced technology.