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I just realised that HN was the worst possible place to leave that comment. I have no doubt there were many applications for computers in 1980s, and many home u

I just realised that HN was the worst possible place to leave that comment. I have no doubt there were many applications for computers in 1980s, and many home users. It just seems far less useful to the average person. How many people actually use spreadsheets outside of a business context? Or write music, or program, etc. Games and word processing seem like they would be the best application. But there were specialized consoles and word processing machines at the time that were cheaper and better for those tasks.

coldtea 11y ago
>Games and word processing seem like they would be the best application. But there were specialized consoles and word processing machines at the time that were cheaper and better for those tasks. No, there weren't. Compared to Amiga and Atari, there were no competitive home game consoles around (until around 1989 or so at least). And of course "word processing machines" were not better in any way. Professional writers (writers, journalists, people writing scientific papers, scriptwriters, etc) were buying PCs for word processing, not any dedicated "word processing machines" (which were just electric typewriters with an LCD and some crude software).
cableshaft 11y ago
I used spreadsheet software all the time back then, and used it basically as an early InDesign. Change cell shapes (to pixel precision), add borders to parts of the cell but not others, add no borders to a group of cells to make a giant text box, etc. Main thing I designed back then was character sheets for ADnD, but I designed other things as well. And those character sheets were super elaborate for the time. I wouldn't qualify as the 'average user' though, granted.