3 ms·

There are two developments I can point in history that made "ordinary people" want to use a computer: visicalc and the web.

neilv 5y ago
I'd like to add a vote for word processing, as also a huge selling point for computers for ordinary people. With word processing, if you were currently using a typewriter, and correcting tape/fluid, and editing, and re-typing pages (and, hey, change your mind about the name of the protagonist in your novel? one command)... that seems a very easy sell. Spreadsheets also seemed an easy sell from the start (e.g., accurate instant calculations of, say, current paper ledgers, without a calculator). Even before people understood all the new things they'd be doing with spreadsheets that weren't practical or convenient before. ("Education", "balancing your checkbook", "organizing your recipes", and other early pitches for non-business ordinary people home computers... not so much. Though a lot of ordinary people tried programming.) One distinction with the Web might've been that (at least initially) although it might've made ordinary people want to use a computer, they didn't immediately see what it was good for. Initially, you could wander around Yahoo, and click to some Web museum experiment, and that was a novelty and a nice demo you could extrapolate, especially if you were an ordinary person into science fiction or futurism. But mostly you knew a bunch of companies were suddenly throwing money at it, and that those companies also didn't seem to know what it was good for. But lots of people wanted to be there.
- derac 5y ago
  Chat, forums, and email were the killer apps. Also, wandering around web directories.
- mongol 5y ago
  How about the long forgotten buzzword "desktop publishing", or WYSIWYG word processing?
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    The buzzwords that sold millions of LaserWriters and the macs that drove them.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Desktop publishing was more than a buzzword! I had a Mac Plus in High School and I was one of the more popular people in my class. I also ended up typesetting the school newspaper, eventually I got a few of my peers trained up to do it too. The portability of the Mac Plus came in handy as I would bring it to school once a month to get the paper done. Had to get my mom to drive me to a service bureau near the university that would laser print pages - $1 a page. Our highschool paper looked better than most of the indy papers in town. It was revolutionary tech that we now just take for granted. I remember getting excited over the first bubblejet printers - finally affordable laser like quality!
    - neilv 5y ago
      Oh yeah, the $1 color(?) laser prints! And the $1-per-page faxing. I had a childhood very tiny shrinkwrap software business then, and my packaging was based on paper inserts in clamshell packaging (lower startup costs than actual shrinkwrap machine and supplies). Places were offering color laser prints for $1 per page. That was a little too painful, and my tools for mastering were limited (monochrome paint programs that wouldn't even display square pixels, and some bits manually taped up). I ended up using a normal print shop for offset printing, using one standard (unmixed) color, and I think the guy gave the little kid a discount, and also fixed the tape-up. First product had a standard blue on white paper stock (with a couple colored circle stickers like for garage sales, printed with things like version number on my 9-pin printer), and the second was standard red on canary stock. We actually did a youth group newsletter a similar way, except with more tape-up (every little big was printed separately), and just 5-cent photocopying.
- Stratoscope 5y ago
  In fact, word processing was and is so valuable that you could buy a dedicated word processor long before you could buy a personal computer. Behold the mighty Wang: https://www.google.com/search?q=wang+word+processor&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=wang+word+processor&tbm=isch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_2200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_2200 Only $7400 in 1973 ($43,000 in today's dollars).
  - drewzero1 5y ago
    I had a Wang PC-280 [0] (80286) that I bought at a rummage sale (mostly because I was a kid and thought the name was hilarious). It was an absolute tank of a machine. I also had a Brother WP-80 [1] which was a more modern word processor that also included a spreadsheet function. [0] http://home.wxs.nl/~janvdv/wang/wangmuseumoverig.htm http://home.wxs.nl/~janvdv/wang/wangmuseumoverig.htm [1] http://oldcomputer.info/others/brother70/index.htm http://oldcomputer.info/others/brother70/index.htm
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
swyx 5y ago
can you do the equivalent for mobile phones? what was the "killer app" for iphone?
- gordon_freeman 5y ago
  I guess the introduction to 3rd party apps aka App Store.
- baix777 5y ago
  The key is in the name, mobility. Being able to look at a map on the web on your home computer is nice, being able to look at map anyplace your phone works is the so much better.
- EricE 5y ago
  Internet in your pocket. Go watch the original iPhone launch keynote with Steve Jobs. Before the iPhone "mobile internet" was a completely separate version of the 'net - if a site even bothered to create a WAP version of themselves to render on phones. Before the iPhone the only thing consistently useful on a mobile "smart phone" was email. Having a real web browser that rendered real web pages was a watershed moment!
kragen 5y ago
I would add word processing, the GUI, email, the telephone (even if the computer you were using was a 3B2 in a windowless data center downtown), text chat, Hypercard, MacPaint, video streaming, CAD, GPS, engine control units (which you use every time you drive a car made in the last 40 years), and the GENESYS animation program.
magpi3 5y ago
For me it was the earliest computer games (Adventure, Infocom Games, Wizardry). But having Basic (or was it always QBasic?) installed was also a fun reason to mess around with the computer. My Dad worked for IBM, and he brought home one of the earliest PCs I think in 1980 or 81.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Also Quicken. I remember several people buying a PC after I showed it to them.

neilv 5y ago

I'd like to add a vote for word processing, as also a huge selling point for computers for ordinary people. With word processing, if you were currently using a typewriter, and correcting tape/fluid, and editing, and re-typing pages (and, hey, change your mind about the name of the protagonist in your novel? one command)... that seems a very easy sell. Spreadsheets also seemed an easy sell from the start (e.g., accurate instant calculations of, say, current paper ledgers, without a calculator). Even before people understood all the new things they'd be doing with spreadsheets that weren't practical or convenient before. ("Education", "balancing your checkbook", "organizing your recipes", and other early pitches for non-business ordinary people home computers... not so much. Though a lot of ordinary people tried programming.) One distinction with the Web might've been that (at least initially) although it might've made ordinary people want to use a computer, they didn't immediately see what it was good for. Initially, you could wander around Yahoo, and click to some Web museum experiment, and that was a novelty and a nice demo you could extrapolate, especially if you were an ordinary person into science fiction or futurism. But mostly you knew a bunch of companies were suddenly throwing money at it, and that those companies also didn't seem to know what it was good for. But lots of people wanted to be there.

derac 5y ago
Chat, forums, and email were the killer apps. Also, wandering around web directories.
mongol 5y ago
How about the long forgotten buzzword "desktop publishing", or WYSIWYG word processing?
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  The buzzwords that sold millions of LaserWriters and the macs that drove them.
- EricE 5y ago
  Desktop publishing was more than a buzzword! I had a Mac Plus in High School and I was one of the more popular people in my class. I also ended up typesetting the school newspaper, eventually I got a few of my peers trained up to do it too. The portability of the Mac Plus came in handy as I would bring it to school once a month to get the paper done. Had to get my mom to drive me to a service bureau near the university that would laser print pages - $1 a page. Our highschool paper looked better than most of the indy papers in town. It was revolutionary tech that we now just take for granted. I remember getting excited over the first bubblejet printers - finally affordable laser like quality!
  - neilv 5y ago
    Oh yeah, the $1 color(?) laser prints! And the $1-per-page faxing. I had a childhood very tiny shrinkwrap software business then, and my packaging was based on paper inserts in clamshell packaging (lower startup costs than actual shrinkwrap machine and supplies). Places were offering color laser prints for $1 per page. That was a little too painful, and my tools for mastering were limited (monochrome paint programs that wouldn't even display square pixels, and some bits manually taped up). I ended up using a normal print shop for offset printing, using one standard (unmixed) color, and I think the guy gave the little kid a discount, and also fixed the tape-up. First product had a standard blue on white paper stock (with a couple colored circle stickers like for garage sales, printed with things like version number on my 9-pin printer), and the second was standard red on canary stock. We actually did a youth group newsletter a similar way, except with more tape-up (every little big was printed separately), and just 5-cent photocopying.
Stratoscope 5y ago
In fact, word processing was and is so valuable that you could buy a dedicated word processor long before you could buy a personal computer. Behold the mighty Wang: https://www.google.com/search?q=wang+word+processor&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=wang+word+processor&tbm=isch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_2200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_2200 Only $7400 in 1973 ($43,000 in today's dollars).
- drewzero1 5y ago
  I had a Wang PC-280 [0] (80286) that I bought at a rummage sale (mostly because I was a kid and thought the name was hilarious). It was an absolute tank of a machine. I also had a Brother WP-80 [1] which was a more modern word processor that also included a spreadsheet function. [0] http://home.wxs.nl/~janvdv/wang/wangmuseumoverig.htm http://home.wxs.nl/~janvdv/wang/wangmuseumoverig.htm [1] http://oldcomputer.info/others/brother70/index.htm http://oldcomputer.info/others/brother70/index.htm

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

swyx 5y ago

can you do the equivalent for mobile phones? what was the "killer app" for iphone?

gordon_freeman 5y ago
I guess the introduction to 3rd party apps aka App Store.
baix777 5y ago
The key is in the name, mobility. Being able to look at a map on the web on your home computer is nice, being able to look at map anyplace your phone works is the so much better.
EricE 5y ago
Internet in your pocket. Go watch the original iPhone launch keynote with Steve Jobs. Before the iPhone "mobile internet" was a completely separate version of the 'net - if a site even bothered to create a WAP version of themselves to render on phones. Before the iPhone the only thing consistently useful on a mobile "smart phone" was email. Having a real web browser that rendered real web pages was a watershed moment!

kragen 5y ago

I would add word processing, the GUI, email, the telephone (even if the computer you were using was a 3B2 in a windowless data center downtown), text chat, Hypercard, MacPaint, video streaming, CAD, GPS, engine control units (which you use every time you drive a car made in the last 40 years), and the GENESYS animation program.

magpi3 5y ago

For me it was the earliest computer games (Adventure, Infocom Games, Wizardry). But having Basic (or was it always QBasic?) installed was also a fun reason to mess around with the computer. My Dad worked for IBM, and he brought home one of the earliest PCs I think in 1980 or 81.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

Also Quicken. I remember several people buying a PC after I showed it to them.