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One of my more vivid memories from childhood was the guy who pulled up to the computer store in a Trans Am, walked up to the counter and said, "I want a Visical
by WillAdams 2y ago
One of my more vivid memories from childhood was the guy who pulled up to the computer store in a Trans Am, walked up to the counter and said, "I want a Visicalc."
After the salesperson explained that it was a computer program which ran on an Apple ][, the guy said something to the effect of, "Set me up with what I need.", and the salesperson proceeded to put together pretty much one of everything in the store all of which was then loaded into the Trans Am, and after writing a check, the hopeful accountant drove off.
A while back, when I read the book _Diver's Down: Adventure Beneath Hawaiian Seas_ to my kids I had to explain what slide rules and adding machines and ledger sheets were --- it's really remarkable how we have finally reached Babbage's exclamation:
>"I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam."
- jkaptur 2y agoThat setup cost in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars (adjusted for inflation). Spreadsheets are amazing.
- Jtsummers 2y agoThe Apple II was originally priced at $1298 in 1977 dollars, that's more than $6700 today. A "one of everything" setup would be 5-figures in today's dollars. Even the later Apple IIe cost over $4k adjusted to today's dollars.
- ghaff 2y agoMachrone's Law (the longtime editor of PC Magazine) was that the PC you wanted cost $5K in the currency of the time. And that held for quite a long time.
- fuzztester 2y agoBill Machrone, from memory. Some of the early PC Magazine utilities were cool.
- ghaff 2y agoSome of the assembly language columns got me into doing a spin-off DOS file manager utility that I worked on for quite a while.
- fuzztester 2y agoOh, cool. I like assembly language. Early in my career, I read some books about it, including a few about programming for the 6502 processor, and later, Peter Norton's "Assembly Language Programming for the IBM PC". I thought the latter book was very good, just like his Norton Utilities and other software. I did a fair amount of hobby 6502 assembly language programming on the Commodore 64, and a bit on the BBC Micro. The Beeb had a cool inline assembly feature, using which you could write 6502 assembly code inline in the middle of your BBC BASIC code, just by wrapping the assembly code in square brackets. There was no need of an explicit assembly step. The inline assembly code would just run as part of the running of the BASIC code.
- elzbardico 2y agoBelieve me or not, but I loved the ads in early PC Magazine (that I usually read as a kid a couple months later in my public library in Brazil thanks to some unknown subscriber’s donation). I used to daydream about the equipment in the ads like other kids did with cars in car magazines
- ghaff 2y agoThere was a huge magazine called Computer Shopper back in the day. It wasn't 100% ads but it was a very high percentage of ads peppered with mostly pretty formulaic articles.
- fuzztester 2y ago>Believe me or not, but I loved the ads in early PC Magazine I believe you, ha ha. I used to do the same, with both PC Magazine and BYTE. And with DDJ and CUJ too. :) (Dr. Dobbs Journal and C Users Journal. Both of those had high quality articles on software topics, back then, and for many years.)
- ghaff 2y agoI don't remember what I paid for PC and printer, but I'm sure my IBM PC clone (with dual floppies) was well into the $4K plus range in today's dollars in 1982 or so. And software wasn't cheap either. A hard disk would have added multiple thousands of dollars. (Where I was working paid $5K in then dollars for an Apple III hard disk.) When I went to grad school a couple of years later, I was one of very few people who owned a PC.
- MaDeuce 2y agoYou're spot on. The IBM XT was introduced immediately after I graduated and went to work. My employer's employees got a 20% discount from IBM, as IBM was a client. I bought an XT (PC + 10MB hard drive) for $4K (list price $5K). A lot of money then for a new grad. The contrast between then and now is stunning. And software costs... this was also the era when every "application" (think accounting software: accounts payable, payroll, accounts receivable, word processing) was $495 per application. A small business could easily pay $2-5K for basic software to run their business. And then, of course, it was a nightmare to setup and use and almost impossible to pull off without a "consultant". But VisiCalc -- it was such a game changer. A totally different way of using a PC that enabled the "ordinary" non-computer person to become an order of magnitude more productive. I think Lotus 123 was the pinnacle of golden era of keyboard-driven spreadsheets, but it was only an incremental improvement over VisiCalc. The journey into the abyss began with Lotus Symphony. I do like Excel and use it on occasion. But I pine for the days of lean software that did one thing exceptionally well.