We didn't have "apps" in the 80's we had "programs".
Reminds me of this picture: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/600x315/e9/ff/28/e9ff28...
Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
61–70 of 152 posts
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember pirating games using my moms double casette deck in the kitchen. It played the signal as audio while copying.
This never occurred to me until you said it. Did that work??
Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. It depended on the quality of the cassette deck and also how crappy the tape was you were recording to. Me and my friend often used to try high speed dubbing but that rarely yielded good results.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#63We didn't have "apps" in the 80's we had "programs".
I wonder what synonyms there are for 'computer program.' Does 'application' count? Are there any synonyms for 'pedantry' that you can think of?
There are vast numbers of programs that run without a UI for people to use.
There are also vast numbers of programs designed for action entertainment.
Then there are programs like spreadsheets and word processors that are "applications" -- programs with a humane UI, purely for end users, designed mainly to be employed for some other specific productive purpose rather than to be used in themselves.
It is true that we now have the more generic "app" thanks to the iPhone,[1] but I think at this point the word is only a little more established in the language than "on fleek."
But even when that changes, it won't mean that when grown-ups observe the history and meaning of words as they are actually used they are engaging in "pedantry."
[1] (Yes, I know there are examples of prior usage of "app" from long before 2007. I'm talking about widespread, mainstream language, not your technical chats with RMS when you were a comp sci grad student in the 1970s.)
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember pirating games using my moms double casette deck in the kitchen. It played the signal as audio while copying.
This never occurred to me until you said it. Did that work??
Up to a point. It's an analogue process so each copy degrades the signal. At some point games started having custom file loaders which made them load faster but also served as a kind of copy protection as copies were more likely to fail. Of course it also meant the original was more likely to fail.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
That may be the case for the Spectrum, but not for the Mac. They have always been referred to as "applications" on the Mac, and I know that was abbreviated as "apps" by the mid-90s. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that abbreviation was used by Mac users as far back as the 80s.
Atari's GEM/TOS also had applications, abbreviated as "app", in the mid-80s. I don't know where people got the idea that "app" is something recent, but I've started seeing people say it in a few places lately. It's not true at all, we definitely had apps in the 80s.
I think those people are saying -- reasonably -- that the word app is recent in the mainstream popular language, not that it was never ever used by anyone until the iPhone.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#66Too bad it's ZX Spectrum only. Would have been cool if it would have been a cross-platform BASICODE program (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASICODE).
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
That may be the case for the Spectrum, but not for the Mac. They have always been referred to as "applications" on the Mac, and I know that was abbreviated as "apps" by the mid-90s. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that abbreviation was used by Mac users as far back as the 80s.
Atari's GEM/TOS also had applications, abbreviated as "app", in the mid-80s. I don't know where people got the idea that "app" is something recent, but I've started seeing people say it in a few places lately. It's not true at all, we definitely had apps in the 80s.
Windows called them programs (until recently), and Android & iOS call them apps, so it's likely that most people have only started hearing the term in the last 10 years.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#68I remember listening to OK Computer some years ago and I must have been studying or something or other and the track "Fitter Happier" came on. Those familiar know how it goes, the Stephen Hawking voice droning on about all these ideals worth pursuing ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HimvFbossU8 ). I sat back half listening that evening and this funny response came out in my head, where I responded to the monotone na…
Radiohead also released an EP of OK Computer B-sides called "Airbag / How Am I Driving?" It's absolutely brilliant, but relatively unknown. If you haven't heard it seek it out.
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Application" was around way earlier, as shorthand for "application program" (to be distinguished from "utility program", and, possibly, "game") For examples look at the search hits in https://archive.org/stream/1981-03-compute-magazine/Compute_... . I wouldn't call this an application, though. "App" is completely wrong, as it was introduced by Apple for user-facing programs running on a mobile phone (if Android had…
"App" significantly predates the iPhone. Binary/warez sites regularly used "apps" as a shorthand, NeXTSTEP used .app before Apple bought it...heck, Apple called an early Mac development framework "MacApp". We've been calling applications "apps" for going on thirty years at a minimum.
But they spelled it appZ. (Emphasis mine, or theirs, come to think of it.) /s
Apps/z was shorthand when typing, and arguably period correct, but a majority still said (and to a lesser extent, typed) Programs. It is even the verb used, to program. Does one app?
Re: Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
"App" significantly predates the iPhone. Binary/warez sites regularly used "apps" as a shorthand, NeXTSTEP used .app before Apple bought it...heck, Apple called an early Mac development framework "MacApp". We've been calling applications "apps" for going on thirty years at a minimum.
Mobiles pre-smartphone boasted of their 'Java App Library', too. I don't know anyone who used one deliberately though, with the slow and extortionately priced data of the time.
Agreed. I used some awesome java apps back in the say, but always shared between friends via sync cable. Data was for people more affluent than I. I still recall selling nokia headphone adapters like crazy. They had pins, but no 1/8" jack was commonly available, so I hacked the handsfree ones, moving the mic pin to be stereo instead, and doubling up the grounds on either side for a better connection.