Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
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Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#2That's a nice snippet of the original source code! Does anyone recognize the language? Googling tells me that VisiCalc was written in Apple II (6502) assembly, but this is clearly not that.
Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#3Not sure I'd have called 20kB tiny at the time!
Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#4The headline on the article (and the tag, from what I can see) is "The 20KB Computer Program That Changed The World"; the title used here seems like it's deliberately reaching for an anti-Apple spin. I mean, WordPerfect absolutely sold hundreds of thousands of DOS computers, but "Microsoft's early success stemmed from a [insert size of WordPerfect] program they didn't make" would...raise eyebrows, wouldn't it?
Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#5This is crazy petty, I know, but the article starts with “You’ve never heard of Dan or Bob. But you should have.”
I mean, I do know about VisiCalc. But even if I didn’t, don’t try to shame me for it — learning is awesome. This kind of negging from a blog post always makes me dismiss it as linkbait even when the subject matter (as with this piece) is actually pretty good.
Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#6Not sure I'd have called 20kB tiny at the time!
True! Bob Frankston actually worked super hard to get VisiCalc's code to fit inside 16KBs so it could be used on the lower-end Apple II. But he couldn't make it happen. So it only ended up as usable on the more expensive $2,500 Apple II
Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#7This is crazy petty, I know, but the article starts with “You’ve never heard of Dan or Bob. But you should have.” I mean, I do know about VisiCalc. But even if I didn’t, don’t try to shame me for it — learning is awesome. This kind of negging from a blog post always makes me dismiss it as linkbait even when the subject matter (as with this piece) is actually pretty good.
When I read this, I don't think the article is criticizing me, the reader. Rather, I think the article is criticizing the world that allowed the reader to never hear of Dan or Bob (as apparently Dan and Bob were pretty cool and everybody should hear about them).
Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#8This is crazy petty, I know, but the article starts with “You’ve never heard of Dan or Bob. But you should have.” I mean, I do know about VisiCalc. But even if I didn’t, don’t try to shame me for it — learning is awesome. This kind of negging from a blog post always makes me dismiss it as linkbait even when the subject matter (as with this piece) is actually pretty good.
“You should have heard of this” is always an (implicit) criticism of whoever you should have heard it from (e.g. your parents, teachers, doctor, pastor, boss, news media, or the society at large), not a criticism of you yourself.
But here the intended meaning is more along the lines of “it is unfortunate that we all collectively pay so much attention to Bill & Steve but don’t also remember and celebrate Dan and Bob”.
Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#9That's a nice snippet of the original source code! Does anyone recognize the language? Googling tells me that VisiCalc was written in Apple II (6502) assembly, but this is clearly not that.
I imagine the answer is somewhere in here: http://rmf.vc/implementingvisicalc
Re: Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make
#10The headline on the article (and the tag, from what I can see) is "The 20KB Computer Program That Changed The World"; the title used here seems like it's deliberately reaching for an anti-Apple spin. I mean, WordPerfect absolutely sold hundreds of thousands of DOS computers, but "Microsoft's early success stemmed from a [insert size of WordPerfect] program they didn't make" would...raise eyebrows, wouldn't it?
Yes, the title is clickbait. But there has been endless snide commentary over the past 4-5 decades about Excel and Word being ripoffs of other companies' inventions.
Hell, Microsoft famously didn't develop MS-DOS!