Apple's early success stemmed from a tiny 20kb computer program they didn't make

Post by jedimastert » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #13

gamache wrote: post #2

That'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.

Looks like macro-heavy assembly to me. If one is not familiar with macro assemblers, in summary you could write your own language in macro assembler. And some did, which makes for a great debugging session if you're the one that has to fix it long after the original dev left. This page explains better than I ever will: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/assembly_programming/assembly...

Post by chipotle_coyote » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

StevePerkins wrote: post #10

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #4

The 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 !

Post by hallway_monitor » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

genmon wrote: post #5

This 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.

Post by blacksmith_tb » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #20

Really the entire personal computer industry's early success was due to VisiCalc, followed by Lotus 1-2-3. Likewise for WordStar, then WordPerfect. It was the first thing I ever heard referred to in the press as a "killer app", which I think of every time someone here makes the claim that nobody called applications "apps" before the iOS App Store.

Post by Malic » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

tuatoru wrote: post #26

M0r13n wrote: post #17

Great example that good software is more important than good hardware. The best hardware will not sell if the user experience is poor due to bad software. The opposite is much easier. As long as the software works reasonably well, customers are more likely to overlook problems in the hardware. That's why there are still so many crappy Windows laptops. The screen is bad, the keyboard is creaky, and the display is from…

Software vs hardware: there's an urban legend that when this came out, accountants would walk into electronics stores and say "I want to buy a Visicalc!"