Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #621424Re: Old word processors
From: Dave Garland
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 05:26
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 05:26
36 lines
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3652 bytes
On 3/24/2018 10:46 PM, Charles Richmond wrote: > > What you should say is... widespread use of microcomputers in the > *business* sector did 8not* occur until the IBM PC. It even took thw > slow-witted business managers *years* to realize they could ge much > better computers for less money... by purchasing IBM PC clones. It was spreading among small businesses earlier. It was the corporate world that needed the crutch of the IBM label. > That said, the "killer app" for the Apple II was Visicalc... it caused > many to buy the Apple II just to run Visicalc. Visicalc does *not* > sound like a hobby program to me. :-) > Yes. And mostly buying it for business purposes. Farms, garages, other small operations that didn't have bureaucracies. And soon after, for CP/M it was the software bundles. Osborne would sell you a computer with WordStar, SuperCalc, dBaseII, a PERT prog, some interpreters and maybe compilers, other odds and ends (the particular mix seemed to vary). "Everything you need!" Print ads showing woman in business suit swinging an Osborne like a briefcase (must have been an empty case, as it weighed as much as a sewing machine) and striding through the doorway spilling light from the future. Kaypro then sold the same sort of package, with a better screen and keyboard. Morrow did the same as desktop, with a decent terminal. My main (word processing) client bought an Osborne to run spreadsheets, I played with it after hours. Nice. I bought a Morrow. Client complained that the user group people didn't speak English, only Osborne, and I started selling services (consulting/repair/handholding). Other small businesses were buying them, small nonprofits, authors, and others, mostly for the word processing and spreadsheet.
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X-Received: by 10.28.26.147 with SMTP id a141mr1641646wma.12.1521955578276; Sat, 24 Mar 2018 22:26:18 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: alt.folklore.computers@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.223.199.211 with SMTP id y19ls3446686wrg.6.gmail; Sat, 24 Mar 2018 22:26:17 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.223.210.70 with SMTP id o6mr1784611wri.24.1521955577563; Sat, 24 Mar 2018 22:26:17 -0700 (PDT) Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!a12ni14103wmg.0!nntp.google.com!goblin1!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!aioe.org!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Dave Garland <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old word processors Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 00:26:15 -0500 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 36 Message-ID: <p97btp$ck1$1@dont-email.me> References: <87k1ub4vgf.fsf@usenet.ankman.de> <396ec331-b5a3-4137-ac0f-c45471afccb7@googlegroups.com> <87fu4y4d8m.fsf@usenet.ankman.de> <dng0oe-0hq.ln1@Telcontar.valinor> <nejuadhun30mn34o7tvqbs6fhaq9d42m9m@4ax.com> <dce9e1b3-38a3-4815-b8e3-f788819f24d0@googlegroups.com> <p94p0f$uul$1@dont-email.me> <784f741a-e2b9-45db-be4d-3dadc905b18a@googlegroups.com> <p9762o$84t$1@dont-email.me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Injection-Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 05:26:17 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="e33d8f7bd59e57aced7f5fe9cfe9e184"; logging-data="12929"; mail-complaints-to="ab...@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/9CVhRxq4f4UM+YpDyEP1zl2meaxPJH0o=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.6.0 In-Reply-To: <p9762o$84t$1@dont-email.me> Cancel-Lock: sha1:orjUlb/RG9BWZSUeOxrnJvFlhGg= X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit