History Of The Microcomputer Revolution
By 1979 there were lots of microcomputers and a fair number of software
programs, including word processing and accounting programs. The industry
was somewhat standardized on an operating system - CP/M - although there
were notable exceptions like Radio Shack and Apple, and the Apple II had
emerged as an industry star, with its sound, graphics, and sleek design.
But these programs duplicated what was already existing on mainframe and
minicomputers, and in a horse race - micros really were out of the running.
What the industry needed was a Killer application - a software program
that would let a microcomputer do something the other bigger computers
couldn't do, and a MIT graduate named Dan Bricklin - came up with an idea.
Dan already was a computer programmer, working on - you guessed it - DEC
minicomputers - but when the microcomputer market began to happen, he realized
that the people who used them would want powerful but simple to use business-oriented
programs. He went back to graduate school at Harvard and came up with the
idea of creating a program designed for generic business applications that
would let people work with numbers on a microcomputer; build financial
models, and have the computer do all the calculating. What will our profit
be if we sell 10,000 gizmos at fifty cents each? What if our inventory
expenses rise suddenly?
The concept was the traditional accounting worksheet with its rows and
columns, except that everything would be magically hooked together - so
that if a value in one row changed - any other values it effected would
automatically be recalculated and changed. This would be a calculator program
that would show you visibly onscreen the results - hence he named it Visicalc...
The market for it - was virtually every small business and corporation
in the world. Even though big corporations had big computers, there was
a tremendous backlog in submitting jobs and getting work back - weeks,
months, even years. Rather than depending on centralized data processing
departments, across the country thousands of corporate midmanagers were
doing it themselves - working with traditional paper spreadsheets, penciling
in amounts, changing, erasing, and using desktop calculators to create
reports such as forecasts and budgets. Small business people were doing
the same thing.
In actually writing the program, Dan Bricklin didn't even have his own
microcomputer, but he met up with another Dan who was already writing and
marketing micro software - Dan Fylstra - who felt they should write it
for the industry star - the Apple II. They actually first wrote it using
a procedure which should be familiar to those of you who have been following
the series. Yes - using a DEC minicomputer they created an Apple II emulator
program initially. Later, they wrote it on a real Apple II . In a few months
they had a finished product designed specifically for Apple computers.
The market response was incredible, because this was not just computer
hardware and software - it was a complete business solution. Managers could
buy an Apple II with Visicalc, bring it into their departments, and immediately
increase their productivity. Budgets and forecasts that traditionally took
weeks could now be done in hours.
Word spread so quickly and so many people recognized the productivity potential
that people would walk into computer stores asking for a Visicalc system,
as if it was all one thing. This was the true killer application that launched
the industry - it appealed to virtually everyone - from the corporation
- to small business - to home users. And you could buy the whole thing
for only a couple thousand dollars - put it almost anywhere and learn it
quickly - it was a small, portable, productivity system.
Visicalc was soon modified to run on other microcomputers; Radio Shack
at first, then others. But the most significant point here is that people
were buying a ready made solution and microcomputers were beginning to
infiltrate American corporations by the thousands. This was a case of the
tail wagging the dog - a hundred dollar piece of software was selling a
two thousand dollar computer, and sales increased exponentially into the
millions.
The industry had grown from hobbyists and long haired kids in garages into
a business market generating serious money, and on the sidelines the world's
largest computer company had been watching and studying it. Next
week we'll learn how IBM planned to get a piece of the action, but
ended up getting a whole lot more than they bargained for.
For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney
Copyright © 1995 MTA
Micro Technology Associates Frank
Delaney
928 E. Thurston Spokane, WA 99203 (509) 624-7286/7230
Raw Bytes Computer News - KPBX FM 91.1 National Public Radio
In computer news this week (April 20, 1995):
For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney
Copyright © 1995 MTA Micro Technology Associates
Frank Delaney
928 E. Thurston Spokane, WA 99203 (509) 624-7286/7230
Raw Bytes Computer News - KPBX FM 91.1 National Public Radio
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Copyright © 1997-2006 William Thomas Sanderson.
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