Youโve never heard of Dan or Bob.
But you should have.
They built a company, VisiCalc, that led to Apple's first big success and changed computers forever.
Hereโs their story.
Dan Bricklin with the beard. Bob Frankston in the shades.
The year is 1978. And Dan Bricklin is walking into class at Harvard Business School.
He sees a dozen chalkboards connected by one massive matrix of rows and columns.
After settling in the teacher shows how, with a calculator, you could change one cell and "quickly" ripple updates thru all the connected cells.
That summer, while staring at his calculator on Martha's Vineyard, he had the thought:
>"Imagine if my calculator had a ball in its back, like a mouse...
>
>And there was a display, like in a fighter-plane, where I could see a virtual image...
>
>I could just move my mouse, funch in a few numbers, and do all the calculations I need!"
A few months later Dan built the first version of VisiCalc.
It took 1 week.
It didnโt scroll. The decimals werenโt fixed. But it solved one huge problemโit lettered the columns and numbered the rows, so you could refer to each cell
Here's a photo of the initial alpha from Danโs old 35mm camera:
The alpha version of VisiCalc. the first time rows and columns were labeled for easy reference.
Dan was ecstatic. But he hit his programming limits. So he recruited his buddy Bob Frankston from MIT.
Bob went to work in the attic of a house down the street from Dan. He programmed on a shared MIT system that was expensive to rent out during prime daytime hours.
So Bob slept during the day. And worked at night.
Inside the attic where Bob Frankston created VisiCalc
Bob hit one huge problem.
He couldn't condense his 20KB VisiCalc code to fit within the 16KB of the low-end Apple II. So when VisiCalc shipped it would only be available on the much more expensive 32KB Apple II.
Both Dan and Bob were nervous it wouldn't sell.
(Hereโs some of Bob's first source code.)
[The poll_keyboard command ensured users didn't lose characters when they typed fast by \"polling the keyboard\
... keep reading on reddit โก
How I did it. How not to do it too... https://abitoutofplace.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/visicalc-on-a-pet-8032/
I am a crypto peon. I am also just old enough to remember computers in the 1980s. And crypto right now reminds me a lot of the 1980s. I'd peg crypto development somewhere around 1986/87/88 computer development in the US. There are a lot of similarities.
There was already a first wave of computer millionaires 81/82/83 (CP/M, Visicalc, Eagle Computers) and the subsequent crash, plus some more minor crashes along the way.
Computers were generally divided into 2 categories: "serious" business machines and "gaming" computers, which were likened to toys. Hardware was expensive, fragile, obnoxious to install. Manufacturers could close up shop overnight, leaving you stranded with zero support. Compatibility? LOL. What compatibility. Standards? What standards. Most visual output was measured in characters and columns, not pixels. Multitasking? LOL. No, you used one program at a time (RAM resident programs were a few years away) and you liked it. It was completely possible to bump your computer and destroy something inside it. There were no computers where you could go out, buy it, turn it on, and basically start using it without RTFM. Did I mention often the manuals had errors that could leave you dead in the water? Yeah. There's that too.
Right around 85/86/87 you had GUI systems (Mac, the very early versions of Windows, GEM was coming around during this time) but these were expensive and your choices were limited, and you needed powerful hardware to run them. But yes, you could actually go out and buy a machine that you could use out of the box. I'm going to say that the equivalent right now are Coinbase and CDC, who make it so if you just want to buy some BTC, it's doable with a little work.
But there were still massive problems with compatibility, a distinct lack of standards, and if you wanted to do anything with the machine like print, have sound, color displays... you were suddenly in a terrifying world of expansion slots and add on cards and jargon. You had to be very careful to buy exactly the software you needed for your specific hardware and OS. The entire thing was very fragmented and chaotic. Mistakes were very expensive. Oh, and if you fucked up putting in the new hardware, you could torch the computer entirely. Good times.
And sure, you could get onto the "Internet" such as it existed with BBS's or such, but holy shit. You had to want it. And online was the absolute wild fucking west of nobody knew what the fuck they were do
... keep reading on reddit โกDo your worst!
It really does, I swear!
For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.
I said "hey look, an escaPEA"
No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!
Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies ๐
This is embarrassing to admit, but Iโve been in accounting 4 years (tax) and still donโt really know Excel. We never learned it extensively in school. Now that Iโm working, most of the spreadsheets I use were already built by other people. Iโve made a couple pivot tables, can do sumif and other basic formulas but I want to learn it better. I could download data to practice with but has anyone used an online course that helped?
Theyโre on standbi
Buenosdillas
The story of how I did it. Lots of pictures. https://abitoutofplace.wordpress.com/category/vintage-bitage/pet/
