On Tue, 17 Oct 2017, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote:
Today marks the 36 anniversary of Visicalc a seminal program in the
world of classic computing.
Happy computing!
Murray :)
36 years is not accurate. Nor is "today".
38 and a half years.
http://www.bricklin.com/history/sai.htm
Visicalc was advertised in May 1979 Byte,
and demonstrated in May 1979 by Dan Bricklin at the West Coast Computer
Faire (which was also the first one that I exhibited at)
It had an "official launch" in June 1979 at NCC (National Computer
Conference)
The first version ran on Apple II.
Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston formed "Software Arts" (January 1979), but
handed over marketing of Visicalc to "Personal Software" (Dan Fylstra,
Peter Jennings).
In the early days of microcomputer software, there were few precedents for
royalty amounts, and the royalties were sometimes reported to be 37%!
(later, more typically 8 - 12%)
Personal Software felt the pinch from those royalty amounts, and started
to negotiate to lower the royalties, buy the program outright from
Software Arts, or merge the companies.
Imitations soon developed, including SuperCalc (1980) and MultiPlan
(1981).
The imitations became known in the trade as "VisiCLONES"
Personal Software however tried to cash in on the name, by coming out with
Visi-xxxx programs. "from the same people who brought you VisiCalc".
A port to TRS-80 came soon.
When IBM was developing the PC, they were not stupid enough to ignore the
need for software, so they contracted for a version of VisiCalc to be
released along with the PC on August 11, 1981.
For various reasons, they did NOT go with Wordstar (the obvious choice for
a word processor), and contracted for Easy Writer (written by John
"Captain Crunch" Draper). If IBM were to have known that it was by
Draper, then they would surely have tried harder to negotiate with
MicroPro (Later renamed "Wordstar International") for WordStar!
Less than half a year later, Personal Software renamed themselves
"VisiCorp". It helps a LOT to have the company and the primary program
sharing a name! (That's why I renamed "Berkeley Microcomputer" into
"XenoSoft")
Mitch Kapor formed Lotus Development Corp in 1983. 1-2-3 was written
originally by Jonathan Sachs. Lotus 1-2-3 was released in January 1983,
and immediately sold better than VisiCalc. It became the most successful
of the VisiClones, and dominated the market for years, before eventually
being replaced by MicroSoft Excel.
In 1983, VisiCorp, after being unsuccessful in negotiating lower
royalties, purchase, or merger, sued Software Arts, claiming late
delivery. Besides millions of dollars, they wanted to be exempt from
royalties for the version of VisiCalc in VisiON.
In 1984, Software Arts counter sued for "breach of contract". In mid
1984, a settlement was reached - VisiCorp payed Software Arts an
undisclosed amount of money. Software Arts got the VisiCalc trademark,
but VisiCorp got "Visi-" as a prefix for other programs.
Software Arts went under, selling its assets to Lotus, and Bricklin and
Frankston working for Lotus for a while.
Visicorp was bought by Paladin Software in November 1984.
Eventually, Paladin Software went under.
Adam Osborne, after the fall of Osborne Computer, formed "Paperback
Software" to market very cheap knockoffs of popular software, including a
VisiClone named "VP-Planner". Up to that point, it was generally
accepted that the code in software was copyrightable, but not the overall
idea, permitting lots of imitations of PuckMan (later "PacMan" to avoid
vandalism of the arcade machines)
Lotus saw it differently, and sued paperback software out of existence
because VP-Planner looked and behaved just like their own VisiClone.
That was the start of "look and feel"["and smell"] IP,
Jerry Pournelle and I came up with the idea that if Adam were to buy the
residue of Paladin for a few tens of thousands of dollars, which included
the residue of VisiCorp, which had rights to be able to use the VisiCalc
user interface (Software Arts did not claim ownership of VisOn VisiCalc),
then he would be protected! But, he took too long, and
missed out. (neither Jerry nor Adam are still around)
(cf. the Jefferson Airplane album cover of "Thirty Seconds Over
Winterland", which would have blown away the BerkeleySystems V Delrina
lawsuit;
cf. Novell's purchase of of the IP rights of DRI (CP/M) provided
significant legal leverage if the legal situation with MicroSoft heated
up)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
