On 17 October 2017 at 22:51, Murray McCullough via cctalk
<[email protected]> wrote:
Today marks the 36 anniversary of Visicalc a seminal program in the
world of classic computing.
Happy computing!
Murray :)
On Wed, 18 Oct 2017, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
I just had a dig through Dan Bricklin's website.
There's no date I can see for first release or first shipping,
although it comments that the first version shipped to customers was
1.35.
So it's not Visicalc 1.0's release, and anyway, it was 1979, so it's
thirty _eight_ years ago, no?
"We first shipped about five copies of version 1.35 to some early
customers in the late summer of 1979. I hand typed the labels. The first
"real" release, version 1.37, shipped in mid-October 1979."
http://www.bricklin.com/history/saiproduct1.htm
Well, "anniversary"??
Of "idea"? 1978
Of writing it? Spring 1979
Contracting marketing? Spring 1979
Public demonstration AS A PRODUCT? May 1979
Advertising AS A PRODUCT? May 1979
"Official Launch"? June 1979
1st shipment (5 copies w/ hand-typed labels of 1.35)? Late summer 1979
"Real" release (presumably large quantity)? "Mid-October 1979."
if we go with "real' release,
then Murray merely typo'ed 36 years,
when it was correctly 38 years.
(I KNEW that I had dealt with it in 1980!)
I'd say, that WITH that correction, Murray's post is defensibly correct!
Although MOST companies count their voporware times,
and count from the first idea,
or from completion of code of the the first [not necessarily released!]
prototype version,
or at least ALWAYS from the first public demonstration and "launch",
rather than when it actually shows up on store shelves!
THAT distinction is essential with all "FIRST"s,
such as Apple V TRS80 V PET
BTW, at Vista College, in 1982?, one of our lab techs patched it, and
Scripsit, for use with TRS232 printer interface, and for Exatron Stringy
Floppy.
OB_Irrelevant:
In 2006, Vista College moved to a new building, and simultaneously changed
its name to "Berkeley City College". I, and a few others, argued that the
move and name change should NEVER be at the same time, or you lose ALL
presence, and it effectively becomes closing one business and opening
another! ALSO, a few of us argued that the old name should remain in
parallel. Not only just for the necessary continuity, but ALSO, since a
lot of our Computer Information Systems classes were remedial job
training for the digital sweatshop, we had courses on using the OS (in
addition to MY course that dealt with OS internals). Since Microsoft was
in the midst of releasing Windows VISTA, we could have had great simple
advertising of
"Vista College - the best place to learn Windows Vista!"
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred [email protected]
