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Cyhist Apr 1 1997 D
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Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 09:45:55 PST
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: "Laurence I. Press" <lpress@ISI.EDU>
Subject: RE If Ritchie had had Gates' business accument
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 1 Apr 1997 00:53:22 -0400
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Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
John Quarterman wrote:
>Lotus 1-2-3, which provided the resource that harried middle managers needed to break the accounting department monopoly on computing, and which home owners also found useful.
Word processing too -- the general purpose PC drove out the spcial purpose WP machine.
>PCs happened because they were minimally adequate for breaking previous monopolies, given a catchy and simple application that enough people wanted.
Email on the Net -- very simple to learn and with an ovious function and payoff with zero training. At my univeristy, many people still use the "PrtScrn" key to get hard copy -- yet they make good use of email.
>I often wonder what wouuld have happened if Dennis Ritchie had had the business acumen of Bill Gates.
Neat conjecture. (There were some early unix attempts -- on the LSI-11 and also SCO. Also Altos I believe at some point).
There is also the matter of hitting the timing the introduction of products at the correct time. The Xerox Star and the Lisa were too soon -- the hardware to do it still cost too much. The Mac barely made it -- I believe it came out in 1984, and did not become very useful till a hard disk was affordable in 1986(?). As a consultant to Wordstar in the mid-80s, I tired to interest them in bit-mapped applicatons, but they figured it was character mode forever -- they waited too long to switch, while micorsoft timed the hardware capability curve well with Word.
What would have been the "optimal" time for "Ritchie" to have introduced his OS?
Larry
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: "Laurence I. Press" <lpress@ISI.EDU>
Subject: RE If Ritchie had had Gates' business accument
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 1 Apr 1997 00:53:22 -0400
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
John Quarterman wrote:
>Lotus 1-2-3, which provided the resource that harried middle managers needed to break the accounting department monopoly on computing, and which home owners also found useful.
Word processing too -- the general purpose PC drove out the spcial purpose WP machine.
>PCs happened because they were minimally adequate for breaking previous monopolies, given a catchy and simple application that enough people wanted.
Email on the Net -- very simple to learn and with an ovious function and payoff with zero training. At my univeristy, many people still use the "PrtScrn" key to get hard copy -- yet they make good use of email.
>I often wonder what wouuld have happened if Dennis Ritchie had had the business acumen of Bill Gates.
Neat conjecture. (There were some early unix attempts -- on the LSI-11 and also SCO. Also Altos I believe at some point).
There is also the matter of hitting the timing the introduction of products at the correct time. The Xerox Star and the Lisa were too soon -- the hardware to do it still cost too much. The Mac barely made it -- I believe it came out in 1984, and did not become very useful till a hard disk was affordable in 1986(?). As a consultant to Wordstar in the mid-80s, I tired to interest them in bit-mapped applicatons, but they figured it was character mode forever -- they waited too long to switch, while micorsoft timed the hardware capability curve well with Word.
What would have been the "optimal" time for "Ritchie" to have introduced his OS?
Larry
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