The home computing craze of the 1980s left unanswered the question of what these machines were good for. As it turned out, the answer could be found in the earliest uses of networked computers...
However, man has lost sight of the end-goal. Computers were supposed to make tasks easier - ie help man to achieve a goal.
Today the roles seem to be reversed in that man is making the inputs to allow the computer to achieve a goal.
Modern airliners are designed to allow the computer to fly the aircraft - with man making the inputs. Next generation airliners are on the drawing boards with only one pilot in the cockpit - and multiple computer input methods.
What is next? Airliners with NO pilots and just a pre-loaded program?
"Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard XX flight 936 from Los Angeles to New York. This is the first totally automated flight - there is no pilot on board. Please sit back and relax as absolutely nothing can go wrong - can go wrong - can go wrong - can go wrong"
Another great article and trip down memory lane. My first computer was a TI-99/4A in 1981 at age 9. My first goal was to write a rudimentary Pacman program, which I did sort of.
The killer apps for PCs in the early days were games and word processing. Not having to recopy home work every time you made a spelling error or poorly formed cursive was revolutionary.
Another great article. I remember typing a Space Invaders knock-off into a Commodore 64 using code provided by a PC magazine, storing it on a cassette tape, and learning that cassette tapes are not a durable storage medium.
I typed a chess program into my ZX81 in machine code because I didn't have an assembler. A checkers/draughts program too. The first big program that I wrote for myself was monopoly.
I had a Commodore 64 and...well, on its own it wasn't super useful. But it's funny to read about them showing booking travel as a use case in an ad as early as they did. I started Expedia.ca (yep, really) but the OMG moment happened years before when I used EAAsy Sabre over AOL (there's a story you should write - those CD ROMS did all the heavy lifting!) and realized that I could type in YYZ...DFW... and get a list of flights back. I thought "this is going to change the world" and, well, it did. For sure email and gaming drove networked computing's adoption overall, but in terms of driving e-commerce adoption, Travel - and let's not forget Porn - were the killer apps.
I brought it to Canada (and then moved to Seattle to be CMO of Expedia.com). When I joined we were about 165 people, total worldwide. But the story of Expedia in total is fascinating and in many ways mirrors the entire evolution of PCs to networked machines to portals to search to phones. The first version of Expedia was a CD ROM you bought at a store that dialled out over 2800 baud service to get the answers to your questions! And, it was owned by Microsoft and actually called Microsoft Travel Technologies.
My Dad was an Engineering PhD who was self employed in natural gas exploration. Most of the households in the neighbourhood had Engineers, Geologists, Bankers and Accountants. Needless to say there were plenty of early adopters of home computers. My second computer was a PC clone with a CGA graphics card that could handle 4 colours at 320 by 200. I longed for an EGA so I could play King's Quest in 16 colours at 640 by 350. Unfortunately, those were around $800. 13 year old me figured out how to implement my Dad's economic analysis using Lotus 123. I had no idea as to the purpose and simply worked out the formulas from the equations he wrote on paper.
It does distort your perception if you are of a certain vintage. I hear people balk at laptops costing $1,500 that I still think are a steal as they are 100X better than ones from the 90s that cost $3,500
I recently wrote my first Substack on a very similar topic my first C-64, there is truly something special about nostalgia, all we need now is an 'app' to turn nostalgia into reality:
My father bought a ZX81 when I was about 12 years old. I actually found a use for it! My mother was a teacher and she had to add up all the marks for each student for a whole term in order to determine their final marks. I wrote a program that did it for her. Now I'm 60 and I've spent a lifetime being a cook, farmer, silviculturalist and a carpenter. I am right some glad I have not spent my life at a desk in front of a screen!
With the computer she didn't have to do any math. She just plugged in all the numbers from the various tests, attendance Etc and then the computer did the calculation and spit out the average for her. Probably cut the amount of time it took her to do in half.
Loved the historical background.
However, man has lost sight of the end-goal. Computers were supposed to make tasks easier - ie help man to achieve a goal.
Today the roles seem to be reversed in that man is making the inputs to allow the computer to achieve a goal.
Modern airliners are designed to allow the computer to fly the aircraft - with man making the inputs. Next generation airliners are on the drawing boards with only one pilot in the cockpit - and multiple computer input methods.
What is next? Airliners with NO pilots and just a pre-loaded program?
"Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard XX flight 936 from Los Angeles to New York. This is the first totally automated flight - there is no pilot on board. Please sit back and relax as absolutely nothing can go wrong - can go wrong - can go wrong - can go wrong"
I have a feeling we're already there -- the autonomous cars are already on the road. It's a crazy world.
Another great article and trip down memory lane. My first computer was a TI-99/4A in 1981 at age 9. My first goal was to write a rudimentary Pacman program, which I did sort of.
I question some of the milestones. Hypertext predates the 80s: https://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs215/Lectures/L00-HistoryHypermedia/FromHypertextToWWW.html., as does the GUI: https://spectrum.ieee.org/graphical-user-interface.
The killer apps for PCs in the early days were games and word processing. Not having to recopy home work every time you made a spelling error or poorly formed cursive was revolutionary.
Another great article. I remember typing a Space Invaders knock-off into a Commodore 64 using code provided by a PC magazine, storing it on a cassette tape, and learning that cassette tapes are not a durable storage medium.
My dad and I typed in the entire word processor for the C64 that was published in Compute's Gazette. Took a week, if not longer.
I typed a chess program into my ZX81 in machine code because I didn't have an assembler. A checkers/draughts program too. The first big program that I wrote for myself was monopoly.
Toni Baker's Mastering Machine Code on your ZX81 was my bible.
I had a Commodore 64 and...well, on its own it wasn't super useful. But it's funny to read about them showing booking travel as a use case in an ad as early as they did. I started Expedia.ca (yep, really) but the OMG moment happened years before when I used EAAsy Sabre over AOL (there's a story you should write - those CD ROMS did all the heavy lifting!) and realized that I could type in YYZ...DFW... and get a list of flights back. I thought "this is going to change the world" and, well, it did. For sure email and gaming drove networked computing's adoption overall, but in terms of driving e-commerce adoption, Travel - and let's not forget Porn - were the killer apps.
This is amazing. You should write the story of starting Expedia!
I brought it to Canada (and then moved to Seattle to be CMO of Expedia.com). When I joined we were about 165 people, total worldwide. But the story of Expedia in total is fascinating and in many ways mirrors the entire evolution of PCs to networked machines to portals to search to phones. The first version of Expedia was a CD ROM you bought at a store that dialled out over 2800 baud service to get the answers to your questions! And, it was owned by Microsoft and actually called Microsoft Travel Technologies.
I remember my ZX-80 and getting 14k memory module, the keypad was quite amazing and the output to a TV screen was pathetic but amazing at the time.
So many machines... TANDY 100 / TANDY 1000 / IBM PC / Macintosh Plus ...
What were they for? 🤑 🎼🎸🕹️🗜️📠📡
My Dad was an Engineering PhD who was self employed in natural gas exploration. Most of the households in the neighbourhood had Engineers, Geologists, Bankers and Accountants. Needless to say there were plenty of early adopters of home computers. My second computer was a PC clone with a CGA graphics card that could handle 4 colours at 320 by 200. I longed for an EGA so I could play King's Quest in 16 colours at 640 by 350. Unfortunately, those were around $800. 13 year old me figured out how to implement my Dad's economic analysis using Lotus 123. I had no idea as to the purpose and simply worked out the formulas from the equations he wrote on paper.
What is incredible is how expensive computers were. In today's money, the C64 we got would cost something like $1500.
It does distort your perception if you are of a certain vintage. I hear people balk at laptops costing $1,500 that I still think are a steal as they are 100X better than ones from the 90s that cost $3,500
My dad was a HS math teacher in the 70s, he would bring home Commodore PETs that we would play with. I loved them.
I see a pattern. My dad was a principal and brought home the Commodore on long weekends, March break.
Great read, Andrew!
I recently wrote my first Substack on a very similar topic my first C-64, there is truly something special about nostalgia, all we need now is an 'app' to turn nostalgia into reality:
https://open.substack.com/pub/cogandcanvas/p/coming-soon?r=zpezu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
My father bought a ZX81 when I was about 12 years old. I actually found a use for it! My mother was a teacher and she had to add up all the marks for each student for a whole term in order to determine their final marks. I wrote a program that did it for her. Now I'm 60 and I've spent a lifetime being a cook, farmer, silviculturalist and a carpenter. I am right some glad I have not spent my life at a desk in front of a screen!
I'm amazed that using the ZX81 to do grades was not harder than simply doing it by hand. That's pretty impressive.
With the computer she didn't have to do any math. She just plugged in all the numbers from the various tests, attendance Etc and then the computer did the calculation and spit out the average for her. Probably cut the amount of time it took her to do in half.