The Personal Computer - Part 8

by Dick Reiman, Historian

During 1977, three distinct paradigms for the personal computer emerged, represented by manufacturers Apple, Commodore Business Machines, and Tandy, each with a different outlook.

At the West Coast Computer Faire in April 1977, the Apple 11 and the Commodore Pet were introduced, and both became instant hits. The Pet was self contained with a keyboard with tiny buttons of a calculator keypad, was a closed system with no potential for add-ons such as a printer, but had a screen, cassette tape for program storage and employed BASIC for users to write their own programs, and had a low price which appealed to the educational market. By contrast, the Apple 11 was more expensive at $1298 excluding the screen, but was a true computer system for adding extras. The computer hobbyist could customize it for novel applications.

The third computer was the Tandy TRS-80 costing $399, sold through Tandy's subsidiary Radio Shack aimed at electronic hobbyists and buyers of video games. The user could hook up to a TV screen or an audiocassette recorder for program storage.

By 1976, only a handful of personal computer software offered mainly "system" software such as Microsoft's BASIC programming language and Digital Research's CP/M operating system. This software was included with the machine or "bundled" with a royalty paid by the manufacturer. The software was a small business, with Microsoft employing just five and sales of only $500,000.

With the arrival of the Apple 11, the Pet, and TRS-80, the market for software applications took off. Applications software enabled a computer to perform useful tasks such as games, education and business. Games were the biggest seller, and they played an role in early software development, especially to human/computer interaction or user-friendly characteristics. This was true of business applications also, especially for Fortune-500 companies.

Software was also in demand by schools and colleges for their personal computers in areas of math, science, language, learning and music. Research grants provided increased quality and expanded program scope.

The market for business applications developed in 1978 to 1979 through spreadsheets, word processors, and databases. These existed in mainframe computer already and the need for these in the personal computer was not obvious.

The VisiCalc speadsheet was the first to gain wide acceptance. It was developed by Daniel Bricklin, 26 year old Harvard MBA student, and program friend Bob Frankson, who developed the program in their spare time as an application to the Apple 11.

Changes to the financial model were displayed instantaneously, rather than in a few minutes on a mainframe, and the fast response offered greater flexibility and presented the psychological freedom of one's own computer and the desk, instead of the take-it-or-leave-it service of time sharing. For $3000, the Apple 11 and VisiCalc would be purchased out of departmental budgets.

Suddenly, it became obvious to businessmen that they had to have a personal computer and spreadsheet.