Word: visicalc
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...computer customers believe the industry's innovative efforts at the moment are failing to fill users' needs. They believe the expansion during the early and mid-1980s was based largely on the proliferation of such breakthrough products as the Apple II personal computer (1977); WordStar, the wordprocessing program (1979); VisiCalc, an electronic accounting ledger or spreadsheet (1979); the IBM PC (1981); Apple's Macintosh, with its advanced graphics capability (1984); and desktop- publishing gear like Aldus PageMaker...
...everyone thinks that Wizard of Oz products are bad. "There's nothing wrong with vaporware," says Daniel Bricklin, co-author of VisiCalc. Bricklin believes prototypes were crucial to that product's eventual success. "With VisiCalc," he says, "nobody knew what I was talking about until I wrote the program." To spare others that inconvenience, he has created something he calls Dan Bricklin's Demo Program, which enables a software developer to construct a convincing demonstration even if the software has not yet been written. Bricklin calls his product "a vaporware generator." But it is not quite ready for market...
When Angie Nolting learned to use a computer at the Ortonville, Minn., high school last year, she went far beyond basic programming. Mastering an electronic work-sheet program called VisiCalc, the 16-year-old junior built a financial model that showed which livestock operations on her parents' 40-acre farm were no longer profitable, and why. By surveying farms in the area to compare feed costs, weight gain per animal and other variables, Angie discovered that the family's flock of 50 sheep was overfed. Guided by her data, the Noltings cut back on feed outlays. Although the threat...
Makers of the software for personal computers have also been suffering from slower than expected sales, ruinous competition and an excess of copycat products. Among the victims are two industry giants. VisiCorp, marketer of VisiCalc, a pioneering business program, has shelved plans to create its own software, cut its work force to 72 from a peak of 250 and sold the licensing rights for its troubled VisiOn package to Control Data. Another former pacesetter, Digital Research, has backed away from its ambitious move into the retail market and is focusing again on programs that are built into computers...
...announced Framework, a new business program, and the company figures its introduction will cost $10 million. "The investment in marketing is ratcheting up higher and higher," says Julian Lange, president of Software Arts. "It's become difficult for two guys in an attic to launch a product like VisiCalc...