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The most significant software

The most significant software

  • Pong - Games made PCs popular!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • CP/M - The first popular PC Operating System

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • MS Windows - The most successful GUI ever

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • MS BASIC - The most common language on early PCs, by far.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    1

Erik

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Computers are basically useless without software. What was the most significant software created?

Add your own below if you think the poll is lacking! :)
 
Re: The most significant software

"Erik" Wrote in Message:

> Computers are basically useless without software. What was the
> most significant software created?

CP/M! :)

> Add your own below if you think the poll is lacking! :)

'GEM' is perhaps more significant than Windows because
it was well in advance at being the main GUI for the IBMs.

Apple decided that this must not be the way at all & really
crippled what was a fairly comperhensive Operating
Environment into something limited.

For machines like the XT, 'GEM' is the operating environment
to have. Windows simply can't really cut it on one due to the
speed of it! :-(

BASIC might have been somewhat significant for any
programmer to begin with, but understanding Pascal
has been a fairly easy process of understanding. I've
critised people in the past for using BASIC, but if you
feel comfortable using BASIC, then Pascal maybe the
next step in terms of speed! :)

Regards.
 
Dec's OS/8 is pretty significant

Dec's OS/8 is pretty significant

It seems to me that OS/8, the DEC operating system for the PDP-8, should be considered pretty significant. OS/8 roots are clearly seen in RT-11, which influenced quite a bit of the CP/M user interface. CP/M begat MS-DOS, which begat Windows.
 
Re: Dec's OS/8 is pretty significant

Re: Dec's OS/8 is pretty significant

"cmcnabb"wrote in message:

Hi,

> It seems to me that OS/8, the DEC operating system for the
> PDP-8, should be considered pretty significant. OS/8 roots
> are clearly seen in RT-11, which influenced quite a bit of the
> CP/M user interface. CP/M begat MS-DOS, which begat Windows.

Some will say that M$-DOS was a hack of CP/M-2.2 (or CP/M-80).
DR-DOS was the result after starting life as CP/M-86. Except by
that stage, some of the things which CP/M-86 v1.1 had, were taken
out of DR-DOS!

Can't VAX also be tied in connection with OS/8?

Regards.
 
I agree. The PDP-8 is, in my humble opinion, one of the first examples of a "personal" computer, although it was most often used as a workgroup machine.

OS8 certainly was an influencer of later character based OSs.

Erik
 
"Erik" wrote in message:

Hi Erik,

> I agree. The PDP-8 is, in my humble opinion, one of the first
> examples of a "personal" computer, although it was most often
> used as a workgroup machine.

> OS8 certainly was an influencer of later character based OSs.

Perhaps the best OS? I suppose no-one can deny it, since I guess
it started the whole OS saga! :)

Regards.
 
Some of my favorites

Some of my favorites

All of these represented milestones in the industry:

- MS Flight Simulator 2.x (or Sublogic's version) - both done by Bruce Artwick

- WordStar 3.31

- Turbo Pascal 3.0

- Lotus 1-2-3

- PC/MS DOS 2.x, 3.x, and 5.x

- PC-Talk (comm program) with Xmodem


Broader technologies:

- Unix and C language. (Not really for 'personal computers'), but landmark indeed

- X-Windows (remote GUIs!)

- Sockets
 
Re: Some of my favorites

Re: Some of my favorites

"mbbrutman" wrote in message:

> All of these represented milestones in the industry:

> - MS Flight Simulator 2.x (or Sublogic's version) - both done by Bruce
> Artwick

The program used to test to see if you had an IBM compatable! :)

> - WordStar 3.31

This was important towards the success of CP/M, as it brought it to many
8-bit systems which relied on CP/M. Those systems itself also had some
differences between there own such as the disks & disk formats they used.
However many programs were written back then to help bring a Wordstar
document from one computer to another.

> - Turbo Pascal 3.0

Obviously being the last version of Turbo Pascal 3.x for CP/M, it came at
a time when CP/M-86 was competing with DOS. If you had a true IBM
compatable then you could use PC-DOS version of Turbo Pascal (with
the little extras!). The CP/M-86 version wasn't like that because CP/M-86
existed on many systems which weren't IBM compatable. However Turbo
Pascal 3.x was written in such a way, it could be used on any of those
other systems, such as the DEC Rainbow.

> - Lotus 1-2-3

I guess this is because it's easy to use.

> - PC/MS DOS 2.x, 3.x, and 5.x

Well I have PC-DOS 5 runing nicely alongside CP/M-86! PC-DOS 3.3
maybe the best from that series of 3.x's! :) DOS 2.x was the coverup
to get away from that CP/M type of system. But I don't even think
DOS 1.x supported user areas!

> - PC-Talk (comm program) with Xmodem

An early 'net based program I imagine?

Broader technologies:

- Unix and C language. (Not really for 'personal computers'), but landmark indeed

- X-Windows (remote GUIs!)

- Sockets

Well in time we'll see how useful these things might become! :)

Regards.
 
I'm not sure totally about software -either the Basic Interpreter language
in the early Personal Computers or the importance of Computer games-
Remember about Atari's Pong and the much earlier 1958 tennis for two demo.
I think that one of the most significant development in Computers was
Douglas Englebarts and others ARPA Stanford Research Institutes development of the Computer Mouse,Graphic User Interface,Hypertext and networking in the 1960's with the Online system.You can see a RealPlayer video of this 1968 demo if you go to Nathans toasty technology page at http://www.toastytech.com and go to his GUI links page.

Also when most of the people left Englebarts group, a lot of the leading computer scientists later worked at Xerox PARC to develop a astonishing machine- The Alto Workstation(Essentially the prototype of the Modern Personal Computer).This ONE man operated small 128k memory or 256k memory machine had a 3 button brush rollerball Computer mouse using the Smalltalk environment and a Graphic User Interface(GUI) with ethernet network,the first developed Laser Printer,MIDI etc later to inspire the Apple LISA,Macintosh and Microsoft Windows.
I consider the Xerox Alto workstation to be the ULTIMATE desirable computer collector item.
The invention of the Integrated Circuit in 1958 and 1969 Intel invention of the Microprocessor revolutionized the World.
Charled babbage in the 1800's was the father of the modern computer.
And of course lets not forget the ARPA's Internet and later the WWW.
 
"Jon Jarmon" wrote in message:

Hi Jon,

> I'm not sure totally about software -either the Basic Interpreter
> language in the early Personal Computers or the importance of
> Computer games- Remember about Atari's Pong and the much
> earlier 1958 tennis for two demo.

> I think that one of the most significant development in Computers
> was Douglas Englebarts and others ARPA Stanford Research
> Institutes development of the Computer Mouse,Graphic User
> Interface,Hypertext and networking in the 1960's with the
> Online system.You can see a RealPlayer video of this 1968 demo
> if you go to Nathans toasty technology page at
> http://www.toastytech.com and go to his GUI links page.

The only trouble with that I see with that, is nothing much has changed
since that period! :)

> Also when most of the people left Englebarts group, a lot of the
> leading computer scientists later worked at Xerox PARC to develop
> a astonishing machine- The Alto Workstation(Essentially the
> prototype of the Modern Personal Computer).This ONE man
> operated small 128k memory or 256k memory machine had a 3
> button brush rollerball Computer mouse using the
> Smalltalk environment and a Graphic User Interface(GUI) with
> ethernet network,the first developed Laser Printer,MIDI etc later
> to inspire the Apple LISA,Macintosh and Microsoft Windows.

The Apple GUI I suppose you can say was created when Xerox
showed the future to head of the Apple Corporation what they
had. Digital Research also had this GUI (which came out a year
after the Mac) called GEM which Apple severly crippled (perhaps
it was just too darn good to be starting with something so good
so early). Windows started life a an extremely BASIC GUI & by
the time it got to Win3.x (when Apple saw an opportunity to
put a stop to) it wasn't quite that simple.

> I consider the Xerox Alto workstation to be the ULTIMATE
> desirable computer collector item.

?!?

> The invention of the Integrated Circuit in 1958 and 1969 Intel
> invention of the Microprocessor revolutionized the World.
> Charled babbage in the 1800's was the father of the modern
> computer. And of course lets not forget the ARPA's Internet and
> later the WWW.

Speaking of Charles babbage is more related to what started
the computer revolution (however he was many years too early
which, sadily, is why he didn't quite get anywhere!). I see
computers making a comeback when WWII arived, however
they were built with a specific task in mind (nevertheless they
were electronic) & with the coming of the transistor this brought
even more smaller & powerful computers. :)

Cheers.
 
Thanks CP/M User I forgot the Transistor a very important development.
I had an idea for a Graphical keyboard Interface(A GKI) with programmable Color LCD buttons with Icons on each Key.I noticed that many Computer Games had confusing Keyboard overlays.It's hard to remember what key performs what function when you have 100's of Computer Games especially sophisticated flight simulators that have 3 functions per key.Just my Idea that's all.
Yes the GUI development in the 60's was a revolution.
 
"Jon Jarmon" wrote in message:

> Thanks CP/M User I forgot the Transistor a very important
> development.

No worries! I nearly forgot about it myself, until I remembered
how powerful computers became in that era of computing! ;-)

> I had an idea for a Graphical keyboard Interface(A GKI)
> with programmable Color LCD buttons with Icons on each Key.I
> noticed that many Computer Games had confusing Keyboard
> overlays.It's hard to remember what key performs what function
> when you have 100's of Computer Games especially sophisticated
> flight simulators that have 3 functions per key.Just my Idea that's
> all.

That will get some people thinking! :)

> Yes the GUI development in the 60's was a revolution.

Well I suppose it wasn't too far away. If you look at the early
game Spacewar! which came out in the early '60s, even that
has graphics! :)

Cheers.
 
CP/M User said:
The Apple GUI I suppose you can say was created when Xerox
showed the future to head of the Apple Corporation what they
had. Digital Research also had this GUI (which came out a year
after the Mac) called GEM which Apple severly crippled (perhaps
it was just too darn good to be starting with something so good
so early). Windows started life a an extremely BASIC GUI & by
the time it got to Win3.x (when Apple saw an opportunity to
put a stop to) it wasn't quite that simple.

It's interesting that most people forget about the Apple Lisa (which is NOT a Macintosh) and was released in 1983. The Lisa OS had many features that Windows and the Mac OS only incorporated in the mid-late 1990's (like multi-tasking).

The reason that the Macintosh (and presumably Windows) operating systems were so restricted was the hardware requirements of such a system as Lisa (or Win95/MacOS 7).

The Lisa was an extremely expensive machine (US$10k in 1983) but came with a full application package that we would now recognize as an "Office Suite" named "Lisa Office" even back in 1983!

The Lisa Operating System was capable of supporting colour printing (although only had a monochrome screen - a third party add on could give an external colour screen). Lisa also came with built in serial and parallel I/O and 3 expansion ports, but I digress.

So why was the Macintosh OS "crippled"? Mainly due to commercial reality (there are some other interesting reasons relating to the Mac vs Lisa development teams and styles which can be read elsewhere). However, it appeared in 1983 that no one wanted to pay the price for the features the Lisa OS had to offer. They even baulked at the lower cost of the Mac when it was introduced with less features the following year.

So my nominations for significant software would be:

Lisa OS V1 (the original)
Lisa OS V3.1 (final version which allowed colour and Mac file creation!)
Lisa Office Suite 7/7
 
jd said:
It's interesting that most people forget about the Apple Lisa (which is NOT a Macintosh) and was released in 1983. The Lisa OS had many features that Windows and the Mac OS only incorporated in the mid-late 1990's (like multi-tasking).

I agree that the Lisa was an exceptional machine, but it wasn't what I'd consider significant for several reasons.

First, it wasn't first. The Apple Lisa "borrowed" heavily from the Xerox PARC projects that created the GUI concept. Microsoft also dipped into that punch bowl and introduced the first version of Windows around the same time as the Lisa came out.

The Lisa was also not really a successful machine. They sold, but they weren't going like hotcakes at any point.

Finally, the innovations that the Lisa represented, while important, weren't significant enough to change the industry. Yes, the industry was revitalized by the GUI, but the Lisa doesn't represent the advent of that technology. It doesn't even represent the advent of an affordable GUI.

The software I listed in the poll all had a major impact on personal computing as a whole and advanced the industry by just existing.

Microsoft BASIC was the lingua franca of the early PC revolution. CP/M was the first "standard" operating system that crossed different hardware platforms. VisiCalc, which got my vote, was the first PC application that actually represented a reason to buy a PC. Before VisiCalc they were just toys with potential. After Dan Bricklin's invention there was an actually cost benefit to buying a PC (in that case, an Apple ][) that you could realistically represent on paper. The ROI could actually be calculated using the software itself! :)

Don't get me wrong, I love the Lisa and respect its place in history, but I wouldn't list it in my top ten most significant PC related items.

Erik
 
"jd" wrote in message:

> It's interesting that most people forget about the Apple Lisa
> (which is NOT a Macintosh) and was released in 1983. The Lisa
> OS had many features that Windows and the Mac OS only
> incorporated in the mid-late 1990's (like multi-tasking).

Unfortunately for the Lisa, the price & lack of colour screen back
in 1983 was it's downfall.

> The reason that the Macintosh (and presumably Windows)
> operating systems were so restricted was the hardware
> requirements of such a system as Lisa (or Win95/MacOS 7).

Even when I was using a Mac Plus or Mac Classic the OS was
restricted to running one program at a time. Did the OS which
came with the Lisa have more freedom in running multiple
applications at once?

> The Lisa was an extremely expensive machine (US$10k in 1983)
> but came with a full application package that we would now
> recognize as an "Office Suite" named "Lisa Office" even back in
> 1983!

Wow! :)

> The Lisa Operating System was capable of supporting colour
> printing (although only had a monochrome screen - a third party
> add on could give an external colour screen). Lisa also came with
> built in serial and parallel I/O and 3 expansion ports, but I
> digress.

You mean you could use a colour printer with that?

> So why was the Macintosh OS "crippled"? Mainly due to
> commercial reality (there are some other interesting reasons
> relating to the Mac vs Lisa development teams and styles which
> can be read elsewhere). However, it appeared in 1983 that no
> one wanted to pay the price for the features the Lisa OS had to
> offer. They even baulked at the lower cost of the Mac when it
> was introduced with less features the following year.

In other words, it was too far ahead of it's time!

> So my nominations for significant software would be:

> Lisa OS V1 (the original)
> Lisa OS V3.1 (final version which allowed colour and Mac file
> creation!)
> Lisa Office Suite 7/7

Well, it's certainally a handy little computer for it's time!

Cheers.
 
>I agree that the Lisa was an exceptional machine, but it wasn't what I'd >consider significant for several reasons.

>First, it wasn't first. The Apple Lisa "borrowed" heavily from the Xerox >PARC projects that created the GUI concept. Microsoft also dipped into >that punch bowl and introduced the first version of Windows around the >same time as the Lisa came out.

>Erik

Hi Eric.I believe that Microsoft Windows did not actually come out until uh a year and a half after the macintosh was introduced (1984)as Steve Jobs in 1982 contacted Microsoft(and many others)to write applications for the Mac.The first GUI for the I.B.M. PC standard was VISI-ON.It came with a Mouse systems computer mousecheck it out at Nathans toasty technology page at http://www.toastytech.com

The LISA (1983)did bring about the development of the reliable,inexpensive
optical ball computer mouse-the one copied for computers all through the year 2000.
The LISA was an amazing machine
Xerox PARC's mouse was expensive and somewhat unreliable as it used metal feeler sensor brushes.From what I read about it the mouse had to be disassembled weekly in a "clean room".
 
"Jon Jarmon" wrote in message:

>> I agree that the Lisa was an exceptional machine, but it wasn't what
>> I'd consider significant for several reasons.

>> First, it wasn't first. The Apple Lisa "borrowed" heavily from the
>> Xerox PARC projects that created the GUI concept. Microsoft
>> also dipped into that punch bowl and introduced the first
>> version of Windows around the same time as the Lisa came
>> out.

> Hi Eric.I believe that Microsoft Windows did not actually come out
> until uh a year and a half after the macintosh was introduced
> (1984) as Steve Jobs in 1982 contacted Microsoft(and many
> others)to write applications for the Mac.The first GUI for the I.B.M.
> PC standard was VISI-ON.It came with a Mouse systems
> computer mousecheck it out at Nathans toasty technology page
> at http://www.toastytech.com

Hi Jon,

I cannot put a date to when VisiOn was written, but it's in my IBM PC
& XT - The Software Guide from 1983! However Microsoft Windows 1.0
came out in 1985. GEM came out around the same period, but was
more advanced than Windows.

<snip!>

Cheers.
 
My research indicates that the 1.0 version of MS Windows was introduced in late 1983. It may have shipped later, but it was definately announced before the Mac, but after the Lisa.

Erik
 
"Erik" wrote in message:

Hi Erik/All,

> My research indicates that the 1.0 version of MS Windows was
> introduced in late 1983. It may have shipped later, but it
> was definately announced before the Mac, but after the Lisa.

I cannot be sure if this is correct or not since my
information is only coming from one source. According
to that the earliest date I have for Microsoft
recommending a GUI for DOS was in 1983 (which IBM
declined) & in 1984 Microsoft broke ties with IBM &
started development on it. But as I said I cannot
be certain if those years are persise (the internet
has also been known to be wrong in the past).

Cheers.
 
Microsoft Windows was announced in 1983 but came out in later 1985.
Actually there are 1.00,1.01,1.02,1.03 and 1.04 Versions.Windows 1.X
is quite primative and are seriously flawed.Windows 2.x versions actually work
pretty well and came out as Windows 286 and Windows 386.Apple took Microsoft (and HP for their New Wave)to court over 2.x and later lost the court battle-Xerox sued Apple as and lost their court case .
My brother told me an interesting story about Microsoft(Because he used to work there as an employee).He told me that someone had stole a lot of the Original Macintosh computers that Microsoft developed software applications on for Apple.
 
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