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Huh? here's the actual history of office... Posted by Snowmobile [Email]  (#686)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Snowmobile) on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 07:48:43
In Reply to: Re: Agree, Keith, Thu, 6 Feb 2014 05:58:24 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
First off, MSDOS works just fine for graphics intensive programs. It's main limitation was the memory barrier, which made it not so great for multitasking (though there were MSDOS programs that enabled basic multitasking). There were lots of extremely graphics intensive programs written for DOS (CAD, videogames, eg DOOM)... word processors and spread sheets are actually very low intensity in terms of graphics requirements! Heck, lots of people write documents in LaTeX and (in principle) don't really need to see any graphics until the document comes out of the printer...
Re the history of word... to quote wikipedia:
"The first version of Microsoft Word was developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie, former Xerox programmers hired by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1981. Both programmers worked on Xerox Bravo, the first WYSIWYG word processor. The first Word version, Word 1.0, was released in October 1983 for Xenix and MS-DOS; it was followed by four very similar versions that were not very successful."
I didn't use Word back in the MSDOS days because it was no good at scientific symbols etc. There were better products for DOS than Word (wysiwyg even). Word 6 was the first version that was useful imho.
Re the history of excel... again, to quote wikipedia:
"Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in 1982. Multiplan became very popular on CP/M systems, but on MS-DOS systems it lost popularity to Lotus 1-2-3. Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh on September 30, 1985, and the first Windows version was 2.05 (to synchronize with the Macintosh version 2.2) in November 1987. Lotus was slow to bring 1-2-3 to Windows and by 1988 Excel had started to outsell 1-2-3 and helped Microsoft achieve the position of leading PC software developer. This accomplishment, dethroning the king of the software world, solidified Microsoft as a valid competitor and showed its future of developing GUI software. Microsoft pushed its advantage with regular new releases, every two years or so."
So Excel was on Mac first, but it was on PC's only 2 years later. Lotus 123 was very popular. I used that a bit on MSDOS, never excel. Lotus 123 was also typically bundled or used together with WordPerfect, which was very popular on PCs running MSDOS. I didn't like or use it, but many did. Corel Draw was also really popular back then also... There was lots of software on PC's running MSDOS that used mouse, and graphics etc and not windows (heck, I wrote plenty of software like that for MSDOS)... others used hotkeys and arrows instead of mouse, but still lots of graphics, and they worked fine... spreadsheets hardly need graphics anyway to do the core number crunching and manipulation tasks... but for sure a gui is helpful! Would be hard to go back, that is for sure!
and just for fun (also from wikipedia)...
"In 1983, Microsoft announced the development of Windows, a graphical user interface (GUI) for its own operating system (MS-DOS)...The first independent version of Microsoft Windows, version 1.0, released on 20 November 1985, achieved little popularity."
"On January 24, 1984, Apple Computer Inc. (now Apple Inc.) introduced the Macintosh personal computer, with the Macintosh 128K model, which came bundled with what was later renamed to Mac OS, but then known simply as the System Software... The original Macintosh system software was partially based on the Lisa OS, previously released by Apple for the Lisa computer in 1983 and, as part of an agreement allowing Xerox to buy shares in Apple at a favorable price. It also used concepts from the Xerox PARC Xerox Alto, which Steve Jobs and several other Macintosh team members had previewed."
The reason Apple gets so much credit for innovating with their UI is 1) it was pretty good (for average users) from day 1, 2) it was easy to learn, and 3) it was well marketed to the right audience... heck, they advertised the darn thing during on the superbowl! That, and early windoze was pretty much useless junk that took half a decade to catch on... It is however amusing as time passes to note how close the development paths actually were! It also amazes me how little credit people give to developers at Xerox (and others) vs Steve Jobs...
WRT the iMac... they are nice looking, they are not cheap, and they are probably decently made and less proprietary than the past ones (user serviceable?)... There are nice looking decently made PC options at various price/performance points also. I would make the choice based on which OS you prefer. I've used both, I generally prefer windoze, but some like the way osx works so they should get a mac. The downside with any all in one computer is what do you do when it breaks or you want to upgrade? If the answer is "buy a new one", go ahead, get one... otherwise ask re serviceability before purchase!
, Wed, 5 Feb 2014 17:01:52, Fri, 7 Feb 2014 07:48:43 <-- Viewing This Message, Fri, 7 Feb 2014 19:33:47, Tue, 4 Feb 2014 07:33:56
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, Wed, 5 Feb 2014 08:19:06, Wed, 5 Feb 2014 09:17:24, Wed, 5 Feb 2014 11:14:31, Wed, 5 Feb 2014 18:33:16, Tue, 4 Feb 2014 06:52:14, Tue, 4 Feb 2014 07:09:10, Tue, 4 Feb 2014 07:28:24, Tue, 4 Feb 2014 06:35:18, Tue, 4 Feb 2014 07:06:07, Tue, 4 Feb 2014 08:10:59
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