Interesting. Seeing what software was sold for a particular computer might give an indication of how popular it was at the time.
Ads for certain peripherals might highlight problems with the original hardware, like the ads for Commodore drive accelerators showing how slow the original Commodore drives were.

Yes. So before anyone gets too carried away, when was this term first used? And by who? And would it be fair to apply the term retrospectively?

See, to me, it means a device that is in the same room as you, has it's own processor, keyboard or keypad, display system, does not rely on a connection to a more powerful computer (in other words, not a "dumb terminal"), and which can perform useful work by running programs under your control. Useful work can include running a programming environment like BASIC, FORTH etc.

Mark

Going by that yardstick, the Commodore 64 would win hands-down. An estimated 10,000 titles were released for the C-64 during its production lifetime, substantially more than developed for any of its contemporaries.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

If we're talking about firsts, we had a related thread here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3243

Talking about software though, I'd love to have some answers to the question: "what was the killer app for the PET?" Which somewhat presumes there is an answer. For the Apple II, it was Visicalc which caused a great take off of sales and which was a sufficient reason to buy the machine.

I suspect most PETs, outside of education, were bought for business purposes. But would that have been mail merge, invoicing, inventory, payroll, managing production, word processing? I don't know.

The term goes at least back to Butler Lampson's 1972 memo "Why Alto?" which uses it in exactly that sense. If one is going to apply the term retroactively, the LINC would probably be a good candidate; whatever they called it, and despite the fact that it was priced well out of the average person's range, it was absolutely designed with that intent.

This is an endless debate but one I really love talking about.

Back to the "mom test" and what I consider a personal computer. I don't know that Apple would fail that test any more than Commodore would have. Now my mom is a smart lady but in the 70/80's, computers were a mystical box to her like many other people at the time. I remember one time I had my C64 on the family TV and was attempting to load a game. The 8 key was broken. So I typed in:



and it worked. My mom was like "Wow! It knew to add them up!". LOL

Anyway, I imagine putting an Apple II in her hands...or a PET....or a TRS-80....are any of them *REALLY* that much easier to learn than the other? We now have the advantage of foresight but back then, especially in my area, there were no computer groups, BBS's or online training. It was the wild west.

So around when I was 11 or 12 is when I got to use an Apple II for the first time (at the school and my friend's house). But I had already been experienced with a C64 and TI99-4/a. So the Apple II didn't seem any harder or easier to me. It was different. And I liked that. I guess I'm an optimist at heart because I literally cannot remember one negative memory I had of any of those three computers as a kid. I was just thrilled that I was using them!

Remember, I only knew about TI, Apple II and C64. The PET, Atari 800, TRS-80, etc. didn't exist to me until I was around 12 - 13 and was lucky enough to take a computer class at the local college where I then used a TRS-80 for the first time. Also the first time I used a network. My point is that the machines really seemed the same to me. I honestly didn't know the C64 had better graphics because I only had a handful of games for it (like Dig Dug).

Now, if we're talking about ease-of-use, I have to give it to the TI99-4/a. I got that computer when I was 9 and it's cartridges were a no-brainer. You don't even have to turn the machine off to remove or add cartridges! No pesky load commands for a 9 year old to learn.

Sure, the C64 had cartridges too. But I didn't know that until I was older (not much software was in my area!).

OK, I'm just rambling. Bottom line is that I think all of those computers were "personal" to me. A kid of 9-12 years old with limited access to information.


BTW...my mom had no real interest in learning any cryptic commands like LOAD or RUN. To her, the first PERSONAL COMPUTER was the Amiga 500 I had when I was 16. It was the first computer easy enough for her to care about. She actually USED the Amiga 500 for real work.

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Cat; the other white meat.

With reguards to the user interface, I think that is a different topic.

Over time, the user interface has changed. This evolution has been enabled by the computers having more memory and faster processors, and driven by manufacturers wanting to sell to a wider mass market. You can see similar developments with other technologies.

Mark

In the topic "What was the "killer app" for the Commodore PET?," Mike Naberezny (owner of this forum and website, and probably our foremost PET enthusiast) writes:

You had a good follow-up post with PET information resources on this site.

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

Oops, seems I remembered the question but forgot the thread! Thanks for finding and linking.