XPost: comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   From: nuh-uh@nope.com   
      
   On 2025-12-19 12:39, rbowman wrote:   
   > On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 09:49:27 -0800, Alan wrote:   
   >   
   >> The whole reason that IBM rushed out the original PC in a form that was   
   >> cloneable with an OS that they'd only licensed was that businesses were   
   >> buying Apple II computers for the first "killer app":   
   >>   
   >> VisiCalc.   
   >>   
   >> The very first spreadsheet program.   
   >   
   > Maybe that was IBM's motivation. SuperCalc was available for CP/M shortly   
   > after VisiCalc.  SuperCalc was going long after VisiCalc was bought by   
   > Lotus and killed.   
   >   
      
   There's no maybe about it. IBM realize that personal computers (and   
   particularly the Apple II running VisiCalc) were starting to be used in   
   businesses that IBM had basically treated at their own monopoly.   
      
   Even IBM realized that their usual way of developing a new product was   
   going to be far too slow, and so the development process they chose used   
   off-the-shelf components in order to get the first "IBM PC" to market   
   quickly enough to matter.   
      
   As for SuperCalc, sure: it came out for CP/M a year after VisiCalc came   
   out for the Apple II. What of it?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)