Darlene:
"Does anyone here go far back enough to know what might have been said if there were
forums like this, in some other (mythical) medium, when Apple and Microsoft were
inventing themselves? Or, was it so much simpler then??"
I go back as far as the late 70's; prior to then I was too busy struggling my way through college to have noticed much.
I recall, though, when the first "MITS" computer came out; I helped build one with a guy I worked for in a TV repair shop. I also remember when we got our first Apple computers at the University and began writing programs for them; a PET as well. The Apple was a hit and I envied "those two guys" who thought of it.....funny thing was that I worked for Hewlett Packard when Steve "Wozniak" was there, trying to get enough people interested in building a computer board to come up with the money needed to build 100 of them; I met him a couple of times and was very interested in the computer "kit" he was putting together as a hobby club project. Unfortunately, I was in Santa Rosa and he was in Palo Alto (or therabouts), and the kit cost about two months pay for me at the time; just missed that one by a hair, eh?
Then this geeky little wiz kid named Gates came along with what was actually low quality software; nobody realized how much tenacity he had and expected Microsoft to fail because of the technical inferiority of the product(s). Even today, many people make the same mistake, ie, believing that technical merit is what makes or breaks a product. It isn't. Gates' tenacity and willingness to learn and grow kept him in the game and, well, you know the rest of the story....
In those early days, a service was started up which was known as "Compuserve". It was text-only and access was at 300 baud or less, but it was there. Initially, you'd log on and give your name and password, and text headers would pop up for each mail message you had waiting. You could browse through other messages by scanning the headers, etc. Software was developed which made this process better and better, allowing you to download your mail, read and answer it off-line, then call back and upload your replies. It was pretty slow, but not bad, with text-only messages. The "thrill" was in conversing with others all over the country/world. Eventually, Compuserve grew to the point that competitors began offering similar services at lower prices, more options, etc. The size of the audience was much smaller, measured initially in hundreds, then thousands, and eventually, MILLIONS! I had a little company which built equipment during this "phase" and we had a lot of fun, made a little money, but never realized that the "future" we dreamed about (where the whole world would be interconnected with a world wide net) was actually going to happen. Now that it's here, some argue that it didn't really make things better, only different ..... I tend to think that different is often better in itself, because I am easily bored ....
So there actually were forums such as this one "in the olden days" when Apple, Microsoft, etc., were being formed. Although the technologies were less well developed, the basic operation of the forum was the same as this one. And there were people who spent a great deal of time on the forums; some were objective enough that most listened when they spoke, a few were there to promote self interests, a few spread false information, sometimes deliberately, often out of ignorance or a myopic local view of the world, just as is the case now. I tended to use it mostly for my little business but enjoyed it all immensely.
I would say that if you take away the technology we now use, and reduce the numbers by a few zillion, you would find that the early versions of on-line forums would resemble this one very closely. Often, we "old timers" bemoan the loss of the water cooler network, or other forms of human communication, because we have many good memories of how those "networks" combined a little one-on-one socializing with every message, while today, it is much less personal. Well, who doesn't sometimes long for less complex times, and who doesn't have fond memories of good times had in high school or childhood?
I believe that one reason there is such a strong market demand for more bandwidth and for the products which would use it, is because most don't like the anonymous, impersonal way we now communicate; it really isn't that much better than it was fifteen years ago, just bigger and faster (sometimes). If we had enough bandwidth to enable video and audio communications instead of purely text messages, but allow that audio/visual communication to work more like email works, a lot of the "old timers" would fell a lot better about it. Let's face it; few are good enough at writing to fill an email message with all the emotion, inflection and context which would allow the reader to fully understand the author's message and intent.
We won't achieve that for quite a while, but I've always enjoyed "the ride", and will enjoy watching things get better and better, and maybe participating a little bit along the way. It certainly is interesting to see how rapidly we are solving the problems, and we are all hoping, I am sure, to be able to ride with a couple of companies when they come up with products and ideas which take us in the right direction.
Larry
p.s. that was a nice diatribe, but I didn't answer your question!
Guess what? I remember a great deal about what was said in those forums, years ago. The surprise is, it was much the same as what is said here! I think I read or browsed most of the messages on Compurserve in the earlier years which had anything to do with technology and technology stocks, and your message made me think back and realize that THINGS HAVEN'T CHANGED THAT MUCH! It is still very hard to figure out which technologies and which companies will win out. I think that is because we too often try to evaluate the technologies themselves rather than the companies behind them and especially, how markets will react to the COMPANIES (Microsoft is a good example of this; I wish I had kept copies of the messages which predicted that Microsoft would fail because their technology was no good! They rarely had technology as good as competitors did, but they knew how to build their business, as we have seen....).
I also think that there is a lot more "chance" and "luck" involved in the progress of a company or technology than most of us would like to acknowledge. Sometimes, when one traces a company's history back to its earliest roots, one discovers that a decision was made early on which was purely random and had absolutely no thought or reason behind it; a guy decided that if the next traffic light was green when he got there, he would choose "A", and if not, he would choose "B". His competitor made the opposite choice. Since his was the company which succeeded, when we later examine his action, we attach too much significance to those early decisions, without realizing that the only reason we are examining his company instead of the one that failed, is simply because it is there, and it is there to some extent purely by chance or luck. (That isn't the only reason, but is one reason we have trouble accepting).
In the case of Mr. Gates, for example, it wasn't so much that he knew how to succeed, it was that he really knew how to fail ....
My recollection of the exchange of messages on those earliest forums is that they were very much like this one, especially concerning Microsoft and Apple. I recall exchanging a number of messages with people who now couldn't take the time to talke to me, and I don't recall being especially impressed by what they said; in fact, I recall the opposite, I recall many times when the people we now virutally "worship" because of their success were "flamed" mercilessly for their ridiculous posts and ideas! The messages were usually shorter (on line time was expensive), the subjects and markets were much smaller, but, you would laugh at how little the BASIC CONTENT of the messages have changed. Just like the movies ... they are much more elaborate and realistic now but the content, the basic themes, haven't changed fundamentally for a long time.... |
