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To: Charles Hughes who wrote (305)	3/6/1998 3:10:00 PM
From: Sleeperz	Respond to of 633

I have EAs Star Flight I bought for over $80. A fairly basic simulation game. Now you can buy EAs Wing Commander a much more complex game cheaper. Game SW is cheaper. >>All of this is so very far wrong that I have to conclude you are pretty young, CR. Obviously, you were not there and don't know anything about it:<<< "No, Two University Profs. The idea behind VisiCalc was developed by Dan Bricklin, and the actual programming was performed by a friend named Bob Frankston. Bricklin needed a computer tool to complete repetitive calculations associated with case studies at the Harvard Business School. After gaining popularity as an Apple application, the product was sold to Lotus Development Corporation, and led to the development of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet for the PC in 1983. " >>>No, 2 college students. On the cheap, in any case. Yes, lots of us, including myself, had developed spreadsheet-like programs before then, but none of them were truly general purpose like visicalc.<<< Well can you compare SuperCalc with Lotus 123 or Excel? Translate 1970s $20,000 to 1998 $$$. Take a look at the size of the Code of SuperCalc and compare it to Lotus 123. Compare the features. >>>Even later, 'professional' development of spreadsheets was surprisingly cheap. SuperCalc was developed on contract for $20,000, for instance.<<< Translate the 1970 $50 to 1990 and you can buy a modern IDE SW. >>>6502 Basic in its various flavors was ported from Tiny Basic by Gates or Allen. I don't know which one did the heavy lifting, but it was just a port of a small assembler program (done with the $50 6502 assembler tool, BTW.) <<< Well you have your opinion. I'll take an IDE over a CL compiler anyday. This will end up like who sells the better Pickup GM, Ford or Chrylser or Toyota. >>>And since I have used not only the early borland tools but all of the other tools we have discussed, and you haven't, I'll be the judge of what can be compared and what can't. Sorry :-)<<< Sorry don't know about that. After flip flopping on your opinion on game consoles. But in all reality if you want cheap, there is lots of freeware and shareware compilers. But you get what you pay for. Apache is probably the current best in freeware. cl

To: Charles Hughes who wrote (305)	3/6/1998 3:37:00 PM
From: Sleeperz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 633

Steve Wozniak worked at Hewlett Packard designing calculators, which is a different kind of computer. And then all of a sudden, discovered that the prices of some parts called "microprocessors" and "memory chips" had gotten so low, that he could actually afford, with maybe a month's salary (if saved for a little while) could afford to design and build a computer. Steve Wozniak had designed so many computers in his life that he knew what exceptional things he had done and could do. He had even built a small computer five years before, around 1970. Big companies that ran big businesses - IBM, Hewlett Packard, companies like that - sneered at these little products, based on microprocessors. Then showed off the design at the Homebrew Computer Club. Then came Steve Jobs and a $1000 investment to build and sell the PC Boards which became orders for Apple computer. So yes parts of the original Apple computer was initially developed by Wozniak at HP and Apple the company was started in a garage. >>>The original apple computer was developed by Wozniak while he was at HP, I think. He used their tools (and time?) for free, and tried to sell the company on the project first. When they weren't interested, he got together with Jobs and did the next version, and quit the company.<<< Microsoft is happy that IBM PC got started. >>> There were many sub-1000 dollar pc's, way before the IBM pc ripped off the 'PC' name from general useage.<<<