Comments on: Visacalc changed my life… http://GarySaid.com/visacalc-changed-my-life/ The Blog of Gary LaPointe Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:45:11 -0400 hourly 1 By: KurtV http://GarySaid.com/visacalc-changed-my-life/comment-page-1/#comment-2453 KurtV Sun, 30 Dec 2007 05:45:59 +0000 http://GarySaid.com/wpindex.php/thoughts/visacalc-changed-my-life/#comment-2453 Hey Gary, remember trying to get the Votrax (external voice synthesizer) hooked up to those Atari 400's and 800's? I can still clearly hear the thing saying "The Doll Hospital and Toy Sol-dee-urr Shop" and having to edit it from saying "Soldier" to "Soljer" to get it to pronounce it better. Of course, back in those says it was a big deal to get it to say anything it all! The machines only had 16K to 48K of RAM... (You needed the "maximum" ammount in order to run "serious" programs like Visicalc.) By the way, while I usually like to wax nostaglic about programming in 8K BASIC on the "KIM-1" computer I helped my engineer Dad build (before ANY of the Apples, Ataris, Commodores, TRS's, Texas Insruments, etc... were around), I wholeheartedly agree with you that it was VisiCalc that really enabled/made/legitimized the buying of computers. While there's always people that just love to play with technology, Visicalc really made it possible for non-programmers to "use" the machine for something other than wordprocessing, games or very specialized programs. Here's a couple of Visicalc links you might find interesting: You can actually STILL run the old 27K Visicalc on your PC! http://www.bricklin.com/history/vcexecutable.htm For more history, take a look at http://www.bricklin.com/firstspreadsheetquestion.htm

Hey Gary, remember trying to get the Votrax (external voice synthesizer) hooked up to those Atari 400’s and 800’s? I can still clearly hear the thing saying “The Doll Hospital and Toy Sol-dee-urr Shop” and having to edit it from saying “Soldier” to “Soljer” to get it to pronounce it better. Of course, back in those says it was a big deal to get it to say anything it all! The machines only had 16K to 48K of RAM… (You needed the “maximum” ammount in order to run “serious” programs like Visicalc.) By the way, while I usually like to wax nostaglic about programming in 8K BASIC on the “KIM-1″ computer I helped my engineer Dad build (before ANY of the Apples, Ataris, Commodores, TRS’s, Texas Insruments, etc… were around), I wholeheartedly agree with you that it was VisiCalc that really enabled/made/legitimized the buying of computers. While there’s always people that just love to play with technology, Visicalc really made it possible for non-programmers to “use” the machine for something other than wordprocessing, games or very specialized programs. Here’s a couple of Visicalc links you might find interesting:

You can actually STILL run the old 27K Visicalc on your PC!
http://www.bricklin.com/history/vcexecutable.htm

For more history, take a look at
http://www.bricklin.com/firstspreadsheetquestion.htm

]]> By: josh http://GarySaid.com/visacalc-changed-my-life/comment-page-1/#comment-2452 josh Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:59:34 +0000 http://GarySaid.com/wpindex.php/thoughts/visacalc-changed-my-life/#comment-2452 Wonderful story. When I was 8 years old my parents wouldn't buy me an Atari video game console. So I asked for a computer, and got a TI-99/4A, along with some books with source code in them. So I typed in the code to play the games. Made so many typos that I had to re-read the code over and over again. I figured out how to program because of it. Then when I was 15 I went to work for a computer consultant, by then I had an XT clone and had mastered DOS and had lots of pirated copies of business software thanks to a 2400bps modem. So I had value. He would drive me to his clients and drop me off, because I was too young to drive. Once I graduated high school I became Novell CNE certified. And things continued on from there. Excel is my favorite program. Using VBA coding, I can make it do almost anything.

Wonderful story. When I was 8 years old my parents wouldn’t buy me an Atari video game console. So I asked for a computer, and got a TI-99/4A, along with some books with source code in them. So I typed in the code to play the games. Made so many typos that I had to re-read the code over and over again. I figured out how to program because of it.

Then when I was 15 I went to work for a computer consultant, by then I had an XT clone and had mastered DOS and had lots of pirated copies of business software thanks to a 2400bps modem. So I had value. He would drive me to his clients and drop me off, because I was too young to drive. Once I graduated high school I became Novell CNE certified. And things continued on from there.

Excel is my favorite program. Using VBA coding, I can make it do almost anything.

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