Re: Seeking reverse-engineers - Apple II VisiCalc

[nem <nem@nospam>]

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in news:

> So the market for personal computers was primed long before
> computers could be bought for under several thousand dollars.

And yet, there was the (in)famous statement by an IBM executive around 
1970 that went something like "I think there's a home market for about 
five computers."

A lot of the microcomputer thing was born out of a hippie, anti-
establishment attitude; the idea that you could have your very own 
computer and do as you wanted with it, rather than depend on time-
sharing services at a university and whatnot.

By the '80s, many of the hippie types became disillusioned when the 
microcomputer industry became the very thing they rebelled against: big 
business.

The anti-establishment attitude never really died, though. It lives on 
to this day in the form of Linux users and their "Up yours, Microsoft!" 
beliefs.