the first 10+ years of PCs and clones on the market, many were sitting idle on workers’ desks…
No. Literally from Wikipedia: “Third-party software support grew extremely quickly, and within a year the PC platform was supplied with a vast array of titles for any conceivable purpose.”
Not a million chatbots with flaky guardrails and dubious value, getting pushed on random people. The value of a PC program was explicit and understandable.
IBM marketed thier PCs very effectively and launched with a Billion dollar boom, but then lost market share and ultimately lost their ability to sell PCs…
… Because the PC Compatible emerged? Yeah I know. That’s evidence of success.
Moving goalposts to a different metaphor (the dot-com bubble) makes me think you realized your first attempt at a metaphor sucked
No. Literally from Wikipedia: “Third-party software support grew extremely quickly, and within a year the PC platform was supplied with a vast array of titles for any conceivable purpose.”
Who wrote your Wikipedia article, and what’s their source on the uptake of this vast array of titles by actual human beings with PCs supplied to them?
In 1985 I visited a rather highly ranked Nurse in a hospital saddled with one of those new miracle boat-anchors and despite the vast array of titles for any conceivable purpose, her management had supplied her with nada, zip, zilch, the bare OS with no specialty software and no peripherals like a printer. I showed her how to use the - very user UNfriendly - edlin program to be able to type text in and save it, and retrieve it later. That was a huge breakthrough for her since the thing had literally been a chunk of wasted space on her desk capable of absolutely no demonstrable utility for months, despite her asking for help from her management in using it.
Her story was not unique - that Billion $+ surge of successful sales was not driven by people clamoring for things they could use, it was driven by management wanting to get a jump on “the next big thing” - pushing their employees in the deep end with no clue how to swim and no instruction. Uptake took a lot of time, more in some areas than others, but the early 80s in particular had a lot of unused hardware sitting around doing nothing of value.
The value of a PC program was explicit and understandable.
To a small minority of the population - not just the population in general - the specific population with PC access also.
Moving goalposts to a different metaphor
And imagining a past that didn’t happen is all too easy if you only read company approved histories.
The Wikipedia article is yours to peruse and fix if you think it’s wrong. It has examples. I just quoted something that was particularly funny given your insistence that AI is literally the PC and clones.
The Wikipedia article is yours to peruse and fix if you think it’s wrong.
Not my game, I have better things to do with my time and life than fight with a bunch of people editing articles that clearly conflict with the history I lived, for their own reasons.
40 years from now, AI, ML, LLMs and whatever comes after, are going to have significant roles in society - probably very different than they’re being hyped for right now.
Leaping at new technology, pouring tons of money into it, and getting little in return at first is nothing new for businesses.
No. Literally from Wikipedia: “Third-party software support grew extremely quickly, and within a year the PC platform was supplied with a vast array of titles for any conceivable purpose.”
Not a million chatbots with flaky guardrails and dubious value, getting pushed on random people. The value of a PC program was explicit and understandable.
… Because the PC Compatible emerged? Yeah I know. That’s evidence of success.
Moving goalposts to a different metaphor (the dot-com bubble) makes me think you realized your first attempt at a metaphor sucked
Who wrote your Wikipedia article, and what’s their source on the uptake of this vast array of titles by actual human beings with PCs supplied to them?
In 1985 I visited a rather highly ranked Nurse in a hospital saddled with one of those new miracle boat-anchors and despite the vast array of titles for any conceivable purpose, her management had supplied her with nada, zip, zilch, the bare OS with no specialty software and no peripherals like a printer. I showed her how to use the - very user UNfriendly - edlin program to be able to type text in and save it, and retrieve it later. That was a huge breakthrough for her since the thing had literally been a chunk of wasted space on her desk capable of absolutely no demonstrable utility for months, despite her asking for help from her management in using it.
Her story was not unique - that Billion $+ surge of successful sales was not driven by people clamoring for things they could use, it was driven by management wanting to get a jump on “the next big thing” - pushing their employees in the deep end with no clue how to swim and no instruction. Uptake took a lot of time, more in some areas than others, but the early 80s in particular had a lot of unused hardware sitting around doing nothing of value.
To a small minority of the population - not just the population in general - the specific population with PC access also.
And imagining a past that didn’t happen is all too easy if you only read company approved histories.
The Wikipedia article is yours to peruse and fix if you think it’s wrong. It has examples. I just quoted something that was particularly funny given your insistence that AI is literally the PC and clones.
Not my game, I have better things to do with my time and life than fight with a bunch of people editing articles that clearly conflict with the history I lived, for their own reasons.
40 years from now, AI, ML, LLMs and whatever comes after, are going to have significant roles in society - probably very different than they’re being hyped for right now.
Leaping at new technology, pouring tons of money into it, and getting little in return at first is nothing new for businesses.