The debut of VisiCalc in 1979 is often considered the first “killer app” for the personal computer. This early spreadsheet program helped propel sales of the Apple II, as it gave the machine a practical use for business customers. Along similar lines, a number of burgeoning software companies pushed personal finance software in the early 1980s as the next step in expanding personal computers into the home market.

Our next Computer Chronicles episode focuses on these personal finance software products. Stewart Cheifet presented his cold open standing in front of a wall filled with various paper tax forms. He noted there were at least 200 different IRS forms that a person might use when preparing their income tax returns–and almost as many personal finance software packages now on the market.

Michael Lewis’ 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game described Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane’s use of advanced statistical analysis–known as sabermetrics–to build his team. The book was later turned into a film, which only further cemented the popular notion that Beane was the key figure in marrying computer-aided statistical research to the 19th century pastoral game.

Beane’s tenure as general manager did not begin until 1997. Nearly 15 years earlier, there was another important figure in the Oakland baseball hierarchy who served as a champion for using “computers in the dugout.” That was Steve Boros, a former third baseman who served as the A’s field manager during 1983 and part of 1984. After Oakland fired Boros mid-season, he joined the San Diego Padres front office and later served as their manager in 1986. During his front office stint in San Diego, Boros was also a guest on a March 1985 Computer Chronicles episode, where he discussed the role computers could–and should–play in baseball.

In 1969, a computer scientist at Bell Labs named Ken Thompson wrote an operating system for a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-7 minicomputer that he initially dubbed Unics. This was later renamed UNIX and continued to be developed at Bell throughout the 1970s, with each numbered version corresponding to the current edition of the accompanying UNIX Programmer’s Manual. In fact, just a few days ago marked the 50th anniversary of UNIX Version 1, dated November 3, 1971.

Up to this point on Computer Chronicles–we’re now at February 1985 in terms of broadcast dates–the featured computers have largely relied on typewriter-style keyboards as input devices and cathode-ray tube monitors for output. (Even the mouse had only started to enter more general usage with the 1984 release of the Apple Macintosh.) But in this next episode, the focus is on individuals who have different accessibility requirements when it came to using computers.

Although Paul Schindler’s commentary comes at the end of the episode just before “Random Access,” I thought I’d discuss his thoughts upfront this time as it helps provide some useful context for this early January 1985 episode, which is about portable computers. Schindler compared a portable computer to a portable sewing machine. With respect to the latter, he said it made more sense for most people just to carry a needle with them. Sure, you wouldn’t be able to do any fancy sewing with a needle, but you could do smaller jobs quickly.

In the last episode, Wendy Woods mentioned that during her testing of IBM PC software compatibility with the PCjr that only the version of Borland’s Sidekick without copy protection worked with the latter machine. The version with copy protection was incompatible with the PCjr.

You might wonder, then, why anyone would have purchased the copy protected version in the first place. The answer was likely price. According to Borland’s advertising from the time–early 1985–the protected version cost $55, while the non-protected version ran $85.

Purchasing software in the late 1980s often required the buyer to carefully read the label, especially if you owned a personal computer that purported to be “compatible” with IBM. Take this diskette for the IBM port of The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate:

As you can see, the disk label states the game works with the “IBM PC, XT and 100% compatibles,” as well as the Tandy 1000. Tandy is the only compatible listed by name, as by this point–this was a 1990 release–the 1000 line was widely considered the gold standard for IBM compatibility.

The original Macintosh would not seem like an obvious gaming machine. It retailed for $2,500 at the time of its January 1984 release. You could have bought a dozen Atari 2600 consoles for the same amount of money. And while the Macintosh did boast high-resolution bitmap graphics–as well as the ability to display multiple windows–it came on a 9-inch monochrome display. Even the lowly Commodore 64 could display 16 colors, and use an ordinary television set to boot.

This episode of Computer Chronicles shows some of the minor tweaking to the show’s format between the first and second seasons. The first is the addition of Wendy Woods as a correspondent. Woods took over narrating the customary B-roll feature following the introduction and also conducted remote interviews with guests related to the topic of the episode.

The second change was that Stewart Cheifet now delivers a brief “cold open” before each episode introducing the topic. This was often done as a remote shot. The third and final change was that the main portion of the show now ended with a commentary segment, which was initially presented by our old friend Paul Schindler.

You often hear people describe modern smartphones as a “supercomputer in your pocket.” There’s definitely some truth to that, especially when you compare today’s phones with the supercomputers of 40 years ago. In the mid-1980s, supercomputer manufacturers were still struggling with concepts like parallel processing, i.e., breaking down a program into smaller tasks that could run simultaneously on multiple microprocessors. Today, in contrast, multi-core, multi-threaded CPU cores are the norm on just about every personal computing device.