Wang was a
good computer and revolutionized secretaries' jobs. It replaced at least
one secretary with a Wang, not too good looking but function wise it
worked. EMail and other office software (meeting, etc.) replaced more.
There
were many today's applications migrated from Wang to PCs forming many
companies. When you talked to Wang or Ken Olsen of DEC to use PCs, you
got fired!
Writing software for a 4K PC using BASIC is fun. I
wrote a spreadsheet and a text formatter. All the magazines took my
press releases happily (free advertising). DOS was licensed from an
unknown company in Seattle. CP/M officials were busy in keeping their
tee times when IBM tried to license it. The rest is history.
I
licensed and ported a complete accounting software from CP/M to DOS
using my customized RS232, very high tech at the time. I sold it for
$900 per package (compared to other's $500 per module). I wrote an
interactive data (file more appropriate) manager (IDM). Both were my
best sellers. Dream big but you have to face reality. 20 packages
written by one cannot compete with 20 programmers working on one
package.
Running a company is fun. I was the CEO and also the janitor.
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