Great Old School Article

[RunForTheRoses]

BBC News - How computing's first 'killer app' changed everything
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47802280

[vegasone]

How true. That and desktop publishing on the Apple made it a must have for professionals and an easier sell.

[zerosky]

Great story, especially this part...

"JP Morgan lost $6bn (£4.6bn), in part because a risk indicator in a spreadsheet
was being divided not by an average of two numbers but by their sum"

I've accidentally bet on the wrong horse or bet the wrong amount but $6bn!!!

[Dave Schwartz]

I remember that so well.

At the time I was working on a legal billing system in partnership with a company I used to work for. (On the Commodore. After "PET" and before "C64.")

At the time we were in the middle of a financial dispute. The liaison for the company says, "Well, I guess your software is worthless now because this changes everything. We'll just whip this out in a couple of weeks."

Of course, it didn't work THAT well, but it was pretty amazing.

[Parkview_Pirate]

Depends on how you define 'killer app'. Personally, I would vote for the early web browsers like Netscape. Changed the PC experience from being a tool or crappy gaming device to the "Golden Path" known as the Information Highway/Age.

The surge of interest provided by web surfing, in no small part due to free porn in your house, led to lower ISP fees, cheaper computers and a complete paradigm shift in how the world does business.

Maybe it's just my natural distaste for the bean counters of the universe, but no way in hell does a spreadsheet even come close to being a killer app, let alone the first.

[headhawg]

Unless you had access to ARPANET, the Internet really didn't enter the public's eyes until the late 80s or early 90s. Even then, how many people were actually on it? Mosaic (later Netscape) wasn't developed until '93. So VisiCalc (1979) and then Lotus 123 later put PCs on the map, and PCs are what drove the general public into the computer/information hightway age.

[ReplayRandall]

Originally Posted by headhawg

Unless you had access to ARPANET, the Internet really didn't enter the public's eyes until the late 80s or early 90s. Even then, how many people were actually on it? Mosaic (later Netscape) wasn't developed until '93. So VisiCalc (1979) and then Lotus 123 later put PCs on the map, and PCs are what drove the general public into the computer/information hightway age.

IMO, Lotus 123 was the game-changer for the mainstream public....Overnight.