[HN Gopher] The Useful Personal Computer
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       The Useful Personal Computer
        
       Author : cfmcdonald
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2025-11-02 14:19 UTC (11 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (technicshistory.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (technicshistory.com)
        
       | MarkLowenstein wrote:
       | Reliving the days when the possibilities were endless and we
       | weren't already captured by an entrenched computing path is
       | important. 50 years ago, every marketer intuited that a home
       | computer would be used for storing recipes. It never happened.
       | Why not? (Reasons aren't hard to come up with, but the process of
       | doing so draws our imagination toward what computer interfaces
       | could have been and should still be.)
        
         | spankibalt wrote:
         | > "[...] every marketer intuited that a home computer would be
         | used for storing recipes. It never happened."
         | 
         | Storing recipes "never happened"? Rubbish! Even famous cook
         | Casey Ryback used his Apple Newton to store recipes, as
         | evidenced in the 1995 documentary _Under Siege 2_ [1].
         | 
         | 1. [https://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=23]
        
           | PeaceTed wrote:
           | Yeah easy to say that but that is because they are the elite.
           | They have a newton, do you? I don't! Time for Newton 2, I
           | mean they are doing iPod sock 2 so why not Newton 2.
        
         | eigencoder wrote:
         | Hey, I store recipes on my home computer! Having a portable
         | handheld terminal that can view the recipes makes it much more
         | practical than it would have been in the 80s.
        
           | saulpw wrote:
           | What recipe storing app do you use?
        
             | topaz0 wrote:
             | vim
        
               | PeaceTed wrote:
               | Once you have been doing computing for long enough, the
               | best solution is a very well formatted text file.
               | 
               | When on Windows I organise my entire work flow in
               | Notepad.
        
         | fragmede wrote:
         | It didn't? Who knows how many copies of
         | Americas_test_kitchen.pdf are floating around out there, how
         | many recipes are in Apple notes or in Google Keep. Sure, you
         | might just Google for "banana bread recipe" and get lost on a
         | tangent about technology, and the smartphone isn't the personal
         | computer of yore, but recipes existing in a digital format has
         | happened.
        
           | allturtles wrote:
           | I think in the context of the GP's comment, 'never' means it
           | never (or hardly ever) happened on the products it was
           | expected to happen on (home computers, as understood circa
           | late 70s/early 80s). Yes, it has happened on very different
           | devices decades later.
        
         | youainti wrote:
         | My spouse does. Google docs provides an editable, sharable,
         | easy to use way to do recipes.
        
         | gwbas1c wrote:
         | What are you talking about? I store recipes in my computer, and
         | routinely look them up on Google.
        
         | whartung wrote:
         | We thought about selling a recipe program for the Mac. The tag
         | line was going to be "The only time you want a mouse in your
         | kitchen."
        
       | ktallett wrote:
       | Classic tech is still a source of very important lessons, and
       | potentially software and hardware options. Both in regards to
       | focusing on building for the hardware, saving energy and power,
       | but also even in relation to software that had it's time but
       | could be rebuilt for modern hardware and serve a new purpose.
        
       | mkoubaa wrote:
       | "Appliance Computer" is such a cool name
        
       | RyanOD wrote:
       | We had a Commodore 64 and an Amiga back in the 80s. I used to
       | type up books reports and research papers which was really nice.
       | 
       | Once, I got in trouble and had to go home and write sentences. I
       | used the word processor to copy/paste the sentence 500 times (or
       | whatever it was). The teacher was dubious of this, but not fully
       | understanding personal computers, gave in and accepted it.
       | 
       | Win! Win! Win! ...
        
       | Almondsetat wrote:
       | This article really resonates with me. Sometimes I stop and think
       | that in actuality people do very little computing with their
       | devices. If people actually used computers to manage their life,
       | a windows 95 dekstop would already be plenty powerful to run all
       | the necessary software.
       | 
       | As always, entertainment and ads are what keeps the treadmill
       | going
        
       | kragen wrote:
       | This article really sells short the importance of user groups and
       | even more informal networks, as well as type-ins, in providing
       | software, whether deliberately released by the author to the
       | public or not. Upwards of 99% of the software on the personal
       | computers I saw in the early 80s was non-purchased. Computers are
       | awesomely powerful copying machines, and we took advantage of
       | that to the fullest!
        
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       (page generated 2025-11-13 23:00 UTC)