Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
for the Intel 8080 and Zilog
Z
80 platforms. It was to be out in
April 1979 and compatible with
IBM
's
APL
.
SV
software. But in
the end the Microsoft
APL
-80 proved to be vaporware and by
the early 1980s, it was Microsoft's
BASIC
and not
APL
that was
installed on the majority of personal computers.
MCM
was a hardware company exclusively. Selling its
APL
software to other computer manufacturers would have under-
mined the company's hardware objectives. In short,
MCM
could
popularize
APL
only through successful installations of its sys-
tems; the support from the
APL
community would have bene-
fited both
MCM
and the
APL
movement. But such support never
materialized. It is likely that
MCM
failed to present its products
adequately to
APL
ers, even when opportunities to do so pre-
est supporter in the small systems market - from its side, the
APL
movement missed a unique opportunity for allowing its
language to have a real impact on the microcomputer's market
formation. By leaving
MCM
to itself, the movement allowed
APL
to be written off as a dominating microcomputer language
and left the rapidly growing microcomputer market almost en-
tirely to
BASIC
. Although some desktop microcomputers would
would never become a major programming tool on the micro-
computer platform.
The North American computer hobbyists' movement was
another social factor that contributed to the marginalization
of
MCM
. The computer hobby phenomenon goes back to the
second half of the 1960s, when organizations such as the Ama-
teur Computer Society began publishing newsletters to provide
electronics hobbyists interested in computing with a forum for
exchange of information on computer technology. One of the
most influential early publications for computer enthusiasts was
The People's Computer Company
magazine (
PCC
), published
bi-monthly starting in October 1972.
PCC
portrayed itself as
