Subroutines: David Bunnell's Newsletter from Inside the PC Industry (1986)

For those who don't know, David in his early years worked with Bill Gates and Paul Allen at MITS (creator of the Altair early kit PC) in New Mexico. I believe David was head of marketing or somesuch. (If you've ever seen the mugshot of young Bill Gates, it dates to his New Mexico days.) He maintained lines of communication to Bill throughout his life - that relationship at MITS was basically a microcosm of how he would work with the tech industry, evangelizing for, and fleshing out the possibilities in, early personal computing tech. (Although his magazines were not mere marketing outlets, they could be quite critical when warranted).

In addition to the above named publications David also ran Upside magazine (and its lively and cheeky website UpsideToday) for many years — relevant to HN as it ran some of the first big features on VC firms (with no small amount of critique/lampooning) like Kleiner Perkins.

I'm eager to dig into these and learn David's perspective on the mid 80s tech industry.

It kind of was a piece of shit with that little RAM (128k). That was rectified with the Fat Mac (512k) 8 months later in september of 1984. It was still quite expensive compared to the PC clones that were common by late 1984 though.

There was an interesting dynamic for a while in the 80s between text mode and bitmapped personal computers. Bitmapped computers were generally for companies in design etc, well-todo individuals and academics. To the rest they seemed very nice but frivolous due to the very high cost. That 512k Mac in Sep 1984: US$2,795 (equivalent to $7,870 in 2022).

At the time of the introduction of that first feasible mac you could get a PC 5150 clone with the same amount of RAM and much crappier CGA graphics for half of the price. And then the gap just started getting wider over the next few years.

Its so sweet to see JLG with hair (page 7). :)

Seriously though, those quotes are hilarious .. especially Kahns' - this would be seem to have been quite a determined position for him to take, given Borlands' subsequent near-complete disinterest in the platform in the following years.

I wonder what Borland would be today if they hadn't ignored the Mac? Delphi for MacOS? Wow, what that would have done for us all ..

Or, better yet, Delphi for BeOS. Just another case of "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!" coming to the wrong minds at the wrong time ..