Special:Badtitle/NS90:Milestones-Nomination talk:The first laptop personal computer, 1984-1986/What a laptop personal computer is and precedence of Toshiba T-1100/reply (17)

I am uploading three additional pictures:

(1) a photo of DG_One Software that I still have. This is a photo of the top of my bookcase and includes a few of the software titles that were available on September 20, 1984. There were approximately twenty packages available on that day. Within a few weeks, hundreds of packages were available.

(2) The Lotus 1-2-3 User Guide Cover and Title page with 1984 copyright.

(3) a copy of the Lotus 1-2-3 “Slick” that was included in the Lotus 1-2-3 package for Data General One computers. Notice the 1984 copyright date near the bottom and the (upside down) statement “Compatible with the Data General OneTM Personal System.”

As mentioned by another contributor, it was difficult to get software vendors to actually state that their software would run on a specific computer—not because it was difficult to put their software on a 3.5 inch diskette, but because they had to run a full quality test of their software running on the system. That required a lot of their time and resources so Data General provided vendors with pre-production hardware, as well as assistance and support from a team of highly skilled Data General software developers to help them test and qualify their software. As a result of this testing, Lotus 1-2-3 explicitely named the IBM® Personal Computer, the XT(TM); the COMPAQ(TM) Portable Computer; and the Data General/One(TM) Personal System in their product literature as having been qualified as of September 20, 1984.

Jim Reece