Chapter 6: The triumphant Nerds arise.


Nothing tastes better than a great triumph, well, maybe if it wasn’t an accident, the Nerds could have felt a little better, but I guess we will never find out.



I liked how the video had a different approach about the start of computing than most of all the other documentaries and videos, where they follow the same storyline (while it is impossible to change, but it can be seen from other points of view). One of the first statements was the one that struck me the most; the whole success of computing was an accident. They didn’t create (at first) the computer for scientific purposes, but for leisure and fun, especially for impressing their friends.

The first personal computer had no initial purpose. It was just some group of buttons and switches paired together to make small operations. The memory was limited, the effort needed to make something was huge, but still, this was groundbreaking, because they made a successful machine capable of translating some kind of language into machine language. This got the attention of everyone, slowly starting to look for a more “purposeful” invention based on computing.

The first important feature of the translation between the first personal computer and the Apple II, was how the first computer had a “hobbyist” approach, and Apple II looked like a consumer electronics. Great design an innovation drove this invention to be a sensation.


This was the first step into modern computing, raising the standards of quality and proving that this new business area had a lot of potential. However, the market didn´t grow at first, getting stuck with the hobbyist and enthusiasts. It was until the creation of the first counting application, based on the Harvard Business School, with the purpose to remove all the tedious manual calculations. And that was how the first spreadsheet was born.

 References:
Cringely Robert X. (1996). Triumph of the Nerds Part I: Impressing their Friends, produced by PBS.

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