I'm intrigued by the 23-page booklet included in the #VisiCalc package: "Software Arts Product Corp" "DIF Clearinghouse Data Interchange Format".

Mine's the 1983 edition - here's a version from 1981: https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_visicorpDISpecification1981_745801/page/n2/mode/1up

It includes #BASIC and #PASCAL programs for reading and writing the DIF file format. (The BASIC program doesn't look like #ATARI BASIC.)

Wow, the #GreaseWeazle really is an incredible piece of equipment.

I've successfully made a raw flux dump of an original #VisiCalc for #Atari800 5¼-inch floppy disk and written the image to a fresh disk. My Atari 800 boots successfully into VisiCalc from the fresh disk in my #Atari1050 floppy disk drive.

I am seriously impressed. This is proper #SoftwareArchaeology.

No skill exhibited on my part; the Greaseweazle guide includes an example of how to specify the correct parameters for the gw command line program to successfully image an Atari disk. Raw flux allows us to image the disk, copy protection and all.

I'm inclined to put the image up on Archive.org, along with quality scans of the box and manuals.

“VisiCalc sold more than seven hundred thousand copies in its first six years, and almost single-handedly demonstrated the utility of the #AppleII, which retailed for more than a thousand dollars at the time (the equivalent of more than five thousand dollars in 2023). Prior to the early seventies, #computers were centralized machines—occupying entire rooms—that #academics and #hobbyists shared or rented time on, using them communally. They were more boiler-room infrastructure than #LifeStyle accessory, attended to by experts away from the #PublicEye.”

Read to the end. The ease of use of complicated tools, results in a lot problems in the future.

#PersonalComputers / #VisiCalc / #Commodore / #tandy <https://newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-birth-of-the-personal-computer>