dan bricklin has been posting some great material of historical interest on the 20th anniversary of the pc, including Thoughts on the 20th Anniversary of the IBM PC and a transcript of the IBM PC Announcement 1981:

“On August 12, 1981, the day the IBM PC was announced, VisiCalc’s developers, Software Arts, held a staff meeting to go over what was happening. Like most of our full staff meetings, it was videotaped with home video equipment so employees that missed it could watch it later.”

“It is strange 20 years later to listen to me say, commenting on the fact we were taping it, “This is so that if you miss it, you can hear it again later” followed by laughter implying “Why would we want to?” The lack of attention to the operating system (Microsoft’s) and microprocessor (Intel’s) in all the material is also quite interesting.”

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