Graphing Calculator escapes

[mmcirvin]

Ron Avitzur tells the astonishing story of how he created Graphing Calculator. Brad DeLong wonders if it is completely true. Graphing Calculator was the killer app that finally clinched my decision to buy my first Macintosh in 1995, and led to my continuing use of Macs today. If Avitzur's story is true, it's hard to imagine it happening anywhere but at Apple; had he tried this at most firms, he'd probably have gone to jail.

Later, in need of some symbol-processing horsepower, I also bought the academic edition of Mathematica 2.2.2. Avitzur mentions that at one point late in the process, after it had become an official product, Wolfram Research had tried to squelch Graphing Calculator's development as a patent infringement. If the bid had succeeded, it would have been both ludicrous and unfortunate; the Mathematica of that era could do many things GC couldn't, but it had nothing like GC's marvelous equation editor and animated 3D graphics interface—Graphing Calculator's learning curve to get to the eye candy was almost nonexistent, something you certainly couldn't say of Mathematica. They were really constructed for quite different purposes.

Comments

[darius.livejournal.com]

Avitzur's account says Wolfram was not the company claiming a patent; they made a separate attempt to squelch it.

That article made me try this program for the first time -- neat interface!