Thread by @stevesi

1/ Super excited to have completed the second full chapter of "Hardcore Software: Inside the Rise and Fall of the PC Revolution" on substack …rdcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/013-end-of-t…

The most recent post is the end of "16 bit" era c. 1992-3. Join me as I learn about naming a product and reviews.

2/ PC sales had been slow due to global economic stuff, but the Mac had really slowed (you can see why in one of the magazines below). But recently sales had gone vertical with the success of Windows 3.x

At the same time developers all moved to focus on "Win32" the 32bit world.

3/ That's the market we launched Visual C++ into. Talk about tailwinds. We had a Windows-based development environment that was "object oriented" just in time for this massive uptick.

Windows NT was in beta. The successor to 3.x was under development. Momentum built.

4/ Tough to try to explain the amount of content that was out there in mass print for PCs: Byte, PC Magazine, PC Computing, PC World, + trade press + national business magazines. A press tour would easily mean the same demos/questions 20 times in 5 cities. A typical newsstand.

5/ Many on twitter will recall being subjected to tired and jetlagged people (like me) traveling in a group of marketing, PR, and PM. Every visit could be 2 hours and often be combined with pre and post calls.

This was how you reached people before the internet.

6/ My favorite visit might have always been to Byte Magazine in New Hampshire (really out of the way, fly to Logan, rent a car). Their offices were some sort of converted agriculture building with big "cow elevators". We stayed at the Jack Daniels Inn and ate at the diner. BRR

7/ Inside the building was an enormous test lab and that's what is so interesting.

Most software hardly worked. So much of the follow up was just getting installation working and untangling the "how to".

A typical review might be a couple of weeks of several people full time.

8/ It was always fun visiting if they had just finished something like a printer roundup where they tested 100 different laser printers that had not yet been returned to the companies. Racks and racks of printers (or cd rom drives, or modems, or monitors). As big as any we had.

9/ The output of these reviews were giant tables of features, scores, benchmarks. Note Editors Choice!

If you read ars technica reviews today, not unlike that, but across a dozen magazines, spread over 20+ pages. Just a huge amount of work (for all of us!)

10/ There was also deep qualitative opinion in these pieces as well. For example, here's the commentary on the part I worked on, Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC).

11/ These reviews would not hit all at once because of print publication schedules (and product availability). But a month or more after launch there would be huge summaries from PR. We'd score articles for tone and message. It was intense.

12/ The stronger teams and products poured over the reviews and looked for every place where we lost to competitors or lost in benchmarks. Almost never would there be a repeat. Products changed because of reviews, very directly.

13/ One thing these all had in common was how oriented towards the tech enthusiast the world was. While these magazines were all at the airport news stand the readership was not "mainstream". But that was changing.

Everything was changing.

14/ I'm starting off with a new job--working for Bill Gates as technical assistant. All powerful MS is under regulatory clouds. "Chicago" is being planned. Oh, and in a short time the internet arrives. All in1993.

Pls considering subscribing. It is fun. …rdcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/about