ABSTRACT
Most new technologies start out imperfect, difficult to master, and capable of being used only by enthusiastic early adopters. The personal-computer software industry developed in two phases. The first phase, which can be characterized as the gold-rush era, lasted from about 1975 to 1982; during this period, barriers to entry were extremely low, and there were several thousand new entrants, almost all of which were undercapitalized two- or three-person start-ups. The second phase, which began about 1983, following the standardization of the personal-computer market around the International Business Machines (IBM)-compatible Product Code (PC), was a period of consolidation in which many of the early firms were shaken out, new entrants required heavy inputs of venture capital, and a small number of (American) firms emerged as global players. The user interacted with the operating system through a "command line interface", in which each instruction to the computer had to be typed explicitly by the user, letter-perfect.
