
The Graphing Calculator Story (2004) - tosh
https://www.pacifict.com/Story/
======
js2
Most recent discussion three months ago (133 points, 21 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16780276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16780276)

Copying dang's comment from there to here:

Posted many times but no discussion in the last few years, so this is ok.
Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7680696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7680696)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3176595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3176595)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1584501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1584501)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1741)

~~~
pvg
Yes but 3 months later it's a just a dupe.

------
azhenley
This is beautiful, amazing story that is wildly illegal, but I can't help to
envy their determination and wit.

> We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly,
> Microsoft has effective building security.

Funny enough, as an intern at Microsoft I once forgot my badge and no one
would let me in the building. Another time, after lunch I tried to trail a
group of people into my building and one of them turned around and asked to
see my badge.

------
corey_moncure
This software rocketed me down my personal journey in mathematics at escape
velocity. I first got to play with it on some PowerPC macs in the library at
Davidson College. I was 12 years old and just beginning with algebra and
geometry. Once I had discovered it, I would spend hours down there just
playing with it. Couldn't pull myself away. My only experience had been the
boring, limited TI-82.

Being able to directly key in the functions to graph was cool enough. Having
them come up instantly and being able to zoom and identify maxima, minima and
inflection points with the mouse was awesome. Then one day I was like "hmm, I
wonder what happens if I put y and x on the same side of the equation"?

Mind. Blown.

I gained insights playing with this tool that lasted me all the way through
high school and well into my minor concentration in university. I doubt my
story is unique. Thanks, PacificTech.

~~~
UnderProtest
I had the same experience so I just bought their iOS port of Graphing
Calculator. It's cheap at $10, it's excellent, but mostly I wanted to say
thank you for doing such a ridiculous amount of unpaid work, at personal legal
risk, for the sake of math students.

~~~
avitzur
THANK YOU!!!

------
wwweston
You know, the last few times I've read this, I've focused on the wonder of
making an unauthorized project happen inside a large organization on the
strength of personal vision and a generally untapped reserve of goodwill
towards something that had clear value (and a little extra caché).

But this time, I noticed the commentary about how good software isn't just
about the primary developers:

"we couldn't get it done alone. Creating sophisticated software requires a
team effort.... Making software that is simultaneously easy to learn, easy to
use, friendly, useful, and powerful takes people with an incredible
combination of skills, talent, and artistry working together with intensity
and patience. Greg and I could do the core engineering, but that was a far cry
from creating a finished product.

"Among other things, we needed ...[1]... professional quality assurance (QA),
the difficult and time-consuming testing that would show us the design flaws
and implementation bugs we couldn't see in our own work ...[2]... help writing
software to draw the three-dimensional images that our software produced.

"My skunkworks project was beginning to look real with help from these
professionals as well as others in graphic design, documentation, programming,
mathematics, and user interface. The secret to programming is not
intelligence, though of course that helps. It is not hard work or experience,
though they help, too.

"The secret to programming is having smart friends."

(heavily edited for emphasis)

------
peterkelly
Google tech talk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl643JFJWig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl643JFJWig)

------
mikerathbun
I love reading this story. Whenever it pops up on HN or Reddit it's such a
motivational read. Sometimes people involved will jump in the comment section
to add details which helps document the lore of one of the best early
computing stories.

------
ChuckMcM
Click on the (pacifict.com) on the HN title and you will see this story has
appeared here many times, there are lots of great comments in many of those
appearances.

------
hnal943
I don't think this guy understands what skunkworks means.

------
tabtab
He should have made it open-source rather than rely on Apple. Most of it had
to be re-written anyhow between demo and final product, as I read it. It
sounds like many things _almost_ went wrong, between being ratted on, IP
lawsuits, no office space, immature hardware, etc. Open-source would have
avoided most of this risk.

~~~
pietroglyph
Software distribution was hard and expensive in 1994. They wanted it to be
installed at the factory, to ensure maximum reach, which wouldn't have been
possible with open source:

> "We were doing it to help kids learn math. Public schools are too poor to
> buy software, so the most effective way to deliver it is to install it at
> the factory."

