It's a bit of a dated analogy now, but if you put it in perspective of the early 80's it was truly revolutionary.
Could you imagine that restaurant menu today? Gordon Ramsey would be swearing with the spit flying if your establishment had as many items on the menu as Excel or Word!
you should read all of Jimmy's stuff, or better yet support him. His writing has only gotten better over the years and if you're a adventure/sim/IF gaming buff (which I'm not) it's even better. He recently finished a 10(?) part retrospective on Civilization which lost me in the weeds but was still awesome.
I went deeper on Jimmy's Maher work and found a collection of his published e-books: https://www.filfre.net/the-digital-antiquarian-e-book-librar.... To say I'm impressed is to say nothing at all. He did a stellar job, filling the historical gap between generations.
Jimmy and contributors - you made my day guys. Thanks a lot for all the hints.
Agreed, I really enjoyed all the early articles about text adventure games. It really is worth starting at the top of the table of contents and reading his stuff sequentially.
"For another, true multitasking would be possible under Windows, claimed Microsoft"
I had forgotten how terrible the early versions of Windows looked compared to Lisa, Amiga and even OS/2 and DR's GEM.
Even 7 years later Windows 3 only had cooperative multi tasking that in reality was program launcher with background printing. Applications were hopeless at releasing processor and if you tried to multi task you often crashed the whole OS. It was, of course, hugely commercially successful from 3 on. :)
With the video https://youtu.be/vnDRw8-caxU?t=415