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A comment on Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s computer. Parent comment

Re:Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s co... by alasdair_ on Friday July 14, 2017 @01:32PM (#14771551)
Lotus 1-2-3 was commonly described as the "killer app" for the IBM PC as early as 1987.
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Re:Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s co... by thanatropism on Friday July 14, 2017 @01:35PM (#14771592)
Yes, but "application" didn't mean "program", it meant "application". Lotus 1-2-3 was an application of PCs, it made PCs useful.
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Re:Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s co... by Govindae on Friday July 14, 2017 @02:21PM (#14772048)
I thought the etymology was from function application.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apply

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Re:Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an '80s co... by takeda on Friday July 14, 2017 @03:17PM (#14772417)
I doubt it. If anything, they probably just have common origins.

Apply originates from functional languages which did exist at the time, but were not really used outside of research.

Occam's Razor tells me that it most likely came out from "how you use the computer" and then it evolved to refer to the program itself.

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