# Why did so many early computer ads mention usage for "Storing Recipes"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 30, 2017, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569 "2017-01-30T06:32:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569/81 "2017-02-01T13:47:55Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > …We had a computer in our house in the early 1990s and it had not one but two 20Mb hard drives - which was enough to store almost literally every single IBM PC Compatible software programme in existence at the time with plenty of space left over. He got it through his work and for some reason whoever was in charge of organising computers for people just ticked the “Give us the most storage space possible” box and ended up with the 1990s equivalent of a Petabyte harddrive. p > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > You’ve either got your timeline or your HD size wrong. The first WinTel box I bought (in college, for around $1,400) in 1992 had a 170 MB HD, and that was a medium-sized drive on one of the cheapest 486es I could find, _and_ I soon had to resort to using Stacker/Doublespace for extra space before being able to buy a new, larger HD to add to the system. 40 MB was already _not_ large by the early 1990s. > [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > My recollection is I was finishing primary school so it would have been very late 1980s or early 1990s. The system only had EGA graphics and I remember fiddling about with things like EMS and XMS trying to get it to run games like [Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Their_Finest_Hour_(video_game)). > > I should mention I was in NZ at the time and the country wasn’t on the cutting edge, technologically speaking. For a few years in the mid-1990s I was one of the few kids at high school to have the internet at home. I’ll chime in as well…I bought a [Syquest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyQuest_Technology) removable hard-drive system that used 44MB cartridges in 1988. (I used it to connect to the Mac II computers in the university computer lab.) In 1990 I bought a [Mac IIsi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_IIsi) that had an option for a 40MB hard drive or an 80MB hard drive. (This was the first computer I purchased, and I got the 80MB option.) Also, even in the U.S., internet at home in the mid-90s basically consisted of the walled gardens of Compuserve and AOL, accessed via dial-up. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569/82 "2017-02-01T13:54:25Z")
> [@sevenwood](#): > > I did a bit of googling, and you are absolutely correct, sir. The core operating system was written by Microsoft, but the product shipped by IBM as “PC-DOS” on their very first PCs included some hardware-specific utilities (the example listed was the MODE utility) written by IBM. It wasn’t until later that the products merged. Merged? [PC DOS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_DOS) and MS-DOS were different but very similar products. The core of both provided by MS (originally built around 86-DOS) with IBM making their own changes. Some features appeared at first in different versions between the two. They completely _split_ with versions 6.1 with IBM providing PC DOS on its own from then on. (This split was considered a sign of the Apocalypse back then!) ---
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569/83 "2017-02-01T14:17:16Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Makes one Leary of doing research on some things, it does.) saw what you did there 😃 ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569/84 "2017-02-01T15:47:31Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > There was a Dilbert [strip](http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-07-10) from the mid-90s mocking the “marketers go straight to recipes” trope. So the concept was known and mocked even at that early date. That strip is from 1995. By then the recipe trope had been around for decades. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569/85 "2017-05-02T15:41:59Z")
A recent youtube video on the Google Developer’s channel reminded me of this thread. Decades later, completely new user interface paradigm, and we are back to [storing recipes](https://youtu.be/HNfE0uaKcfY?t=1m50s) again. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569/86 "2017-05-02T18:59:28Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > We had a computer in our house in the early 1990s and it had not one but two 20Mb hard drives - which was enough to store almost literally every single IBM PC Compatible software programme in existence at the time with plenty of space left over. Unless you had Doom II, which of course meant you HAD to install DEU, and the next thing you know, 40mb of HDD is long gone. 40mb sounds trivial, but you’d have to look at the cost of 40mb of HDD back then, which was less than trivial ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569/87 "2017-05-02T19:34:23Z")
whats so funny is at one time is when you bought a brand name pc from a store they included recipie cd’s from better homes and gardens and other magazines (mine was “100 great recipies of 1994” courtesy of Packard bell ) … what were they? scanned pages from the magazines… when you printed one out that’s what they exactly looked like … some of them even still had the month year and page number on the sides [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-so-many-early-computer-ads-mention-usage-for-storing-recipes/778569.md?page=4)