Code like it's 1981

In my primary school years, I’d read my Dad’s “Compute!” magazines. Recently, I discovered they’ve been published on Archive.org https://archive.org/details/compute-magazine , and I browsed through a few issues.

I came across this ad in a 1981 issue:

SORT algorithm on EPROM for Apple and Commodore Pet

It’s a sorting algorithm, written in assembler, distributed on an EPROM chip, mounted on a circuit board, that you’d plug into your Commodore PET or Apple II computer and call from your BASIC program.

I few things I find interesting about this ad:

• How big was the market in 1981, for people who were writing BASIC programs, couldn’t write a sorting algorithm, and would pay $55 per seat for one?
• If someone were looking to sell their program that they built, they’d have to bundle in this SORT product
• At some point, sorting libraries were built-in

I actually found documentation for this product online:
http://mikenaberezny.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sort-installation.pdf
http://mikenaberezny.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sort-user-instructions.pdf
http://mikenaberezny.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sort-review-compute-dec-1981.pdf