@amoroso just linked to a paper describing the NoteCards application and when I started reading it, this jumped out to me: “NoteCards is currently being used by more than 50 people engaged in idea processing tasks ranging from writing research papers through designing parts for photocopiers.”
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/30851.30859

More than 50 people! Those were indeed very different times.