[cctalk] Re: Experience using an Altair 8800 ("Personal computer" from 70s)

On Thu, 6 Jun 2024 at 05:10, Sellam Abraham via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: I refute your argument thus: If you buy a bus and start driving it yourself everywhere, for your own exclusive use, it doesn't somehow magically stop being a bus. It's still a bus, just a bus being used for personal transport. Stephen Fry, the actor and writer, is quite tall. 6'5". He drives a London black cab as his personal car. It's his car, but it's not _a_ car. It's still a taxi cab: a purpose-built 6-seat vehicle. (I am 6'2" but I get why. I can't see out of the windscreen of a Citroen 2CV: its top is lower than my chin. I have ridden NYC yellow cabs, huge saloon cars with a partition shoved in behind the front seats. I don't fit in the back. It's really painful. This is why purpose-built vehicles for lots of people and a driver in their own compartment exist, and it's very American to ignore them and try to crowbar some other, unsuitable tool into the role because the better device was Not Invented Here.) A personal computer is not any random computer used by a single person. It's a product category, like "car" as opposed to "train" or "bus". Some rich people can buy their own helicopter and use them to go where they want. (Flown by a professional because flying a helicopter is like rubbing your stomach and patting your head while walking a tightrope.) That does not make that helicopter into a car. A workstation was, essentially, a minicomputer built to be a single-user device, but cost as much as a room full of terminals or micros. It's not the same thing. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven(a)cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven(a)gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053