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

I had some of those in mind -- I mentioned the IBM 5100 in passing. I don't think any qualify, no, myself. Only if one looks backwards from a world with PCs in it and looks for earlier similar devices. It's like saying that steam trains were early cars. They weren't. Motor vehicles, yes. Self-contained, move under their own power... but not wherever you want to go, not steerable by the driver, and most of all, too big for private ownership for all but royalty. The thing with the handful of very-late-1960s/very-early-1970s all-in-one desktops is that they were _vastly_ expensive, mostly only ran one program (possibly a programming language) and only did one task. Most did not let you go and buy 3rd party software and run it on your machine. There's a line here, and it is somewhere around being ownable by an individual for their own use, usable for multiple tasks via pre-existing software that can be loaded and used by a non-expert, and which is usable and useful without programming skills. A dedicated word processor isn't a PC. An IBM Displaywriter has a lot in common with the IBM PC but it's not a PC. An IBM System 9000 isn't really a PC. A desktop machine that can run APL, one of the most inscrutable and opaque programming languages ever designed this side of INTERCAL, isn't a PC. It's not even a calculator. What APL can do can't even be *described* to the average person who might productively use a spreadsheet. "Matrix arithmetic" is of even less relevance to everyday life than algebra. -- 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