5 Jun
2024
5 Jun
'24
12:17 p.m.
On Sat, 1 Jun 2024 at 14:32, Joshua Rice via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
That's a terrible analogy. The first cars were
indeed ludicrously
expensive and owned almost exclusively by the wealthy and upper classes.
It took a good 20 years for the car to become affordable to the masses,
in the shape of the Ford Model T. And even then, the Model T wasn't
driven in any way similar to a modern car, it would take the Austin 7,
first built 15 years after the Model T, to truly standardize driving
controls.
You are missing the point of the analogy.
Here is the argument I parody: "look, cars were not the first motor
vehicles, because there were trains. Trains are motor vehicles that
move people and therefore you are wrong when you say cars were the
first motor vehicles."
I was comparing this with computers. Yes, there were standalone
single-user desktop computers before the microprocessor. But the point
is that _because_ they did not have microprocessors, they cost many
thousands of dollars (HP, IBM) to tens of thousands of dollars
(Tektronix) at that time, meaning tens to hundreds of thousands today.
It isn't personal if an ordinary person can't afford it.
You can't say "but home plumbing isn't new -- the Romans had running
water and people had inside toilets in the 18th century!" when the
"people" who had indoor toilets were only the monarchs.
That isn't _the people_. The People means hoi polloi. It means
ordinary people. It means the masses. A personal computer is only
personal if the person in question is an ordinary Joe.
Not kings and emperors and captains of industry.
It's like saying "by the early 21st century, everyone had their own
private jet". It is not true: the 0.001% of the richest of the rich
have private jets. They exist as private transport but we do not all
have personal jets.
--
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