On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 11:08 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk < cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; wrote: As a child. my parents weren't sufficiently enamoured of televisions to buy one, but I was given some old ones. The one on the bottom had working sound and the one on the top had working video.

On 5/28/2024 6:16 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: Not sure it's the same model you had, but I have several of those 19" Philcos, at least one is still working.  The others, I'll repair.

I believe that place on Elston was either Joseph Electronics or The American Science Center depending on whether is was in Chicago or Niles. On 5/28/2024 8:06 PM, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk wrote:

On 5/28/24 19:12, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: When someone slapped a handle on the top of a console and called it "portable"? Despite the fact that Fred was being cheeky, a serious contender is probably this tricorder-llike thing from the end of the '50s: https://www.earlytelevision.org/philco_safari.html -- Christian Kennedy, Ph.D. chris(a)mainecoon.com AF6AP | DB00000692 | PG00029419 http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration…"

EDI? just before the RR underpas, south of Foster? or, come to think of it, that long ago, the place sort of across from Allied Radio at 100 N western Ave? back then, American science center was on Northwest Highway, south of Devon. <pre>--Carey</pre>

Fred, I'm sorry but those arguments are religion to most of us and the clear answer has already been decided (tongue firmly implanted in cheek)😛 1.  Between Vi and EMACS - Any editor where you have a cursor movement mode that is separate from edit mode (since the invention of arrow keys or the control key) just isn't a real editor. 2.  Between Big Endian and Little Endian - Big endian is easier to read for us dumb humans but little endian was easier to implement on early hardware.      I want to add to this argument and ask Is bit 0 the high order bit (like on the PDP-8) or the low order bit (like on the 6809)? 3.  Between the 6502 and the Z-80 the 6809 wins hands down every time. As for the first personal computer, no one has been able refuted my claim that the Antikythera Mechanism is not only the first Personal Computer but also first portable computer 🤣 On 5/28/2024 5:10 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

On 5/28/24 22:27, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk wrote: The CDC STAR/CYBER machines were bit-addressed. When dealing with bit strings for the likes of control- and sparse-vectors, it's the only thing that makes sense, particularly when vectors can be very large. As the nominal word size of those machines was 64 bits and the preferred display radix was hexadecimal, it made for some interesting mental gymnastics when converting between bit, byte, halfword and word addresses (alignment requirements). The odd fallout from this was that when a word in memory was addressed, the most significant bit was the lowest bit address. --Chuck

On Tue, 28 May 2024, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk wrote: I don't agree with you about that being relevant to the issue, but, you have made a good case for your point of view. I don't see depreciation as being as significant as you do. In fact, the IRS auditor (audit was triggered by space rentals, not equipment, and the end result of the audit was they owed me almost $100!) agreed that 90% of necessity of use being in first year, with the remaining 10% spread out over 10 years (asymptotically) SHOULD in theory be "accelerated depreciation" but that it was acceptable to just expense it in that case. IRS blocked the large Apple donation plan, due to disagreement over amount of deduction. yes we will probably never come up with a well-defined transition point. But, we can agree that there are some situations of overlap. alas, we are stuck who pays for it, rather than what it is used for. The machines that the college gave to the professors were used well over 90% for personal use, although the college had paid for them (and mis-negotiated the purchase). The purchase and distribution were in exchange for other concessions by the union, and the college acknowledged that they were for personal use by the professors. That's certainly a case that falls between your and my criteria. the specific number is of relatively less importance. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com

something can be BOTH a "personal computer" *AND* "industrial computer" (or whatever term you want to use) I use cooking oil to start my charcoal grill, that does not make it NOT be food. I use vinegar and baking soda (separately) to kill weeds, that does not stop them from being food. Old (purchased used) items are likely to be "collectors items". I have a pendulum time clock that prints up to 3 in and out times per day on time cards for up to a week. When new they where not purchased by individuals just to keep time in their homes, so that is an industrial collector's item. I have electrical insulators from old power poles. Nobody bought them new except maybe someone extending power deep onto their private property, and probably then they still hired a contractor who made the actual purchase, unless they were a current or retired power company power installer. So any collectors items, whether IBM 360 mainframes, early tube based computers, or recent super computers, purchased when made surplus by their industrial users, do NOT become redefined as "personal computers". Also, any hand made items, not produced, advertised, and sold are "specialized computers", not "personal computers" or "industrial computers". I think this includes the ESS switching computers produced by the Bell Telephone system (though I don't know the specs, if they were switching only, and did not handle directories with alpha data, that disqualifies them. if they didn't do directories, each central office must have had some kind of computer for that, i doubt they would have done anything but build their own, again, not sold to public in quantities, so a "specialized computer". aside: AFAIK, nobody has talked about having telephone network switching computers in their basement....any volunteers? I mean computers, not the circular relays, somebody had those in my college dorm and they used them to make a "time tunnel" of sequential blinking lights down the hallway. A computer, such as the original IBM PC can be BOTH a "personal computer" AND an "industrial computer". I remember that many said, when it came out, that the IBM PC was the first personal computer, because IBM's entry into the market made it legitimate, before that they were just nerd toys. I am surprised nobody here has promoted that. Probably IBM hatred? So, to set a line between a "industrial computer" and a "both kinds", I suggested a limit that 5% (or 10%) had to be sold to individuals out of household funds. And since companies purchased them by the truckload, I said each ORDER counts as one, so if 19 companies each order a lot of 1000 computers and 1 individual buys one, that makes the 5% threshold. But PDP/1s & PDP/8s were were at most purchased by the 10s, and far probably only by a handful of individuals so I doubt they would make the threshhold. I also suggested that another way would be to say if it was depreciated or expensed (counted off against income) it was industrial. Yes, some people played star wars AND used it in a home business for which they took it off their income. I wouldn't think that many, but could well be wrong. <pre>--Carey</pre>

I apologize for my active participation in the offensive thread. Yeah, I just couldn't get past his insistence that method of purchase was more important than use. Yes, CHATGPT could probably give a definitive answer to "When did Steve Jobs invent the personal computer?" -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com On Wed, 29 May 2024, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, May 29, 2024, 6:49 AM CAREY SCHUG via cctalk &lt;cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; > wrote: > >> something can be BOTH a "personal computer" *AND* "industrial computer" >> (or whatever term you want to use) >> > > So now you've incorporated "industrial" into the mix in order to extend > this stupid debate out even beyond the ridiculous place it is now. > > You are conflating and making dichotomous terms that aren't: "personal" vs. > "business" is not a valid comparison here. > > "Personal Computer" is in fact a careless marketing term with no fixed > and/or coherent meaning. > > I recommend you move this debate to ChatGPT. It has endless patience for > this nonsense. I don't. > > Sellam