8 Dec
1998
8 Dec
'98
11:35 a.m.
On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
Not really. As long as their are fools like us to set things straight
then the true history of computing will survive. Interest in computer
history is growing (I see it in this part of the country at least) and
reporters will hopefully become more savvy of the real history of the
microcomputer revolution as they start to write more in depth articles,
rather than the basic re-hashed lame-o story that you always see
(Altair->Apple->IBM->Microsoft). Also, as more and more computer museums
are established (The Computer Museum History Center over here in Mountain
View finally found a location to build their permanent musuem) and start
getting better funding for research, new texts will be written that go
more into detail about the early days of the microcomputer boom and stuff
that went on before the Altair will start to come to light. In fact, I
just thought it would be great to make next year's VCF theme "Before the
Altair: The Evolution of the Microcomputer".
I think the
infatuation with the Altair today is due to reporters and
popular writers repeating each other over and over that the Altair was
"the first personal computer", which is nonsense. Low-priced personal
I think that's _exactly_ the reason. And it's worrying, mainly because
history is being massively distorted by this. Looking at the UK electronics magazines for the early
1970's, it's clear
that there was going to be a homebuilt computer pretty soon. There were
designs for analogue machines, assorted robotic projects (mostly, again,
This is where it comes in handy having old timers like Allison around to
tell us stories of their early days.
Us: Auntie Allison, tell us about the early days of microcomputing.
Allison: Well, in my day, we didn't have these fancy GUIs and Plug n Play.
We had to write our own operating systems! And we had to haul ASR-33
terminals across bridges just so we could type in our programs. That is,
if you were lucky enough to find a terminal! Usually we had to build our
own from lights & switches...
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/07/98]