24 Jul
2015
24 Jul
'15
12:51 p.m.
> A momentus event happened 40 years ago around this
time, July 1975,
> the world's first computer store opened in West Los Angeles, called
> Arrow Head Computer Store, tag-lined, 'The Computer Store'. It was
> opened by Dick Heiser. How time has flown by!
On Fri, 24 Jul 2015, Paul Koning wrote:
Was that really first? I remember Rainbow Computing,
in Northridge.
If it was later than that, it certainly was not by much.
There are many "photo-finish" and "photo-start" events in this
industry.
Many, if not most, "first"s in computers had overlapping development
times. I remember a few times where the setup staffs at Comdex were
frantically trying to get their booths together in order to be the first
one to boot up their machine, in order to claim to have introduced it
before somebody else. In the end, it is only the big money people whose
claims get listened to - Adam Osborne with $100K? of chrome and black
plexiglass, or a 10x10 booth across the aisle made out of flush doors and
file cabinets?
Is "FIRST" based on
design?
prototypes?
prototypes being misrepresented as production machines?
first public demo?
first trade show?
first sale? preorder?
first shipped?
first delivered?
Such differentiations obviously are petty, but have always played a part
in almost every "FIRST" claim.