14 Nov
2017
14 Nov
'17
7:37 p.m.
On Tue, 14 Nov 2017, ben via cctalk wrote:
Computer Science seems to be mostly developed in the
1968 - 1973 time
frame by average people with access with a (personal) computer with
about 32K of memory.
We could use some clarification of your terminology.
Because MOST people do not consider any of the computers in 1968 - 1973 to
be "personal" computers.
Although the 4004 was announced in November 1971, commercial availability
of kits, etc. such as Altair, Imsai, wasn't until 1975.
An individual TERMINAL connecting to a computer, perhaps, but computers
owned by an individual were rare.
Admittedly, in 1962, Mauchly predicted "personal computer", and in 1968,
HP referred to the 9100A as a "personal computer".
Having heard discussion of 4004 and predictions, in 1972, I left aerospace
(which had not completely recovered from a collapse), declaring that I
would get back into computers as soon as "tabletop computers" became
practical and available to me. (I did not foresee them being called
"personal computers"). I intently watched the early S100 machines, but
didn't get back into computers until TRS80/Apple/PET. The first one that
I owned was a TRS80 for $400 (I supplied my own monitor and cassetter).
(4K Level I, which I brought up to 16K, and paid for Level II upgrade.
Then Expansion Interface and Serial Port ("Radio-Shack 232"), supplying my
own drives, RAM, printer, etc.
All the new software development was Time Sharing
of some kind, or a revised BETTER our NEW programming language, that
wants faster and larger core memory and the deluxe
Binary-Trinary-Decary
virtual ALU*.
That why I suspect the state of computers is so dismal today.
Yes, 1968-1973 had time-sharing for personal computing, but not "personal
computers"
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com