8 Feb
2013
8 Feb
'13
1:18 a.m.
On Thu, Feb 07, 2013 at 11:44:00AM -0700, John Willis wrote:
The people who consumerized computers weren't the
nerds, geeks, or
technocrats...
If they were, names like Ed Roberts, Tim Patterson, Steve Wozniak, Bill Joy,
Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Jonathan Sachs, Rob Barnaby, Gordon Letwin,
and maybe even Paul Allen (to name a few) would have more public
recognition
than names like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Seymour Rubinstein, or Mitch
Kapor...
It's the marketers and businessmen who consumerize, the implementers and
innovators never steer anything (or get any real credit).
It really bugged me back in the 70s/80s when we were regarded as outcast
weirdos, playing with our toys, when it was obvious to us that computers
make doing *everything* easier/better. Yet the normals didn't seem to care.
Now that a few decades have gone by and the whole thing has been balled up
and sold to them, so they finally agree (at a shallow consumerish level),
it's actually kind of spoiled some of the fun.
John Wilson
D Bit