24 Jan
2014
24 Jan
'14
7:40 a.m.
On 1/24/14 7:02 AM, William Donzelli wrote:
It is a wonderful source for web hits, though. I'm sure slashdotters will love this
"research".
It perpetuates the myth that there was such a thing as a "minicomputer" before
the late 60's.
There have been several threads now on the origin of the term, and if you want to be
pedantic the
first use of the word to describe the class of computer you were talking about was in an
advertisement
for Interdata, a machine you don't even mention.
DEC never referred to the PDP-8 as a "minicomputer", it was a "small
computer". The first use of
the term by DEC was for the PDP-11.
I'm
pleased to announce that we have just published a new, carefully researched article on
Tronola.com which explores this very question:
A nice article, but keep in mind that "first", along with "only"
(and
possibly "last"), are the most dangerous words in historic research,
and should be avoided at all costs.