Sellam wrote:
So this begs the question,
No, it suggests the question. "Begging the question" means making
an argument depending on circular reasoning. The Skeptic's Dictionary
is one of many web sites explaining this:
http://skepdic.com/begging.html
why did the PDP-8 create the
"mini-computer"
class and not this or other machines with similar attributes?
Because there were no other machines at the same time with similar
atrributes at a similar price.
However, many people consider the PDP-1 to be the first minicomputer,
and it had even more improvement in price/performance ratio over its
competitors than the PDP-8 had.