26 Jun
2007
26 Jun
'07
12:26 p.m.
--- Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
No, but, and good thing you mentioned the 5150, it
makes the 5100 seem more *relevant* in some minds
then, or at least more so then, the 9830. I'm just
stating an observation of the way things typically
work, I wasn't saying that's the way it should be.
Er, actually that was the one I meant :)
An 8/e? Meant to be rackmounted I would think. You
*could* heap a couple of minis on some desks w/o
destroying them I guess...
No
I wasn't commenting on *user friendliness* so much as
the *introduction* of the term "off the shelf".
Actually it was first introduced in the original post
I guess! So I stand to be corrected. So if we go back
and ask if the TRS-80 was the first OTS micro...truth
is the assumption may be correct. But it wasn't the
first micro (pre-packaged, easy to use, complete,
woteva, etc.).
The TRS-80 did in fact introduce a great many people
to the micro due to it's wide availability, but
probably not as wide as it could have due to a stigma
often associated with them. The line was so stagnant -
besides the CoCos (that must have carried the TRS-80
badge) the only other unit that had color capability I
guess was the model 2000. None of the "classic"
TRS-80s had color or even graphical capability IINM.
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"I am still wondering why the IBM5100 gets
regarded as
a significant
machine when the HP9830 was a couple of years
ealier
and had a very
similar specificiation."
In a word - exposure. HP stuff is oftentimes a
tad
esoteric for the *usual* goofy collector or
whatever
you call peeps who are into this stuff.
OK, but how mwnay people rememebr the IBM5100 when
it came out? (I am not
talking about the 5150, the PC). If you can find out
about an obscure
(IMHO) IBM machine, then finding out about the
HP9830 shouldn't be any
harder.
"http://www.hpmuseum.org/"
Very well done site, a little hard to find
certain
information though (for me anyway).
I find the http://www.hpmuseum.net/ site to be more
useful for these
larger machines. Not as many pictures, but plenty of
useful manuals. If it
won't crush the desk beneath it, I'd say
that
qualifies it as a pc.
Err, I've got a PDP8/e + TU56 DECtape + PC04 paper
tape on my desk... I think the better definition of a
"off-the-shelf" puter is a puter you
> can enter a shop, buy a system, bring it home. special questions,
> training or instalation needed. And this should
be a
complete computer,
Again ancillary terminology is being introduced.
Who
says a pc has to be "off the shelf" in
the sense
that
you can reach up and pull one down. Expressing
availability as "off the shelf" seems a bit
arbitrary.
No, I think that defintion is reasonable. With some
systems -- say if you
were putting together an S100 system -- you had to
do hardwre mods to
get the boards to work together properly. You had to
patch the OS to work
with your choiuce of I/O boards. And so on. The
thing about the TRS-80,
PET, etc and indeed the 9830 before them was that
you didn't have to know
anything about computers to be able to get them to
work. You just turned
them on, and provided there wasn;t a component
failure, you could use them.