30 Apr
2012
30 Apr
'12
5:14 p.m.
On Sat, 28 Apr 2012, Murray McCullough wrote:
I came across some interesting reading the other day
in a library book> that I'm sorry I can't remember its name. It essentially
said: Can one> subscribe to the theory that vintage computers, such as the Coleco>
ADAM, went extinct because they used cassette drives where one spent> more time finding
information and recording such which greatly slowed> down processing thereby defeating
the purpose of electronic computing?
Now I'm wodering, could the conveniently non-attributed "came across
some interesting reading" question may not have been disingenuous, and
somewhat rhetorical?
I have never considered the Coleco Adam to have ANY historical
significance, and tend to assume that any mention of it is an attempt
at comprehensive completeness, or personal fondness.
Yet, it turns out that C. Murray McCullough is the author of a history
about microcomputers. On the cover of it, he gives Adam a position of
greater importance than the others that he mentions:
ADAM (in ORANGE, the others are in white)
APPLE II TRS-80
MODEL I
ZENITH HEATHKIT
In the index (I could not get Amazon's "Look Inside" to show me any of
the text past the Preamble, which doesn't get to the time of
microcomputers),He has 25 entries for "Adam", enormously
disproportionate (12 for "Commodore" PLUS 6 for "COMMODORE", 2 for
TRS-80, . . . )
Dare I guess what Murray's first computer was? (Baby duck syndrome?)
Nevertheless, the writing style looks intersting, and I may seek out a
copy.
"JPL (Job Control Language)"??!?
************************************************************************************
With unlimited stars in the universe so there seems to be an
unlimited opinion on when things started & where & by whom in the
microcomputer universe. (There is no consensus on what a microcomputer
is!) Corporations, individuals protect valuable information and
certain knowledge that is never made public. We can only hope that
inaccurate information from these sources doesn?t occur.
I came across the book in the Toronto Reference Library and I seldom
get there because of the distance from my farm. I did not copy the
name of the book or authour down and this is a serious error on my
part. There was no disingenuosity on my part and in no way was it my
intention to denigrate the book or authour. A reasoned argument around
mustered facts, as was present in this book as far as this reader was
concerned, cannot easily be dismissed nor ignored.
I did write a book on the history of microcomputers ? A Historical
Research Guide to the Microcomputer. ( Many thanks for mentioning it.
) It was on the early years of micro-computing up to the arrival of
the IBM PC. I?ve been a member of the (Coleco)ADAM computer convention
organization since 1989 and this was why I highlighted the computer in
my book. I do indeed have a personal fondness for a computer Coleco
abandoned and was taken up by die-hard followers. [ BTW my first
computer was the Heathkit which I spent many an hour assembling,
debugging and trying like the devil to get working! And what an
expensive computer to buy in Canada. ]
As Grumpy Ol? Fred wrote -> Because we have an interest in the
computers that existed before y'all cared and/or we REALIZE that we
came in late, and we're INTERESTED in what had already been happening.
OR we're just a bunch of old farts who wish that we could go back half
a century. <- To be involved in the early years of micro-computing I
consider myself privileged but possibly cognition and memory are
getting fuzzy. It?s not a reason to justify what I?ve written, errors
committed, but may explain it as an excuse!
Murray--