19 Apr
2018
19 Apr
'18
6:37 p.m.
On 04/19/2018 05:33 PM, Jim Brain via cctalk wrote:
Someday, the products and software designed and built
by the folks in
this list will be judged by those who follow us.? Possibly the rest of
you have worked in industries where you were allowed to use new
solutions, you had ample time to design and develop, and your marketing
departments priced your solutions at a reasonable price point, but I've
not had those luxuries.? Thus, I want to be fair to those before me who
created things like the IBM PC architecture, not because it is a great
architecture, but because they shipped a real product that added value
for many folks and did so while working inside a company not known for
agility.? The folks who did that deserve my respect, and when I am gone
and folks look at my design choices, I hope they will respect me for
doing what I could given the constraints I faced.
My view is that it probably won't matter. Technology is moving so fast
that it won't be long before yesterday's PCs will be viewed with the
attitude that today's of "retro" PC enthusiasts view an 082 sorter.
Recall that, in 1955, a lot of common culture viewed that as a
"computer". (I can probably come up with a couple of contemporary cinema
examples where that was exactly how one was portrayed).
When I put on my future-view goggles and read about the steps being made
today in AI and associated hardware technology, all of this "personal
computer" hardware will seem just as primitive.
Consider that the 082 dates from 1949 and the last unit rolled off the
line in 1978. Now consider how antiquated a 10 year old mobile phone is
viewed by most people.
--Chuck