23 Feb
2003
23 Feb
'03
2:58 a.m.
IIRC, the Germans hadn't gone very far at all in their nuclear program.
They had a little heavy water, and captured some more from Poland?
At the end of the war, it was noted that the Germans were thinking you'd
have to drop an entire reactor on a target to do the job. They hadn't
gotten to the idea of separation and small critical masses of really
reactive materials. They were thinking U238....
Regards,
Jeff
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Merle K. Peirce
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2003 11:37 AM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Cc: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: RE: Trivia Question
I think having a 5150 would still leave two problems: Would it survive
bombings, and if the Germans could get it, then obviously the British
and
Americans could also, though it might give the Germans a bit of a lead.
More interesting would be if the Japanese had one for their nuclear
programme, then we would be in deep shit, buying Japanese electronic and
eating sushi now. Oh crap...
On Fri, 21 Feb 2003, Eric Smith wrote:
software
Jim Battle wrote:
> I've had the discussion with workmates about the following scenario.
If
the German
forces had access to a single 5150 IBM PC back in 1940,
would the war have ended very differently? I think it would have.
How? Do you have any particular scenario in mind? It seems pretty
unlikely to me. I suppose it might depend a little bit on what they get with the computer. But even postulating some
really amazing
software (off-the-shelf commercial software, not specialized weapon-
design software), it's hard for me to imagine how one PC would have
offered them any huge advantage over the allies.
M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
Shady Lea, Rhode Island
"Casta est quam nemo rogavit."
- Ovid