Columbus analogy (Was: Corrections to trivia

Columbus is a superb analogy for this thread! Not that the results necessarily match, but that MANY related issues are also present. Columbus is the "canonical" discoverer, in spite of the Vikings, or even the previously existing "colonists" who had been living there for a LONG time ever since coming over the Bering straits? Likewise, the Intel 4004 is the "canonical" first microprocessor, in spite of other previous units that might or might not meet various definitions. Since FEW have ever heard anything about this other than TOTAL BS in school, it bears looking at some of the distortions. What is taught in school is even less accurate than would be a history of computers by MS, IBM, Intel, or Apple. In line with the use of it as an analogy, it is useful to look at how distorted it has become, and realize that the same thing happens quite quickly in fields such as ours. Commerce with the Indies (and the rest of the East) was well established, but quite costly. Columbus did NOT tell the world that it wasn't flat. By the time of Columbus, that was well known and accepted by all educated people. The only ones who still thought that it was flat are now paying dollars per minute for telephone psychic readings. Although there were some fears of dangers, sailing off the edge was NOT taken seriously as a possibility by anybody with any education. In fact, it was accepted that you COULD get to the Indies by going west; it was just too far going that way. Even the diameter and circumference of the earth had been reasonably accurately computed (showing that the shortest route to the Indies was still to the east). But Columbus had an inaccurate, wrong, crackpot theory that the earth was about one third the size that had been calculated. Thus, he was convinced that it WOULD be shorter going west. There are a lot of other issues involved with his funding, etc. He set off, and lo and behold, encountered land somewhere near to where the Indies would have been if he had been right about his 1/3 size theory. BTW, his very first recorded words about the existing inhabitants were: "a good source for slaves". Perhaps I'm cynical, ... But I maintain that what determines the course of the industry is NOT the quality of the technology, but the marketing. How else do you explain the successes of IBM, MS, etc.? Surely not due to their superior quality?!? And massive improvements in hardware performance have been necessary just to compensate for progressively less efficient software. -- Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com 2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366 Berkeley, CA 94710-2219