29 Apr
2012
29 Apr
'12
1:31 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)"??!?