So to complete this train of thought, Intel was the inflationary
period and Microsoft would be the infinite expansion and eventual
heat death of the universe?
(Sorry, couldn't resist)
-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Yowza [SMTP:yowza@yowza.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 1998 3:51 AM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Re: Corrections to trivia
On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Sam Ismail wrote:
I still think the SLF is
a "microprocessor", and quite likely the first even though you think
that's not important (there's gotta be a Big Bang somewhere).
The Big Bang was named Babbage. Intel supplied the ammunition for a
revolution: cheap computers. The high level of integration was what
enabled them to make it cheap, and they commercialized it. The level of
integration is the salient feature of the chip, but not the main feature
of the important event.
Babbage was not the first to come up with the idea of a computer, but you
can trace the development of modern computers back to him. You can't do
anything like that with Holt's chip -- it had no influence. Maybe there
were other Big Bangs before The Big Bang, but if they didn't create a
Universe, nobody cares.
-- Doug