No, Sam, those were not necessarily MY attitudes. I, after all, was only 6 years old during most of 1952. However, I'd submit that my statement is more or less correct, inasmuch as most Americans had no idea what a digital computer was in 1952. My grandfather worked for one of New York's large banks back then, and HE was a computer. He spent his time at work with those VERY tall multiple-entry ledgers you see in the old-time movies, adding up the columns in his head and recording the sum in india ink just as people had done it a century before. That was about 50x as quick and generally as accurate as the at that time not so common mechanical calculators which some time later filled accounting departments throughout the world. Guys like my grandpa didn't cost as much as ENIAC, or BISMAC, or whatever was the model of the day, and they got the work done. That's what the average American thought of when you asked him about a computer, though most didn't really even recognize the word. In 1954-55 a friend of my parents bought an airplane for $300. He also liked those British sports cars, which traded, 2nd-hand for about $300 in the late '50's, though they were not that "reasonable" by the time I wanted one (goodness only knows why I wanted it). Back to the attitudes . . . I certainly hope that you don't purport YOUR attitudes to be typical. I know mine aren't. What brings balance to a discussion is the presentation of perceptions. Two people can sit in the same room observing the same event and, afterward, discuss their recollection as though they were in different places. In this case, you're presuming to know what was the case in an era you could only have experienced semantically, while I experienced it "really" though through the perceptions of a child. I had the exposure to some of the same semantic influences as you, however, and I was able to integrate that with my recollections of those days to put things together in my mind, just as you do when thinking back to the '70's. That doesn't make ME right and YOU wrong, but it doesn't make YOU right and ME wrong either. You see, the larger discussion isn't about YOU or ME. One other point . . . I don't know how you can claim to know about what's on the mind of an "average" American. People who, ten years ago, were rabidly interested in computers, whether in work or in play, were not considered "average" in any sense. I'd say that the only way to get a reasonable "feel" for what an "average" person thinks must come from somewhere outside your circle of associates and mine. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Sellam Ismail &lt;dastar(a)ncal.verio.com&gt; To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers &lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt; Date: Thursday, April 22, 1999 11:29 PM Subject: Re: The "FIRST PC" and personal timelines (Was: And what were the80s reach <snip> in (Republican). dastar(a)siconic.com ---