Details about IBM's early 'scientific' computers

[Fred Cisin]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2017, ben via cctalk wrote:
> Computer Science seems to be mostly developed in the 1968 - 1973 time 
> frame by average people with access with a (personal) computer with 
> about 32K of memory.

We could use some clarification of your terminology.
Because MOST people do not consider any of the computers in 1968 - 1973 to 
be "personal" computers.
Although the 4004 was announced in November 1971, commercial availability 
of kits, etc. such as Altair, Imsai, wasn't until 1975.

An individual TERMINAL connecting to a computer, perhaps, but computers 
owned by an individual were rare.

Admittedly, in 1962, Mauchly predicted "personal computer", and in 1968, 
HP referred to the 9100A as a "personal computer".

Having heard discussion of 4004 and predictions, in 1972, I left aerospace 
(which had not completely recovered from a collapse), declaring that I 
would get back into computers as soon as "tabletop computers" became 
practical and available to me.  (I did not foresee them being called 
"personal computers").  I intently watched the early S100 machines, but 
didn't get back into computers until TRS80/Apple/PET.  The first one that 
I owned was a TRS80 for $400 (I supplied my own monitor and cassetter).
(4K Level I, which I brought up to 16K, and paid for Level II upgrade. 
Then Expansion Interface and Serial Port ("Radio-Shack 232"), supplying my 
own drives, RAM, printer, etc.


> All the new software development was Time Sharing 
> of some kind, or a revised BETTER our NEW programming language, that
> wants faster and larger core memory and the deluxe 
> Binary-Trinary-Decary
> virtual ALU*.
> That why I suspect the state of computers is so dismal today.

Yes, 1968-1973 had time-sharing for personal computing, but not "personal 
computers"


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com