Comments on: Early days of the computer revolution http://blog.webfoot.com/2010/01/02/early-days-of-the-computer-revolution/ Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:26:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Jeff Powell http://blog.webfoot.com/2010/01/02/early-days-of-the-computer-revolution/comment-page-1/#comment-2597 Jeff Powell Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:50:36 +0000 http://blog.webfoot.com/?p=1006#comment-2597 I, too, was there at the start of the PC revolution, and you're quite right. I would almost go so far as to call it rather boring. I owned a TRS-80, but there wasn't that much to do with it. There were Apple IIs in school, but I knew BASIC better than the teachers and the machines were rather boring to play with. While in college the IBM PC came out, and I remember being told that the IBM sales guys had no idea what to do with them. In about 1986 the PC-AT was in use, there was some networking, and things were improving, but the local network of VAXes that talked on what became the Internet was a lot more interesting in a number of ways. Even today, though, I think what makes a computer interesting to most of us is content, and it took a long time for enough of that to get created and be made available over the Internet. Oh, and I too stopped seeing paper memos sometime around 1991. Now, if only I could get people to stop sending emails containong only PDF files of enormous size, but that contain just a few sentences of text. What a waste and irritation. I, too, was there at the start of the PC revolution, and you’re quite right. I would almost go so far as to call it rather boring. I owned a TRS-80, but there wasn’t that much to do with it. There were Apple IIs in school, but I knew BASIC better than the teachers and the machines were rather boring to play with. While in college the IBM PC came out, and I remember being told that the IBM sales guys had no idea what to do with them.

In about 1986 the PC-AT was in use, there was some networking, and things were improving, but the local network of VAXes that talked on what became the Internet was a lot more interesting in a number of ways.

Even today, though, I think what makes a computer interesting to most of us is content, and it took a long time for enough of that to get created and be made available over the Internet.

Oh, and I too stopped seeing paper memos sometime around 1991. Now, if only I could get people to stop sending emails containong only PDF files of enormous size, but that contain just a few sentences of text. What a waste and irritation.

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