Altair Collectors Association

From: cswiger <cswiger_at_wilma.widomaker.com>
Date: Tue Dec 8 21:08:51 1998

On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Doug Yowza wrote:


> As you probably know, the Scelbi-8H came well before the Altair and had a
> similar price. But the Altair got a cover story in Popular Electronics,
> and the Scelbi didn't. Of course, the Mark-8 got an even earlier cover

A Mark-8 is on my list of things to watch out for - as I, like many
others, attempted it but failed - but I'm not holding my breath. It
would be interesting to run the Scelbi 8008 BASIC on (SCELBAL).

>
> I think the infatuation with the Altair today is due to reporters and
> popular writers repeating each other over and over that the Altair was
> "the first personal computer", which is nonsense. Low-priced personal

Now I'm scared - me and the popular press agree! That is, it was
MY first personal computer, which is a fact. As you well know, once
people start into 'whose on first', distinctions start to blur -
"No, Charlie Babbage had the 'first' personal computer', 'No! - it
was Yang Lin's Abacus that was the 'first' personal computer', heheh.
It would be just as arbitrary so say a club of 5 people with
machine 'X' don't count, but suddenly a group of 2000 with machine
'Y' makes 'Y' the 'first'.

Anyway, back to saving data... :))


        Chuck
        cswiger_at_widomaker.com
Received on Tue Dec 08 1998 - 21:08:51 GMT

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