Corrections to trivia

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Tue Oct 6 13:30:42 1998

On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Sam Ismail wrote:

> I think this attitude in general carelessly disregards an amazing body of
> work. In fact, I think people do care. I'm not so quick to sweep
> historical facts underneath the carpet simply as a matter of convenience.
> I'd rather know the complete and true story, and not just the easiest one
> to remember.

Historical footnotes are always intresting, but it seems to me that to
pronounce "the F15 CADC was first, not the Intel 4004" is a strawman. We
all agree that society was changed by the cheap interactive "personal"
computer. We all know that *all* of the earliest cheap machines were
based on Intel CPUs. This wasn't an accident, and nothing would change
this fact if, say, TI engineers had actually produced a microprocessor
before Intel. The important "firsts" in documenting the personal computer
revolution are commercialization, availability, and price.

I'm not denying that Holt produced a CPU, and it may be important in the
history of military computers. It is irrelevant in the history of the
personal computer unless there was a personal computer designed that
included it or a direct descendant.

> I'm surprised you have this attitude when on the one hand you'd like to
> see the HP9830 recognized as the first personal computer, rather than the
> Altair 8800. By your own reasoning, the HP9830 wasn't the big bang, so
> who cares?

The HP9830 is a historical footnote. It's more relevant than a military
computer because there is documented evidence of the HP influence on early
Apple machines, and the significance of the Apple machines are clear.
There is also evidence that suggests that HP thought about and discounted
the idea of selling the 9830 to a wider audience. To me, this makes it a
pretty interesting footnote. If it had been created in a vacuum and Woz
had worked at IBM instead of HP, it would be a lesser footnote, something
like the MCM machine you mentioned.

I think it's great that Holt got his story out. Footnotes always add
depth, but no chapters need to be rewritten.

-- Doug
Received on Tue Oct 06 1998 - 13:30:42 BST