Rebirth of IMSAI

From: Max Eskin <max82_at_surfree.com>
Date: Mon Mar 22 16:56:01 1999

On Mon, 22 Mar 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
>Do you really think that such a display is an acceptable substitute for
>the real thing?

Well, I would be very cautious about letting people use the 'real thing'
(see below).

>If you keep a complete backup of the hard disk (something that's a good
>idea anyway), and possibly substitute the keyboard (if spares for it are
>impossible to obtain), then there's little that can be damaged from
>people using the machine. And an unoriginal keyboard is a lot better than
>an unoriginal CPU

Yes, that's true. But how would the people use such a machine anyway? I
mean, if you put on a card some instructions, people will just type them
in not understanding the reasons for them, and not get any joy from it.
This is especially true for machines that don't use keyboards and
screens. Let's say we took a DEC running OS/8 and let people use it. What
would they do with it? They might type DIR, say "Oh, it's like DOS" and
walk way.

>Are you sure about that. Some people are certainly interested in seeing
>how things (computers, steam engines, machine tools, etc) were used. I've
>been to plenty of interesting museums where many exhibits consist of
>somebody demonstrating something.

Yes, but for a computer there's nothing to watch besides blinking lights.
For a steam engine, you see someone poke firewood, the wheel spinning,
smoke coming out, etc.

 --Max Eskin (max82_at_surfree.com)
Received on Mon Mar 22 1999 - 16:56:01 GMT