> Your right, that is lame.
>
> Oh, the biggest peice of foot I ever ate... small computers will never
> be as prolific as they are. However, despite that I was designing with
> 8008 in '73, it was interesting (and that golden opportunity).
>
> Allison
>
>
>
You're in good company:
Don't forget Ken Olson's comment on personal computers back in the same
time period.
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
home."
-- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
Convention, 1977
-+-+=-+-
...and then again there's the following. (Both quotes are in my
FreeBSD box MOTD as a reminder.
One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How
enthusiastic is our support for UNIX?
Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many
years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines.
Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple
language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for
students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for
interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of
its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on
VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will
run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and
will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and
quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With
VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of
documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the
difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS
is that it's all there.
-- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984
-+-+=-+-
Didn't Arthur C. Clarke make a comment as to if an old scientest says
something is possible it probably is and if he says it's impossible it
may not be.
There's something to remember -- people in a field often get locked in
to a certain view and can't see the changes that will happen (and in
DEC's case run over it like a bus over some roadkill).
Bill
--
bpechter_at_monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
| Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
| BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
Received on Mon Sep 25 2000 - 07:24:14 BST