> >> I know that the PC turns 20 this month,
> >> but does anyone know the actual date of introduction?
> >>
> >> It's tough going through August without a holiday, so
> >> I'm looking for something to celebrate :-)
Sorry I waited so long on this one, but...
For me, it should be a date to *mourn*, not to celebrate.
Now in fairness, the PC has brought us high-speed
commodity computers. However, it has also dumbed-down
a signficant portion of the field of computing.
Inasmuch as the PC was created as a reaction to the
Apple II, I must tell this story.
I cow orker and I had been fixing the various cold solder
joints on an IMSAI 8080 construction attempt done by the
head of the Physics Department (and soon to be D-I-T).
We'd run it successfully for a few weeks, and had begun
using it in a Psych experiment involving reaction times.
Then the 8212 went to heaven.
We took it to the recently-opened Computerland, wherein
a guy I mistook for an electronics technician (he was an MBA)
rolled up his sleeves, heated up the iron, clipped off the
fried 8212, soldered in a socket, plugged in a new chip...
But I digress. While he was doing this, I was looking
around the store, and saw the Doom of Computing in the
form of a computer that didn't require a soldering iron
to build and use- namely, an Apple II.
The beginning of the end. I knew it then, and I was
proved right. Again, it's nice to have fast, cheap
computers, but I for one would have been just as
happy for the next 20 years having fast, cheap TERMINALS
to hook to the mainframes. And the continued high cost of
entry would have kept from coming into existence an entire
generation of self-taught (and poorly so) programmers who
have and continue to crank out some of the worst software
imaginable. In the halcyon days, most of the bad code was
writtwn by the lusers themselves...
Easy access to fast, cheap computers drove the genesis of
an entire generation of self-taught programmers who didn't
give a whit for structured programming or anything else that
resembles a methodology, and who single-handedly changed the
expectations that managers have about how quickly things
get done. Sure RAD helped speed programming along, but not
nearly as much just cutting corners... which the PC made
easier... damn, I feel a song coming on again:
--
obSimpsonSongLyric:
Shary: If there's a task that must be done,
Don't turn your tail and run,
Don't pout, don't sob,
Just do a half-assed job!
If... you... cut every corner
It is really not so bad,
Everybody does it,
Even mom and dad.
If nobody sees it,
Then nobody gets mad,
Bart: It's the American way!
Shary: The policeman on the beat
Needs some time to rest his feet.
Chief Wiggum: Fighting crime is not my cup of tea!
Shary: And the clerk who runs the store
Can charge a little more
For meat!
Apu: For meat!
Shary: And milk!
Apu: And milk!
Both: From 1984!
Shary: If... you... cut every corner,
You'll have more time for play,
Shary & OFF: It's the American waaaaay!
--
No, not only will I not celebrate it, but I need to
find a black armband to wear the rest of the month.
Received on Mon Aug 13 2001 - 16:16:48 BST