Lots of perfectly useable computers started out as little more than toys.
more below ...
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Duell" <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 5:26 PM
Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)
> > > [Altair]
> > >
> > > >
> > > > It was designed as a TOY. It first appeared in an article in a niche
> > magazine
> > >
> > > You clearly believe that 'toy' and 'computer' are mutually exclusive. I
> > > do not.
> > >
> > That was very much a valid distinction in 1980, but because
microelectronics
> > applied to the toy market are as valid and "real" an application asn any
> > other, it's no longer the case.
>
> I thought we were talking about the Altair, which predates 1980.
>
Yes we were, and yes it does, but the timeline on which I was focusing was
1980, because there were several milestones associated with that. One of them
was, IIRC, the release of the "last" version of Apple Dos, and the other was
the emergence of the half-height 5-1.4" diskette drive. Another was the drop
in price of 8" DSDD drives to under $500 through distribution. I have pretty
good recollection of some of what was going on in '80 because I spent the
first half of that year mostly sitting at home fooling with computer hardware
and straining to grow back a leg I'd lost in a traffic accident the previous
year. I bought a couple of rather large, heavy, populated dual disk drive
boxes that year, and quickly learned that it wasn't easy moving things from a
loading dock to the trunk of the car when you had to hop on one foot to do it.
There were numerous things that made distinct impressions ...
> > >
> > > > specializing TOYS. Since no software, means for getting it in, means
for
> > >
> > > IIRC there was a front panel. Surely I am not the only person here to
> > > have entered software using toggle switches....
> >
>
I've done that too, and have even built front-panels as diagnostic tools, but
I don't find it amusing even to enter a 30-40 byte program via the swtiches,
and certainly wouldn't enjoy toggling in the bootloader that way every
morning. I'd draw the line at 200 bytes or so. I guess that's why 1702's
turned out to be so useful.
>
> > ... and you feel it's warranted to spend vast amounts of money, which the
> > Altair cost, on a machine with no means for putting code/data in or out
except
>
> I was under the impression that, although the Altair was limited, you
> couldn't get anything better _at the time_ for the same money. There's no
> point in saying that there were better computers available (definitely
> true) if all you could afford were the bits to make an Altair.
>
IIRC, there were machines from both Intel and DEC that you could buy. They
were more capable, hence, more expensive. There were also a couple of small
computer devices based on pre-8080 cpu's that were "out there" though not as
widely popular as the Altair. Now, that was in '75-'76. Microcomputers were
not the "thing" yet. In early 1980, I remember that almost no engineering
office I visited, and not just electronics engineering offices, was without
some sort of microcomputer, and many of them were from MITS or IMSAI. The key
was that those would allow the user to run CP/M and that would allow them to
run FORTRAN, in which a vast amount of public-domain engineering software had
been written.
>
> And yes I do feel it would have been worth spending that amount of money
> on an Altair if you wanted to learn about computers.
>
> > > It's purpose (IMHO) was clearly as an educational tool.
> > >
> > Yes, as was the "Speak-n-Spell" which was sold in toy stores everywhere.
>
> That's a totally different thing. The Speak-n-Spell was an educational
> tool/toy, but it was not designed to teach you about computers. It
> happened to use a microcontroller, but it was not user-programmable. The
> Altair was intended, in part, as a tool to teach you about computers and
> programming, and as such it was a real computer, designed to be
> user-programmed...
>
Well, that's certainly true ... it was intended to teach you about spelling.
They're not comparable, but they're both educational toys. It's like a gun.
If you buy a pellet gun as one might for plinking cans or even shooting rats,
it can do some serious damage. However, if your intent is to do some serious
damage, there are far better choices you could make. That was the situation
at the time. The thing that made the Altair a breakthrough was its price.
You could, given a wirewrap card, etc, build a pretty extensive computer
around that hardware and end up with a fully functional computer for under
$10K, which was unheard-of in that time frame.
>
Nevertheless, Ed Roberts has gone on record as saying he didn't intend the
thing to grow into a computer, which suggests that he didn't originally view
it as one.
It was an educational computer toy, right up to the point at which it became
endowed with I/O that would allow it to input and output data at a rate
sufficient to accomplish useful work. Before that point, it wasn't even as
useful as a bicycle, since it lacked wheels.
Being a toy is not a problem until you want to make it into something the mfg
didn't intend. It's still not an insurmountable burden at that point, but it
isn't as easy as simply buying what you need. Just as everyone isn't
interested in building their own microcomputer from just the parts and some
wire, etc, not everyone is interested in doing much more than buying the
component devices, lashing the system up, and running the commercially
available software.
Received on Sat Apr 27 2002 - 01:29:13 BST