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30th Anniversary of the Microcomputer
FreezerJam writes "The Toronto Star is running an article on the 30th anniversary of the launch of the MCM/70, the first personal computer, complete with tape drive and APL programming environment. For those of you checking your timeline, this is over a year before the article on the Altair 8800 was published. Microcomputers? Blame Canada!" There's also a story in the Globe and Mail.
And 30 years ago the microcomputer was next to useless...back then I would have rather have had one of those macro computers the size of a Costco.
It packed a fair bit of power for such a small computer. It could solve complex mathematical problems and, when the work was done, run simple video games.
The most famous game, of course, consisted of two small paddles on screen: one a forward on a breakaway, the other a goalie, and a little square of light going back and forth. Yes, who could ever forget the classic "Puckong"?
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Sure buddy, blame it on the computer
The Altair was the one true first personal computer, I will not submit to this blasphemy!
*proceeding to read the article*...
.: Max Romantschuk
Just goes to show that Canada *did* contribute to the computer industry before Bioware cropped up :)
Peter M. Dodge,
Chief Executive Officer,
LiquidFire Studios
Platinum Linux - www.
Lies, all lies.
Apple invented the personal computer.
Apple invented the GUI.
Apple invented the mouse.
Apple invented the disk drive.
Apple invented the CD burner.
Apple invented the DVD burner.
Apple invented the mp3 player.
Apple invented the LCD monitor.
Apple invented BSD Unix (with OSX)
Apple invented the idea of paying money for music online.
My mac owning friend assures me this is all true, and anyone who tells you different is a dirty liar!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
My PDP 11/20, which I still power up occasionally is older than that.
My 1977 PDP 11/34a, circa 1976, still runs BSD 2.9 just fine
Ahhh...you young people with yer Gooey applications... When I was young we were REAL men and toggled in the bootstrap with front panel switches and loaded the OS with paper tape.
Thomas
I imagined a beowulf cluster of these but I was sadly disapointed :(
. . . all the "I used to travel 5 miles in snow, uphill both ways to buy a 500 byte floppy drive to install in a 1 Hz system"
If it's so bad, maybe they should all move to the US, where everyone gets proper recognition for their actions. It's perfection down here I tells ya.
Why, we didn't even have software, we had to build our own out of zeros and ones. Sometimes we didn't even have ones, so we had to use an "L" and cut the leg off it. Ah, but you tell kids these days, and they just don't understand...
You mean in Saskatchewan?
Where the wheat boards monopolize YOU!
Oh, wait... that's right. Heh.
The way I see it you have two options.
The first is to grow six more fingers. This is the prefered method.
The second is to implement the Tom Lehrer approach, because base 8 is just like base 10 really. . . if you're missing two fingers.
Got bandsaw?
KFG
One
Two
Three
*censored*
Hey, at least the Frankfurter is still all American.
KFG
Anyone written a webserver for this platform?
> You're in violation of our Trademark!
Yeah, but a Canadian trademark is only worth about 2/3 of an American trademark, right? And since possession is 9/10ths of the law and pi*(r^2), I see your E and raise you mc^2.
> The GRU will visit you shortly...
Is GRU Canadian spelling for Grue? I don't like that sound of that...
-celine dion
-bryan adams
thanks a lot, you hosers.
Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.