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Updating the Computer, Circa 1969

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the first-move-the-larger-stone-doorstop dept.

Coudal points out a "Swell article from UK Magazine 'Design' from 1969," excerpting "Designing a computer is a continuous process in which technological breakthroughs must be matched by new hardware, and new hardware by new software, without invalidating the systems already in use."

4 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Conversational Computing by (1+-sqrt(5))*(2**-1) · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From TFA:
    The 1903A [...] can handle conversational computing on nine remote consoles.
    “Conversational computing” is a fantastic euphemism for command-line-interaction; more sophisticated, in any case, than the point-and-grunt interface of today's hoi polloi.

    My theory is that computing and humanity interrelate: in an environment where Latin is taught alongside math, your users and developers are sharper and more humane.

  2. A blast from the past... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, 1969 was about the last time attractive women in skirts were seen anywhere near a data center... :)

  3. Sales department puffery by wbean · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That article is a typical pice of sales department puffery. If you really want to know what it was like to design a computer in those days read Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine. It chronicles the efforts by Data General engineers to create a new computer. At the time I was working as an engineer for Honeywell's EDP (Electronic Data Processing) division and I can vouch for the accuracy of Kidder's reporting. I recognized all the problems and all the actors even though it was a different company.

    At a given point in the development of computers a lot of people end up working on the same problems and often come up with similar solutions. While I was at Honeywell they bought GE's computer division and we got to see the design documents for GE's new computer. It was very interesting reading since we could look at each turning point in the design and say: "Oh, they decided to do it that way." All of the problems were ones that we'd worked on and the solutions were all ones that we'd considered. For the most part they'd made the same decisions we had. It was an experience that's given me a real respect for the notion that an invention is "in the air." It isn't necessarily because the problems are being widely discussed but more that a given state of technology dictates certain questions and that the solutions follow logically from the questions.

  4. Real Soon Now by hob42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I found this other article even more interesting - 1974, issue 311, "In Praise of Hydrogen." It talks about how easily the School of Automotive Studies converted a traditional internal combustion engine to hydrogen, and how with only one major area of research (storage of hydrogen) we should expect our dependance on gasoline to be quickly and easily eliminated.

    Talk about vaporware (pun not intended, though also funny).