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Deconstructing the PC Revolution

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the looking-back dept.

coondoggie writes to mention that room-sized computers and other recollections were shared over the weekend at the Vintage Computer Festival in Silicon Valley. "About 200 people, many of them of the gray-haired pony tail, bifocals and middle-age paunch variety, attended the event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif."

8 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Smarter than that by Wellington+Grey · · Score: 4, Funny

    From the article: The refrigerator-sized machine stored just 5Mb of data. Hoagland's PowerPoint presentation on the restoration project, at 9.16MB, would have crashed it.

    I'll bet that the old guys who wrote it were smart enough to actually check the size of a file before copying it -- you know, actually worrying about resource management. Not like these young pups who think that CPU speeds and hard disk space are so large as to be infinite and not worth bothering with.

    -Grey

    --
    Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
  2. Hey! by MECC · · Score: 5, Funny

    About 200 people, many of them of the gray-haired pony tail, bifocals and middle-age paunch variety

    ... hey!
    --
    "We are all geniuses when we dream"
    - E.M. Cioran
    1. Re:Hey! by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 2, Funny

      I can't read that little bitty light grey blockquote font, but I bet I know what you're objecting to.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  3. I wonder if Ken Olsen was there by ackthpt · · Score: 2, Funny

    Explaining how we would never need a massive life controlling server in our own home, which Microsoft still thinks they can sell us all via the XBox.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  4. Old technology and kids. by iknownuttin · · Score: 2, Funny
    ...told their grade school age child that computers once filled whole rooms.

    I knew someone who tried to explain how a LP record works to his kids. They were incredulous. Groves recording sound?! It wasn't digital?!? No way!

    I can just imagine what kids will say a few years from now: "You carried your computers in bags?! They were that big?!"

    --
    I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
    1. Re:Old technology and kids. by n6kuy · · Score: 2, Funny

      What really freaks the kids out is a 45.
      'Specially when you point it right at them.

      Oh wait. Is there a different kind of "45"?

      --
      If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
  5. I don't know about you, but by greenguy · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...every time I deconstruct a revolution, the same thing happens. I put it all back together, and there's one piece left over, and I can't figure out where it goes.

    --
    What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
  6. I love walking down memory lane... by sootman · · Score: 2, Funny

    Although the TRS-80 was launched the same year as the Apple II and the Commodore PET personal computers... it benefited from the distribution network and brand identity of Radio Shack.

    Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that. Is anyone else here old enough to remember when Radio Shack had a positive brand identity?

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