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Computing Pioneers Share Their First Tech Memories
An anonymous reader writes "Major names from the world of computing and technology such as Vint Cerf, William Gibson, Richard Stallman, Michael Dell and Hermann Hauser have shared their memories on their first computers and what inspired them to get involved with the computer. Highlight's include Cerf recalling his experience with the valve-based US air defense network Sage — as seen in Dr Strangelove — and Acorn co-founder Hauser building an eight bit computer out of marbles and a shoebox."
There's nothing angry in the article. Just facts. Here it is, so others are not misled:
RICHARD STALLMAN
President of the Free Software Foundation
What are your memories of your first computer?
The first computer I ever owned is the one I am using now: a Lemote Yeeloong, which I chose because even the BIOS is free/libre software. From the BIOS on up, there is nothing in the machine that denies the user's freedom.
Before this one, the computers I used had been donated to the Free Software Foundation, and before that, they belonged to MIT and Harvard. In the 1970s, only someone very rich could have bought a computer that wasn't a toy. I never had any interest in the personal computers of the 1970s and 1980s because the computers in the lab were far more powerful. I didn't care who owned the computer as long as I could write software for it. And the most interesting software to work on was software that the others in the lab would use: system programs.
If you're asking about the first computer I ever used, that was an IBM 360 to which I had to submit jobs via punched cards. It sure looked impressive, but the PL/1 program I wrote needed more memory than the machine could offer.
What was the moment that first got you excited about the potential of technology?
As soon as I heard that there were machines that could be programmed, I wanted to program them. I was around six years old at the time, and it would take a decade before I actually saw a computer.
What modern technology do you wish you had growing up and why?
In terms of freedom, computing technology is getting worse. Earlier computers were designed for users to control them, but nowadays they are designed increasingly to control their users (ie, saps).
Apple's latest computers don't even allow users to freely choose what applications to install. Future Intel PCs will come with Restricted Boot, which means you can't run your choice of operating system on them. We may soon encounter computers configured not to allow their users to switch to the GNU/Linux system.