BigDumbDinosaur wrote:
ChuckT wrote:
So, who invented the personal computer?
Isn't it like trying to determine who invented the wheel?
or the TV?
In the early years, I myself was interested in stereo and amateur radio, not computers. How things changed and I got into computers is in my head post in the "Introduce yourself" topic. I hope you'll find it entertaining. However, it's interesting looking back at various steps in the history of computers in general and the personal computer in particular. I've watched a lot of videos on computer history to fill in the holes that were left in my own mind since I had not been very interested yet at the time. The internet didn't exist yet. We had electronics magazines and there was more and more computer stuff in them but I did not pay much attention to that part, thinking it was kind of pointless, because at the time, computers weren't powerful enough to be of any practical value yet. When I did start getting interested, it was for doing repetitive calculations for circuit design, which is what got me into programmable calculators at the end of 1981. Many of you will remember the early TV ads for home computers that said you needed one to balance your check book. That was sure stretching it, particularly since they still cost so much and everyone had a calculator by then (although most were not programmable).
I remember the first time I heard the word "software." Back in the days when people either mowed their own lawn or paid the neighbor kid to do it (instead of getting illegal-alien gardeners), I was hired by a young couple down at the corner to mow their lawn. I talked with them and found out what they did. The woman worked on computers. That was about 1975 or '76, when computers occupied large rooms with a lot of air conditioning to cool them and keep their temperature and humidity within acceptable limits. Most people had never seen a computer, and it seemed like those who worked with them were next to God or something. I asked this woman something about the computer, and she said she didn't know-- that she was strictly a software person. The term seemed like a joke. Everyone has heard of hardware (tools, plumbing, bolts, paint, etc.); but
software??
The automated test setups I did were at the company I worked at from 1985-1992. When I started there, the only computer in the company was an Apple II. Then in '86, the boss bought an IBM PC clone that was portable. This was back when you could put a handle on a refrigerator and call it portable. It did
not mean "light" and "practical to carry around." It had an 8088, and in the front there was a 7" monochrome green CRT and a pair of 5.25" low-density floppy-disc drives. I think it came with MS-DOS 2.0 or 2.1. I had made a better manually operated tester for our products than what was there when I started at the company, and then the boss and I started talking about using a computer to control the testing so the test operator didn't have to be as smart, and the tester would prevent the possibility of misreading a meter, forgetting a step, etc.. I hired a technician and told him about the idea to do automated testing. Immediately he was a self-proclaimed PC expert; and although he knew more about IBM PCs than I, he was mostly talk. He said he could write a set of utilities we could use for the test equipment, and he made himself at home with that "portable" PC. At one point, he asked me if Bob might spring for a hard disc, when they were 5MB or 10MB. I laughed at him, because of the price and because HDDs still held the equivalent of very few floppies. (The automated testing that did become reality was always controlled by something other than a PC.)
The idea of the "paperless office" was brewing in the boss's mind. In probably about 1987, before getting that far, he had the sales people on terminals that hooked into a single Altair computer that serviced them all, running BASIC. About three years later, he had a consultant come in and put PCs on every desk, and network them with Novell. Individual PCs had no disc drives, but booted off the network, and files were maintained at a central point in the office. This man was obviously in over his head, and you could tell. Eventually he got it all going, but it was rough getting there.
It seems like every company I've worked for was smaller than the previous one. I started at the company I'm at now in 1992 (although it has evolved so much it's debatable whether it's really the same company or not). This was soon after its start-up and it had no computer at all yet, just a typewriter. Eventually the owner got into high-end Macs.