On 04/19/2018 05:33 PM, Jim Brain via cctalk wrote: > Someday, the products and software designed and built by the folks in > this list will be judged by those who follow us. Possibly the rest of > you have worked in industries where you were allowed to use new > solutions, you had ample time to design and develop, and your marketing > departments priced your solutions at a reasonable price point, but I've > not had those luxuries. Thus, I want to be fair to those before me who > created things like the IBM PC architecture, not because it is a great > architecture, but because they shipped a real product that added value > for many folks and did so while working inside a company not known for > agility. The folks who did that deserve my respect, and when I am gone > and folks look at my design choices, I hope they will respect me for > doing what I could given the constraints I faced.
My view is that it probably won't matter. Technology is moving so fast that it won't be long before yesterday's PCs will be viewed with the attitude that today's of "retro" PC enthusiasts view an 082 sorter. Recall that, in 1955, a lot of common culture viewed that as a "computer". (I can probably come up with a couple of contemporary cinema examples where that was exactly how one was portrayed). When I put on my future-view goggles and read about the steps being made today in AI and associated hardware technology, all of this "personal computer" hardware will seem just as primitive. Consider that the 082 dates from 1949 and the last unit rolled off the line in 1978. Now consider how antiquated a 10 year old mobile phone is viewed by most people. --Chuck
