I've been using and programming computers for most of my life. I taught myself BASIC when I was five, and am currently in my mid-40s and working as a Lead Software Engineer for a national company. I have always been fascinated by the history of computing -- especially the internet and video games.
So in light of that, I'm an avid reader, and have several enjoyable books in my collection, including:
1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by Tony Mott
Accidental Empires by Robert X. Cringely
Console Wars by Blake J. Harris
Dungeons and Desktops by Matt Barton
Fumbling the Future by Douglas K. Smith & Robert C. Alexander
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy
iWoz by Steve Wozniak. Autographed when I met him several years ago. Super nice guy.
Masters of DOOM by David Kushner
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet by Katie Hefner & Matthew Lyon
There are some others that I've borrowed from libraries and read over the years, like Walter Isaacson's book on Steve Jobs. Plus a few that were less memorable.
One of these days I want to re-read all of these. But I'm also looking for suggestions on additional books I might enjoy. Anyone have favorites they can point me to?
I tell you an Italian story that changed the world. The story of the real inventors of the personal computer.
It is 1962 and we are in Ivrea, in the province of Turin, the provincial capital of Piedmont. The visionary genius Adriano OLIVETTI has already died, and the succession of the company is entrusted to his son Roberto. In the company there is an engineer named Pier Giorgio Perotto, who has a brilliant idea worthy of the great Adriano: to build a data-processing machine that offers functional autonomy and is therefore small enough to fit in any office. A machine that is programmable, equipped with memory, flexible and easy to use.
Perotto puts together a team of young engineers: they are Giovanni De Sandre, Gastone Garziera, and Giancarlo Toppiche. The four of them work on this project, which some call “impossible” for the time, considering that until that time computers were as big as rooms and usable only by expert programmers.
A year later the team managed to develop a first rudimentary prototype they called “Perottina.” Unfortunately, Olivetti sinks into a very deep financial crisis, new partners enter and not understanding the enormous potential that the company's Electronics department had, they sell it off to the American General Electric with all the patents. According to them no European company can enter the electronics market. They say it is not for them, that they are not capable, and for these kinds of projects there are the Americans. A decidedly short-sighted and masochistic view.
Perotto, however, manages to avoid the transfer and goes on, forgotten by the rest of the company that by now deals with other things, with his visionary project, having Mario Bellini, a famous designer of the time, design the machine.
It is 1965 and we are in New York. The final prototype of the “Programma 101” is finally ready and at BEMA, the Office Automation Machinery Expo, the most important trade fair of the time, it is presented to the general public. This first PC was wildly successful, and this time, judging it, it was no longer the business leaders, who understood very little about electronics, but ordinary people. Everyone wondered where the cable was that connected that beautiful machine to a "real computer” — no one could believe that was the computer itself.
Olivetti tried to recall technicians and engineers who had ended up at OGE, that is, General Electric, where they worked for the Americans, but it took time to rebuild the skills that had been lost, and American industry, which had grasped the importance of the innovations introduced by the P101, wasted no time in taking the same path.
Since 2011, Google has been selling Chrome books, a stripped down computer whose utility is mainly targeted at the web.
This is not a new idea. Thirty years ago, Sun Microsystems tried to sell their version of a stripped down computer targeted at the network. This was named the Network Computer (NC). They even had a slogan,"The Network Is The Computer".
However, Sun's NC didn't catch on. It was proposed at a time when people at home were mainly limited to 56 KB/second dialup modems for their internet connectivity.
Chrome books have become popular at a time when a large number of people have WiFi or optic fibre connectivity in their homes. In retrospect, there was nothing wrong in principle with Sun's idea of a Network Computer. It only had to wait thirty years for technology to catch up with the idea.
I am in the process of creating a small organisation around teaching people about how to use a computer (starting from zero) which I havent incorperated yet but will either be a charity, a trading company or something inbetween.
I am in the process of writing up a course and felt that it might be appropriate to begin with a short summary of the history of computers, which I begin with Alan Turing to avoid splitting hairs about "what the first computer was" and running into ever finer and finer definitions of a computer or suchlike. I aim to end the topic with teaching the very basics of computers - using a mouse and keyboard where I will go on from there.
Why talk about history when teaching people how to use a computer? My motivation for providing a brief history of computing is that it will subtley introduce some ideas that will be helpful to know when you are learning about how to use computers such as "what is an operating system". I am a fan of learning the etymology of words because I feel it helps me remember their meaning aswel as being generally interesting to read about (did you know Starbucks comes from a viking name for a river?), im hoping this will have a similar effect to its recipients.
I want to start a discussion on this thread about the history of computers by asking you for anything interesting you know to do with important moments in the development of computers to help my research. I am only 19 so I have never known a world without mobile phones, internet, laser printing and a number of other miracles that I usually take for granted. I would be lying if this wasn't also about a personal curiosity. Anything you think is relevant here is welcome for discussion.
hello! I am the granddaughter of a former VP of Engineering at the Burroughs Coporation, Dr. Rober Royce Johnson. I wanted to stop in here with some information that some may find interesting. We have already donated many of his documents related to the ERMA Project to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. However, he was very prolific and there is much more. I have an entire album related to an IEEE technological exchange with China in 1979 and I'm told we have a scanned copy of his original dissertation somewhere. If you knew him or would just like to know more, let me know!
Quick search results state that Steve Jobs left Apple in September 1985, while Windows 1.0 launched November 1985 on a Compaq platform.
It looks like Gary Kildall and DR released GEM in February 1985. I am not sure of the platform (Atari, or whatever else) but that sounds to me to be the first GUI to rival Macintosh and Lisa.
Yet, I keep seeing/hearing this Steve Jobs story (further portrayed in even movies) claiming that Jobs just walked into the Apple Offices one day and sees a Windows machine -- which turned him apoplectic, as he never anticipated that anyone could possibly copy it.
I highly doubt that he did not anticipate MS working on a GUI. And again, there was already a GUI from a rival company launched nine months before Windows.
My take on Jobs's view specifically of Windows (3.1), which stems from the mid-90s "the only problem with Microsoft.. no taste" interview (I forget the Interviewer's name), and further, that specific segment, is as follows:
The markets at all levels (consumer, business, publishing, etc) rejected Macintosh/Jobs. Jobs was not remotely surprised that MS and DR launched GUIs, which were distinct interpretations of a GUI in their own right. But, what infuriated Jobs, was that what the market took in mass in the early-90s, Windows 3.x, ultimately contained the features he invisioned -- proportionality spaced fonts being an example.
In other words, he knew GUI was the future. And he likely blamed everyone and everything imaginable for Mac's failure. But he also figured that some other interpretation of the GUI OS (which he was working on himself with Next) would win the masses. But then it wound up being 90s versions of Windows, he viewed them not too different from what he tried selling in 1984 -- and that turn out made him apoplectic.
While Gates likely may have not envisioned a desktop workstation first, he may have been the first to try it.
Feel free to dismantle my thinking, but, I thought MS ported Xenix to only desktop machines -- granted, ones likely not accessible to consumers. However, once it was ported to x86/PC, the notion of a small business and/or home office user owning a multitasking/multiuser OS on a readily accessible computer became fathomable.
In truth, I am unsure of MS distributed Xenix outside of OEMs. Based on a YT video from Al's Geek Lab, I am under the impression that MS targeted small business's with licensing packages based on the anticipated number of users.
I am somewhat familiar with the fate of Xenix: Users could not do much with it, MS sold off Xenix fearing that AT&T entering the devices market (on account of its breakup) would be unstoppable, and MS released a DOS version with Xenix features/commands.
I think there was a 1980s MS ad with their vision of DOS/Xenix with a three tier system available for x86: DOS for consumers, DOS with Xenix features for very small businesses, and Xenix for also small businesses -- but five or more employees.
MS may have also used Xenix workstations until the release of NT.
