Additional Notes and Corrections
BACK to main Domesticating the Computer topic.
This is updated and errata related to the VCF discussion here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpF6Ofrr6_0
Repo of the PDF and PowerPoint version of discussion is here (github).
Thank You to all those involved in organizing this VCF, for facilitating a forum where these types of discussions to take place. And Thanks to the crew doing filming and post-processing, doing all this behind-the-scenes support work that makes these talks available to future generations.
This was a talk divided into two main parts: aspects of programmable-devices before the advent of electronic digital computing, then focused on the transition of bringing digital-computing processing capability into our homes. I made a few blunders in that presentation that I’d like to clarify here, and also add some additional insight/commentary that didn’t make it into the original presentation:
01:17 On “The Writer”, see..
https://galeriedesmerveilles.jaquet-droz.com/en/automata
01:24 I didn’t mean to imply there are a dozen “The Writer” copies in the world, rather I meant there are several automata-like devices from that era that still exist (see also The Swan).
NOTE: A modern-make of the Analytical Engine is on display in the UK.
01:51 Info on my restored upright: it is a straight-strung, cloth tape check, overdamped “birdcage”, 85-ivory key, 44″ tall upright
https://cottagepianoproject.wordpress.com/
My daughter tested my Chappell upright after restoration here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Nk_1Qr4Zg
OTHER NOTES: A major “breakthrough” in uprights was around 1820, when Wornum came up with “tape check action” to replace prior dolly-rods. Wornum had an unfortunate fire at his workshop around that time, destroying tools and forcing him to layoff 75 workers. To recover, he sold some of his patents then, but resumed his work on upright piano design around 1829.
03:37 Parts of the Mark-1 are now also on display, as of the last few years.
03:45 In the extended slides (see PDF download), a full image of the modern-make Manchester Baby and its museum is displayed. Note that fundamentally, CRTs borrow parts of the “beam-steering” capability of radar scopes (a very hushed technology during WWII).
04:02 I meant in-home cabinet style radios of the 1930s, not really jukebox.
OTHER NOTE: I wish had more time to talk about the SAGE system. It’s development brought FORTRAN into the world and the early concept of “computers talking to computers” (via Mo-Dems). The lessons learned here morphed into the RS-232 standard documented a few years later.
05:55 CNC-machine might not have been the right word, but early “plotter” type machines and devices. APT was an early type of software-programming for these kinds of machines.
OTHER NOTE: As noted here, Purdue University had the first Computer Science degree (in the US) in 1962. Cambridge in the UK offered their first CS degree about a decade earlier.
06:17 Mary Wilkes ended up “leaving” the computer industry to become a lawyer. This was probably related to why she didn’t move with the company, as her passion was always to become a lawyer.
NOTE: The Patty Duke episode (“The Genius”) in the end credits of that episode, it credits the UNIVAC-422. It was really used in that episode, which is a fantastic skit related to the idea of a “non-computer-trained-person” interacting with a kind of early “desktop personal computer” (albeit one not yet with a “standard” keyboard and screen, but still “desk top” sized nonetheless).
08:15 I haven’t been able to determine what become of or happened to Karen Ericksen, who is credited as the driver in this photograph. It is a “staged” photo since there are a few different variations
of this photo (such as with the PDP-8 closed and unclosed). This would be the processor, RAM, and (I think) the power supply of the PDP-8 system. You’d still need a teletype and some kind of data storage unit.
09:16 To clarify – the F-14 CADC microprocessor predates the Intel 4004/8008. Ken presents evidence that the Arma Micro might even pre-date that.
09:28 IBM invested in SLT in terms of tooling up their factories to produce SLT and focused on research to evolve SLT. This is similar to how Intel, as of 2024, recently invested in 1nm micron technology (a machine costing them billions of dollars to acquire). Like any investment, it generally must “pay for itself” before being replaced. Yes, that does mean the general public might not always have the “latest and greatest” in tech – as the prior generation of tooling must be “paid off” first.
09:35 Meant Monolithic System Technology.
09:54 This manufacturing is certainly before my time and I confess to guessing about that process. Any documented explanation about this process would be very appreciated to find. Specifically, we’re trying to better understand the “Dutchess” modules (“tin cans”) used by IBM (that had 6KB of ROM storage).
10:31 Night and day in terms of the manufacturing efficacy (how many widgets per day you can produce). Regarding miniaturizing, notice the “reduction lens” in the steps mentioned here. Also, in the plaque, even Intel gives credit to Fairchild for this innovation.
10:51 “They” being the computer industry as a whole, not to imply that IBM internally developed their own lithography tech.
11:53 Each of these systems had some form of interrupts. Wanted to mention that one of the early 1950s UNIVAC systems is generally credited as the first system with interrupt capability.
12:15 I said “two” and realize there are three systems here. The reason I down-play the CC-30 is because I never found a sales sheet or cost list. Generally, I tried to focus on confirmed computer products, which means the system should have a user/operator manuals and a sales/price sheet. Anything else is likely a concept or prototype.
12:40 A “year later” I meant relative to the systems in the prior slide. I had meant to show the arc of systems going from $100K, $30K, $11K, $7K, then the generally-accepted first home personal computers busting below the $1K threshold (at about $700 for the 4K Commodore PET).
13:03 There is another photo of the Daedalus system being connected to 8inch floppy drives. I had hoped to also cover the Q1, but took it out due to time constraints. There is a claim that a similar looking system (as this Daedalus) that was called the Q1 was introduced around 1972 and based on an 8008. While there is evidence that Q1 did exist, no evidence confirmed yet that it was actually based on an 8008 processor. A much later version of the Q1 Lite (1978) was based on an 8080.
13:12 I realize there were 7-track, 9-track and other prior tape solutions. I had meant to add the word “audio tape” as this VIATRON was using regular audio tapes (in contrast to “reel-type”), which was a media just recently introduced at that time.
13:29 Basically Datapoint was (later) in the same situation as VIATRON, waiting for that “new processor technology.” But Datapoint was wiser in producing the 3300 first (a product they weren’t too interested in, but they needed a revenue stream to hold them over to later produce the product that they
did want to produce). VIATRON just didn’t have the backing or financial pockets to produce their System 21 in any meaningful quantity.
14:09 CC (Computer Communication) was a notable company in the late 1960s, and did produce some great computer-related components. They had the concept of a simple desktop computer in mind.
14:30 Origin fully acknowledges that the game (Ultima 9) was incomplete when they launched (it was not yet a beatable game due to bugs; thus began the era of “launch then patch” fashion of software delivery).
15:10 I meant “society might collapse” (re: another Dark Ages), but the historical achievement of human ingenuity developing computers would be remembered (just as we reflect today on various marvels of the ancient world).
17:14 “Headless” is the term used for most servers, or systems that “just run” and don’t have an active screen or monitor. Typically, they’re supporting some requested process, like serving out a video.
17:43 The last 60-70 years. If there was a “Generation 0” it might be all the pioneering electronics work of the 1920-1930s.
18:00 To be fair, I’ve had younger co-workers who didn’t know who Steve Wozniak is. So, it’s reasonable that many people might not be aware of who Douglas Engelbart was. “The Mother of all Demos” was the name of a groundbreaking presentation he gave in 1968 (showing concepts that later evolved into the Xerox Alto of the early 1970’s).
18:35 “Round Screen” CRTs seemed to be derived from classic radar stations. The “work” was on evolving the form of the screen and standardizing the idea of Character Generator. In some ways, text-mode is sort of a “step backwards” from the general-access that early screens had (see the 1024×1024 Space War demos of the early PDP-1). Those early round CRTs were often more expensive than the computer itself, so some intermediate affordable option was a necessary step.
19:52 Meant “10 times as many types of computers”, I missed the word “types.” We tried to just focus on first-versions of the major series of systems.
19:58 Not really a puzzle, but five different ‘events-over-time’ murals that would be aligned next to each other in time order.
20:17 The YouTube videos mentioned are referenced here:
Aaron-edition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTHV-qRf-0c
Mandie-edition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alI_RnLbamo
NOTE: The Mandie-edition is slightly newer and has a few updates. Both are actual live-people who volunteered their time to practice and perform the narration. Additional details here: https://voidstar.blog/domesticating-the-computer/
20:26 By “frequency” I’m meaning the tone of voice. A kind of decades-long background study I’ve noticed is that just the audio-frequency of a person’s voice can impact how others respond to a topic. And that relates to how we have preferences in different styles of music. It’s nothing personal, just some people really “can’t stand” certain audio frequencies – for whatever reason – and that impacts their engagement on a topic.
20:45 I forgot to mention the colors in the background. Typically, they are “self explanatory” divisions across the types of systems. But it was a notion of “deep sea creatures” in the darker past on the left, then gradually evolving to land and then the sky (in portables on the right).
21:25 The Quaker Oats oatmeal box, a cylinder shape. I wish I had thought to add an image of that to the slide. A modern-make of a mechanical computer would be neat, especially now with 3D printers.
22:18 I meant microfilm just in terms of “shrinking to save space” concept. Obviously, a lot more goes into “shrinking” digital logic paths onto silicon wafers.
23:06 The 1986 panel that made this determination – they were all respectable people involved in the industry. But it is fair to observe that they didn’t yet have widespread internet then, and what there was of the internet wasn’t as thoroughly searchable as today. Meaning, now-a-days with resources like archive.org and OCR and AI: individually and personally, we can’t read decades of hundreds of
different magazine articles, but now we have ways that assist in reading those historical references. And this may give us more insight about things, and new perspectives that people “living in the moment” might not have had.
23:31 As clarified later in the talk, the Micral-N had an Intel 8008 (not 8080).
23:46 Thi Truong was a respectable person involved in that project, I didn’t mean to downplay that. While “technical wizards” are often “behind the scenes” (or out of the spotlight) crafting wonderful works, often there is a “business head” involved in advocating (and funding) a project – both roles are typically vital for success (as one doesn’t exist without the other). That said: to me, the Micral-N looks a lot like an Intel Intellect turned upside down.
24:58 I did botch this part a bit. I started thinking of the NEC PC-8001 (which is based off a Z80 clone). The TK-80, as the plaque says, was an 8080-based system.
25:06 I botched here as well. I had changed this slide the night before, and originally it did have the quote that included the word “first.” But last minute, I revised this to do an approach of the word “first” not appearing in the title, but was more subtle mentioned in the description. Then, despite it being right in front of me, I couldn’t find that word “first” during the talk and doubted myself that it was there. Anyhow, yes I misspoke and this IEEE plaque is updating the claim that the DP2200 is the “first desktop
personal computer.”
25:33 As described in the Datapoint book, the competition with IBM was also related to the stigmatism that all computers (at the time) had to be leased.
26:44 The “key thing” I meant here is: the Programma is flanked by two dedicated-purpose calculator devices. Some argue that the inclusion of a “is programmable” component puts the Programma in a different category of devices (in terms of its utility and purpose, and also its cost). But is it yet a personal computer?
26:48 Looking closely, a 4004 implementation is generally flanked by associated 4001, 4002, 4003 chips as well. The 8008 was somewhat similar, in that a number of support chips were still essential to make a viable system.
26:59 Idea of a “desktop calculator device.” So, the need for such a device had been well identified for decades.
27:25 Factorial was just an example of a possible program off the top of my head. Even if not mathematically useful on a machine like this, it is generally an instructive function (especially in comparing iterative versus sequential solutions). A more useful function might be like a projectile motion model from a set of inputs. Any actual users of these systems that could comment more on what programming they performed on these systems would be neat to hear about.
28:43 Some were electric (they did have batteries even back then), but many had small motors also.
30:33 The dependency on those tapes is a big deal. A “personal computer” implies some amount of self-sufficiency in being able to use that machine. And this is part of why original Datapoints are so rare to find- the machine only works if the tape is still good. Another issue was the quality of the power supply, and I think that “evolution of the power supply” is an often-overlooked aspect to how personal computers came about.
NOTE: Meant “boot up software” (but the tape would effectively have the code that would later be placed into ROM). But any type of boot-up software relates to the very idea of some form of standard usage or “operating system” which was still a fairly new concept at the time.
31:14 “Fierce” in terms of profit margins on selling computers. With extremely thin profit, it’s hard for a company to stay in business. This hit more in the early 1980s with the price war by Commodore, and extends into the late 1990s when Commodore, Tandy, and nearly even Apple went out of business. Even today, Sony and Microsoft sell their hardware at a loss (and to some extent, many cell phones are also sold at a loss, since the greater income is in monthly subscription fees and app-stores). IBM themselves got out of the home PC business in 2005, deeming the profit margins as insufficient.
31:28 “their equipment” meaning the microprocessor chip, RAM chips, and associated components – including also a proposed data bus system.
31:38 For some reason, I couldn’t remember the exact museum. But the Smithsonian National Museum along the DC lawn, they have an Alto and various other historical computer systems (including the pair of Intel Intellect’s mentioned).
31:48 I felt I had missed some important point about the Intellec, so I lost my train of thought on what I had prepared about the John Draper discussion. But I know I was pressed for time and had to keep going.
31:55 The “new information” was just refinements to the story, and that “phone hacking” had been around for a few decades even before blue-boxes (going back to a famous story related to the caretaker of a graveyard).
32:11 I have one of these Captain Crunch cereal whistles. I meant to include an image showing that based on an iPhone audio app, they do emit a tone at ~2600 Hz.
iOS “TuneAgain” app showing frequency emitted by Captain Crunch toy whistle.
32:29 “inside joke” since both Jobs and Wozniak were involved in selling blue-box devices, and they both later worked at Atari. Maybe they had influenced the name of the Atari 2600.
32:37 Note, Atari VCS originally released in 1977.
32:49 Steve Wozniak (Woz), who later designed the Apple 1 board and was one of the original Apple Company founders. But we don’t know what became of Bill Fernandez. Anyone who knew Bill or additional parts of this story, would be interesting to hear from.
33:06 “Inspired by” meaning exposed to the technical know-how of his father, or at least encouraging Woz to engage in electrics related projects.
33:14 Apologies, that several times I was pointing to names with the mouse, and thus in my head it was as-if those names had been spoken aloud. I should have done better at repeating the names of devices and people, for those who later may only be listening to the talk and not seeing where the mouse is pointing. In this case, the system was a HP9830A from 1973.
33:35 The HP9830A manual explicitly says “CALCULATOR.” One thing I didn’t cover was how there was a kind of “fear” of calling a device a computer, since at that time there was some cultural-aspects against misrepresenting your product, and the word “computer” then had a lot of implications (which then might influence who you could do business with, and no one wanted the wrath of IBM as a competitor against them).
33:56 I did mean LED display (misspoke, didn’t mean LCD).
34:01 I did want to talk more about the MCM/70, but it is covered in the Domesticating the Computer YouTube video. Both of these were great systems for their time, and you can see ads selling them for numerous years.
34:28 Rumor is that Paul Friedl (of IBM) got an early peek at the HP9830A or an early prototype of it. Technically the SCAMP (IBM prototype) was revealed one month before the general public was made aware of the HP9830A. In the early IBM SCAMP drafts, they had concepts of including a top-mounted printer, similar to how the HP9830A ended up doing it (but that concept didn’t go into production with the IBM 5100, they stuck with the traditional externally attached large printer).
35:11 Based on sales brochures and adjusting to US dollars, the Micral-N was approximately $1750.
35:25 I meant two different designers involved other than Thi Truong and Francois that had been
mentioned earlier. This was a later 1980s interview, but unfortunately I can’t find the source of that claim anymore (of these systems being intended for toll-booths).
36:15 It was a functional BASIC, but didn’t have all the common keywords that we generally associate with BASIC. At 36:27 I meant “you didn’t really need a mainframe or minicomputer” to run BASIC, as these new microcomputers were getting performant enough to handle an interpreted language implementation.
36:38 Obviously I’m largely abbreviating the Bill Gates and Paul Allen story, since I figure it is very well known and documented. But yes, actually he started with the MITS Altair BASIC (for 8080), then later provided baselines for the MOS 6502-based Apple and Commodore versions of BASIC (then also Tandy, NEC, and numerous other systems for their “boot up to BASIC” solution).
37:36 If anyone is aware if Intercolor actually did sell an 8008 version of their system, that would be interesting to confirm. But despite the existence of a sales brochure, it seems they waited and actually sold 8080-based versions. In addition, I’m not aware of what ROM software it had, or how much “self computing” capability it had (I do think it was a bit more than just a terminal).
39:26 I say the Altair was a better kit just since the 8080 in general was a better processor (the Mark-8 was based on the 8008). With the 8080, you could put together a system using less support chips and boards. That said, my issue with the Altair is that it was “artificially cheap” – they happened to get a huge discount on a set of Intel chips (like $80 instead of $350, just for the chip), but that wasn’t a sustainable cost in the long run. But anyhow, both the Mark-8 and SCELBI were important contributors to that idea of a small, affordable, personally owned computer.
39:58 Meant “Processor” (not “machine”). We think of Intel and Motorola as the major chip manufacturers, but there was also TI, National Semiconductor, and Fairchild. It would be neat to see an IMP16 modern make or restored system someday. I’m not sure if any version of BASIC was available for the IMP16.
40:30 Meant “Community Memory”, misspoke but just kept going. The fascinating thing about Community Memory is that it really highlights that moment right before computers started appearing in homes. No one (individually) owned a computer, since even if you had one – you generally would have to program it yourself to do anything useful. So, there was no motivation to get a computer – computers were all business, there was no “gaming industry” yet at that time (aside from the growing arcade games), and there was no “network” to connect your computer to (Ma Ball was very protective against any devices attached to “their” phone network – even having an answering machine connected
was frowned upon). In addition, the culture then was that computers were “big scary things” – just as today the media portrays AI as some “big scary thing.”
41:07 I am curious if anyone has more info about the keyboard used on those Community Memory kiosks.
42:27 Ted’s book emphasizes that the idea of a kind of “Computer Liberation” movement was on people’s mind in the early/mid 1970s. That is, tearing down the high expense of computers and owning systems rather than leased. But one thing I think some of these visionaries missed were some of the negative impacts that arise from when computers would eventually become so fast and so inexpensive – things like spam, malware/ransomware, bots, and now things like identity theft, international IP issues, or even verifying what is real (due to real-time photo-realistic rendering and voice copying). Another issue is that: while there are positives to knowing about events going on all around the world immediately, it becomes sort of like “mind reading” or that we’re getting inputs from beyond realms we’ll never physically interact with. And we’re still maturing our minds on how to handle that kind of “information overload.”
42:29 Yes, $439. Which interesting, same price as the earlier Mark-8 kit. I hadn’t really caught that prior to this discussion.
43:16 The “Daisy Bell” source code is available, you had to “flip in” a couple hundred opcodes. Emulators often don’t replicate “Daisy Bell” software on the Altair since it depends on an RF behavior.
IBM 7094 Daisy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41U78QP8nBk
HAL9000 Daisy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7WQ1tdxSqI
Altair Daisy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tImrHlYLzZo
45:36 For the SOL-20 keyboard, by “rough” – I don’t mean like sandpaper rough. I mean, they become rough-to-use, where you have to press harder, or some keys stop responding. The PET also is like this, in that if not used for a while, then some keys start to get stuck – so you have to “warm then up” (just press them a few times or manually “unstuck” them).
45:58 Misspoke, did mean “intercolor” (not intercooler, those are used in turbo-systems).
48:48 And they were Vietnamese immigrants, the “boat people” from after the Fall of Saigon just a few years earlier. What’s fascinating is that even today, at Suntronic there in Richardson, Texas — who was contracted out to produce Commander X16 boards — even today a large portion of their staff is Vietnamese women. In Tandy’s case, they bought an old department store building, and converted it into a factory of sorts for assembling their TRS-80 boards.
49:15 I later learned more about the SC/MP from Curious Marc’s work. It was more of a learning-kit device. The other boards mentioned (KIM-1, MMD-1) were viable as-is for use in industrial machines (which is part of why the KIM-1 in particular was so popular).
49:24 Chuck Peddle, in one interview, mentions something like over 10,000 per year being produced and sold. It is confirmed that KIM-1’s were advertised for many years.
50:16 It pains me to even make that statement of “not caring about the hardware”, as I totally understand the hardware is fundamental to how “everything works” (and the overall Market Cap of computer Hardware is still generally greater than that of Software). But this is the reality of the industry: we now have “software defined radios” and to some extent “software defined processors.” Or computers with “morphing instruction sets” so that it can on-the-fly emulate whatever kind of computer you can imagine. Still, those who do produce software are generally better when they do have at least some understanding about the hardware.
NOTE: In the 1970s, there was a term “Citizen Programmer”, where it was thought that every citizen would learn how to program – because at the time, there were no standard operating systems, the only way to use a computer was to program it yourself. This is why some view operating systems as “training wheels” and that they confine the true potential of what a computer can be used for.
50:45 That statement of “you don’t just walk up to it and start using it” relates to what I mentioned towards the end of the talk, where some people don’t consider “boots up to BASIC” systems as the “start” of personal computers. This line of thinking puts GUIs as an essential component of a personal computer, where with very little training a user can indeed make use of the system by some mostly-intuitive icons. I disagree with this perspective myself, but at the same time I can understand where they are coming from. The issue is how far to you go with that? Consider Star Trek IV where Scotty “intuitively” starts trying to talk to the computer. If you hold such a high threshold, then I’d argue that computers are still “too hard” to just walk up and use. But the reason I disagree with this rather extreme perspective: the days of flip switches were indeed “too hard” for most people to use and understand – as it required knowledge of some Computer Science fundamentals (like octal as hex vs binary). I agree “boot to BASIC” systems aren’t inherently intuitive, but essentially you can start making good use of the system within minutes/hours (a few pages of training), and not have to know any computer science principles.
51:43 It’s extremely subtle, but one thing I didn’t mention here as a kind of Easter Egg: we placed the Commodore PET image the furthest to the left, since we do agree with the claim that the Commodore PET was the first of the trinity to be sold (being that Chuck Peddle did collect check payments for the PET in January 1977, while the Apple II first sold around June 1977, followed by the TRS-80 going on
sale a few months later).
52:06 I had to “hold my tongue” on getting distracted on starting to talk about each of these systems. The “interesting” thing about the Sphere is that, per the claims, they did sell 1000 of them but then mysteriously and suddenly just vanished (or went out of business). No one is quite sure on what happened (recall only ~180 Apple-1 were sold, so selling 1000 units of 6800-based systems seems like a decent start).
52:12 VECTOR Graphics founders were Carole Ely and Lore Harp, with Bob Harp doing much of the hardware design work. To clarify, it was her husband Bob Harp who saw the “writing on the wall” – they had been given an early heads-up on what IBM was about to do – and he ended up splitting over into his own company. A good overview of their saga is in this article from 2015:
https://www.fastcompany.com/3047428/how-two-bored-1970s-housewives-helped-create-the-pc-industry
53:25 Actually that is Robert Uiterwyk (with his son Steven Uiterwyk), and his story is described here (of using an IBM 5100 and how he came to develop a version of BASIC for the SWTPC’s 6800-based system):
https://deramp.com/swtpc.com/BASIC_2/Uiterwyk.htm
Stan was another SWTPC associate, who did make that Altair statement.
53:33 Meant “one individual who did own and make use of an IBM 5100” as a contemporary user of that system around the time of its use. It would be wonderful to contact him (or his son) to get any first
hand accounts about that experience.
53:41 Or more specifically, a cheaper computer of their own that could run BASIC (while he brought the 5100 home, it was owned by his company; so he had ordered a SWTPC kit).
54:22 Even if we find the hardware for this MTUK-1002-2, we will need the manual or software to understand how to use it. It might be possible to reverse engineer the hardware.
55:52 “Useful” in terms of expandability, to multiple 64KB segments and the ISA bus (the S-100 bus had power issues, and the Apple-bus often had slot constraints- on which card could go in which slot).
55:36 Yes, simplifying the “story of the 5150” quite a bit.
56:43 The reason I think 86-DOS was “better” is because of how it handled the multiple 64K segments, resulting in what appeared as a contiguous block of main memory. And also, some of the “software interrupt” aspects of what became MS-DOS. CP/M might have matched all that eventually – and Concurrent CP/M that came later was pretty amazing for its time.
NOTE: CP/M was eventually available on the IBM PC, just it was months late and unnecessarily expensive. Years later, DR-DOS did end up being far better than Microsoft DOS and at a reasonable price.
57:05 Correction, had my wires crossed – Tim had done some earlier work with Microsoft Z80 card for the Apple II, and ended up working off and on for Microsoft over the years. Still, he was a very early employee of Microsoft.
57:30 As mentioned earlier, some have the opinion that “personal computers” didn’t really start until having a GUI and file-share across a network, or more extensive forms of “ease of use” via multimedia (in other words, an expectation of home-personal matching the large mini-computer capabilities). And it’s true, by 1984 barely 10% of households had a home computer (per a government census report that started tracking such things). The 50% threshold wasn’t until around 1998. The late 1970s systems might be like the “Model-T” equivalent of cars: if you know what you’re doing, with just a little bit of orientation and training, then it can get you down the road.
But as we see today, when the general public approaches a vintage system, they often won’t have any idea on how to use that system. With very limited memory, most of them had no capacity for any kind of “on-system” help or instructions. But even the idea of loading a program from tape (let alone using flip switches), there quite a bit of training, know-how, and practice to doing that (versus the convenience of a “random access” file system like as a disk drive offers). Some put early 1980s since that was when both disk and disk drives became commonly available and affordable.
58:00 I meant, those with that opinion of late 1970s systems having very little utility,
1:00:42 I’m still not sure what two numeric keypads was ever used for, but what I forgot to mention here was the reason they even had room for that is this system was using horizontal 8 inch floppy disks. This VDP-80 largely failed due to having unreliable disk drives.
1:01:04 Ran out of time, really did want to cover the WICAT systems (which I think their first release did pre-date the IBM PC 5150). I’ve not yet come across a restore/working WICAT systems, but they were what we would come to call “workstation” class computers.