What is Digg?42 Comments
- zippy757, on 08/09/2008, -0/+23..there were many, many PCs before IBM PC and the Apple.... IBM built at least a dozen different ones based on many different chips way before the Intel company had their calculator chip the 4004.
I know, because I was the product manager on one of them in 1966. Believe it or not, we killed the PC we built because it would eat into IBM's then massive revenue stream being generated by displays ... I still have the logic boards...they were single board versions of the System 360, not to be confused with XBOX/360.
Bill Gates had yet to even wack off by then. He had nothing to do with the birth of the modern PC other than IBM needed to buy a PC chip set (Intel) and an operating system to prevent anti-trust issues. IBM engineers had many, many PC operating systems already built, but because IBM virtually dominated the company industry back then, were in decade long legal anti-trust phase, the IBM Board did not want to risk another anti-trust issue because of the PC...for an interesting history lesson, research President Johnson's anti-IBM and anti-AT&T antitrust cases launched on basically his last day in office.
The IBM company actually sought out a no name entity deliberately , and fully knew they were making someone very rich at the time.
Besides IBM, many other companies in the Boston area had great PCs back then. - Shadowgamers, on 08/09/2008, -3/+21Fool, nothing can run Crysis. Nothing.
- Shadowgamers, on 08/09/2008, -2/+19DO NOT QUESTION THE ALL KNOWING ALGORITHM. IT KNOWS WHAT IT'S DOING.
- GiJoeBob, on 08/09/2008, -0/+16"Utter bull.
The x86 is just a PART of the history of computing."
That's why the article is called "Forgotten history: The true origins of the PC" and not "Forgotten history: The true origins of computing". - inactive, on 08/08/2008, -13/+25But.....could it run Crysis?
- je12u, on 08/09/2008, -0/+11Crysis yes, Acrobat Reader...no.
- Shadowgamers, on 08/09/2008, -3/+13History of PC's? More like the History of Intel.
- zadadka, on 08/09/2008, -7/+15Utter bull.
The x86 is just a PART of the history of computing.
Does computing start with the abacus, or the first example(s) of automated / mechanical calculation routines?
Probably the latter (IMHO), in which case, go back to the 1600's and Pascal's gear system (in turn based on an ancient design from an Alexandrian a thousand years before him).
Electronic automated calculations? Try 1961, and Anita, from The Bell Punch Company of England.
Whatever definition of computing you care to select as "definitive", the x86 architecture is still a long way down the road of what went before. - raptordrew, on 08/09/2008, -0/+7No, his can only run Internet.
- Shadowgamers, on 08/09/2008, -0/+7'Electronic automated calculations? Try 1961'
Didn't we have WWII machines that did automated calculations too? - mrBitch, on 08/09/2008, -0/+6The history of Intel? Did you even read the article? Intel was coerced unwillingly into building a CPU for Roche (the engineer who wanted to build a personal computer).
FTA :
" ... a meeting with Bob Noyce, head of Intel, in early 1970 to try to get Intel -- then a start-up devoted to making memory chips -- to produce the CPU chip.
Roche presented the proposed chip as a potentially revolutionary development and suggested that Intel develop the chip at its own expense and then sell it to all comers, including CTC, Frassanito recalled.
"Noyce said it was an intriguing idea, and that Intel could do it, but it would be a dumb move," said Frassanito.
"Noyce said that if you have a computer chip, you can only sell one chip per computer, while with memory, you can sell hundreds of chips per computer." - MrSkills, on 08/09/2008, -0/+4Correct. The Anita was the first *desktop* calculator. But the first programmable computers in the modern sense were the Colossus machines that the British used for code-breaking during the war.
Sadly, the Colossus was kept secret for a long time, even after the war, and so its designer could not patent anything and never made money out of the ideas. He was also 'rewarded' after the war with less money than it had cost to design and build (the British government had been too sceptical to pay for it so he pretty much presented the first one to them as a fait accomplis). - majordanger, on 08/09/2008, -0/+3Nice article..that takes me back to the day.
My first homebrew was an 8080 running at 1Mhz that I built on a wirewrap card in 1976.
The processor cost more then $100 and required 3 different voltages.
I think this keyboard I am using today has more MIPS and memory then that did. - fyngyrz, on 08/09/2008, -0/+3Well, it certainly isn't the history of PCs. Read it, and you'll find out about products that were developed before PCs, specifically CPU chips, that were never put into PCs. The first PCs were from Altair, Imsai, and SWTPC. Altair and Imsai did 8080 designs, and SWTPC did a 6800 design. PC means "Personal Computer", as in, will fit on your desk, designed to have a desktop home/business footprint. That history is not the history of Intel -- Intel made computer parts for these things, they didn't make either single board computers for consumers or PCs until later. Apple came along after some Motorola engineers split and built the 6502, a small-architecture oriented derivative of the 6800.
That article is interesting, but it is poorly titled. - scabbers, on 08/09/2008, -1/+4"MOM! Someone rattled the nerd cage"
- Lynxpro, on 08/09/2008, -0/+3
If one claims that Intel did not invent USB, you better give credit to the engineer at Intel who did and who started the whole process back in 1978/1979 when he created the Atari SIO [Serial Input Output Interface] port which was the true origin of USB.
And to think USB ultimately came about because the FCC wouldn't allow Atari to use internal expansion slots - like the Apple II - because the Atari computers [400/800] were going to be marketed as "home computers" and thus required more RF shielding than the Apple line which were "quasi business computers", thus Atari had to go the external route to comply with the friggin' FCC. Never mind that the Atari computer line used the same processor [MOS 6502] as the Apple line, but coupled with a better architecture and advanced custom chips... Perhaps things would have worked out differently without the interference - no pun intended - of the FCC. - hollyminkowski, on 08/09/2008, -0/+3I'd love to see those old logic boards that were a system 360 on a single board.
I know someone that used to program the 360. He still had a little oblong green booklet that had all the assembly language codes listed...he gave it to me as a sort of antique from computing's early days. I find the early days of computing very interesting...I have read "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" twice... sounds like you were actually involved in the excitement of those early days :-) - nusblog, on 08/09/2008, -0/+3all in one page
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com ... - bdbr, on 08/09/2008, -0/+3I worked on a project implementing Datapoint systems in ~1982. They were really advanced for that time (most computing was still mainframes).
1972 was also the year that the router was conceived (with the same basic packet-forwarding functionality that makes up the internet today). Ethernet, GUIs, the mouse, many the technologies that became commercially available in the mid/late 80s (or later) were actually at least a decade old at the time. - hollyminkowski, on 08/09/2008, -0/+2It is amazing what people were able to do with such equipment.
I program microcontrollers in C and asm and that is comparable to those old systems, but on a single tiny sm chip. The smallest I work with is an 8 bit one that costs 55 cents and runs at 20mhz (20MIPS) on a single supply of 3v to 5.5v...even that one is more powerful than those old 8080 machines..also more powerful than the computer in the Apollo lunar lander...gosh! :-)
http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?module=Freaks%2 ... - dragon76, on 08/09/2008, -0/+2It still reads like a history of Intel. Who invented USB? Who invented PCI? If you said Intel, you were wrong.
- zadadka, on 08/09/2008, -0/+1Oops...fair point.
*stands down*
Thanks. - Shadowgamers, on 08/09/2008, -0/+1Oh. My misunderstanding then :U
- dragon76, on 08/09/2008, -0/+1According to some nonsense Kevin was saying, popularity has to do with who is digging it, not actually how many diggs. According to him, it keeps people from gaming digg.
- absurdist, on 08/09/2008, -0/+1You're either incredibly stooopid or willfully ignorant. Which one is it?
/typo intentional, spelling nazis. - nbhaohao, on 08/10/2008, -0/+0Nice article..that takes me back to the day
http://www.021jipiao.org/shdgltjjp.htm
http://www.021jipiao.org/shdgztjjp.htm
http://www.021jipiao.org/shdkmtjjp.htm - S0m3dud3, on 08/09/2008, -2/+2Colossus anyone?
- Millsee, on 08/09/2008, -1/+1yes sir.
- zadadka, on 08/09/2008, -2/+2Mechanical, not electric / electronic.
- slurba, on 08/09/2008, -1/+1Or he's not being serious.
- stankinaz, on 08/10/2008, -0/+0This is all bull crap. The guy who wrote this is a biased texan with a hard on for a boring state. I bet the next article this pathetic author will write about is how the hippie movement never started in San Francisco, CA, but in Austin, TX - Texas is and will always be a racist state that breeds strict conservitism which does not allow resurgences of great and novel ideas. New Ideas come from bold-liberal thoughts that usually go beyond the normalcy of conservative thoughts. You people from texas . . . grow up. There is nothing pretty about the state of texas. It is flat with non-inspirational horizons that will never leave visitors and its citizen in a state of bewildered amazement. The state is bland and so are its citizens. People of america should allow the state of texas to secede or vote to have it returned to mexico. Furthermore, why are people in texas so passionate about confederates and waving the confederate flag. The confederates were the biggest losers in the US civil war.
- inactive, on 08/09/2008, -0/+0Al Gore invented the PC
- Shadowgamers, on 08/09/2008, -2/+1Hanging around on /. nulled my ability to follow links to things telling me things about something.
- itate, on 08/09/2008, -5/+2From Infoworld:
Bill Gates' successor, Steve Ballmer, was quoted as saying at the Microsoft's farewell to Gates: "Bill was really there at the birth of the modern personal computer. Bill really designed the IBM PC."
http://weblog.infoworld.com/daily/archives/2008/07 ... - dopste, on 08/09/2008, -3/+0Yeah, but (and this is how good he is) HE INVENTED INTERNET PIPES FIRST!!
- SecureXeC, on 08/09/2008, -6/+2History is lame. Throw in some transforming cars, a naked chick smoking some Marlboros, a jock with failed football dreams and HAL. Then you've got a ***** book.
- Jahid, on 08/09/2008, -6/+0Nice information
- wwwluckyro, on 08/09/2008, -7/+156 digs and already popular?
- Narishma, on 08/09/2008, -7/+1Didn't Al Gore invent it?
- dopste, on 08/09/2008, -7/+0Al Gores' computer Can
- GarryBarker, on 08/09/2008, -12/+3Buried for whitewashing Apple's massive contribution. Typical PC fanboy revisionist article.
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