Re: "Personal" Computers (Was: Details about IBM's early 'scientific' computers)

2017-11-15 Thread Jon Elson via cctalk
On 11/15/2017 09:13 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: On 2017-11-15 10:07 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: On 11/15/2017 07:09 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: Earlier, there was the SAGE computer (the air defense one, not the PC by the same name), which had built-in ash trays at each

Re: "Personal" Computers (Was: Details about IBM's early 'scientific' computers)

2017-11-15 Thread Paul Berger via cctalk
On 2017-11-15 10:07 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: On 11/15/2017 07:09 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: Earlier, there was the SAGE computer (the air defense one, not the PC by the same name), which had built-in ash trays at each operator station. Ash trays??  HA, they had auto-style

Re: "Personal" Computers (Was: Details about IBM's early 'scientific' computers)

2017-11-15 Thread Jon Elson via cctalk
On 11/15/2017 07:09 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: Earlier, there was the SAGE computer (the air defense one, not the PC by the same name), which had built-in ash trays at each operator station. Ash trays?? HA, they had auto-style CIGARETTE LIGHTERS BUILT INTO the "radar screen"

Re: "Personal" Computers (Was: Details about IBM's early 'scientific' computers)

2017-11-15 Thread Mark J. Blair via cctalk
> On Nov 15, 2017, at 5:09 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk > wrote: > > > Earlier, there was the SAGE computer (the air defense one, not the PC by the > same name), which had built-in ash trays at each operator station. With all of the possibly apocryphal stories of

Re: "Personal" Computers (Was: Details about IBM's early 'scientific' computers)

2017-11-15 Thread Paul Koning via cctalk
> On Nov 15, 2017, at 8:06 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk > wrote: > > On 11/15/2017 02:39 PM, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote: > >> Perhaps the glass-room meme isn't so much bogus, as it is a sign of >> the cultural times. In those days, the big machines were very >>

Re: "Personal" Computers (Was: Details about IBM's early 'scientific' computers)

2017-11-15 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk
On 11/15/2017 02:39 PM, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote: > Perhaps the glass-room meme isn't so much bogus, as it is a sign of > the cultural times. In those days, the big machines were very > expensive, and required a lot of support -- that meant special > power, air conditioning, raised

"Personal" Computers (Was: Details about IBM's early 'scientific' computers)

2017-11-15 Thread Rick Bensene via cctalk
I wrote: >> While the definition of the term "personal computer" varies depending >> on who is using the term, these machines, and others like them, were >> designed to be used at a much more personal level than the large-scale >> mainframe machines housed in the glass-walled rooms where only