David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote: I rather suspect that HP did not think that they could make a major profit > in this new field. >
That is somewhat true . . . but they were not stupid. They later jumped in in plenty of time to make money. The early history of microcomputers is well documented. You can learn what they said, and did. > No one estimated the future potential of small computers at that time. > That is incorrect. I know of at least three people who did: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and me. Okay, there were thousands of others. Seriously, the rapid increase in sales did not surprise me a bit. Only two things have surprised me about the development of small computers: 1. The tremendous increase in the size of hard disks. The price/performance has improved much more than microprocessors or Internet bandwidth. NHK recently reported that there are now more bytes of data recorded than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of earth. That's astounding! 2. The lack of progress in operating system software. Windows is not much better than Data General RDOS, circa 1980. A modern laptop is nothing but at minicomputer with a bag on it, and I don't mean that in a good way. In the book I wrote: "A personal computer is essentially a 1979 minicomputer with a flashy but unreliable operating system grafted onto it. Programmers in 1979 were able to master personal computers in a few hours, and to this day personal computers have no functions or capabilities that would baffle a programmer from that era." A "programmer from that era" meaning myself, obviously. That is not quite true. I am impressed by voice input. I am astounded by robotics such as Google's self-driving automobile, and the Mars Curiosity rover. That stuff, by golly, makes you realize this is the 21st century. - Jed
