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Comment by unimpressive | Hacker News Reader

>inventor of the home computer

hissssss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800

EDIT: The earlier title on HN said that Steven Wozniak was the 'inventor of the home computer' with no qualifications, the title has now been changed but HN won't let me delete the comment.

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Did you mean to say the 1950 Simon?

http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

They meant "Inventor of the home computer," not "Inventor of one of several obscure, complex devices that might be referred to as a 'computer,' found in the basements of a negligible number of professional engineers, scientists, and extremely advanced hobbyists."

By that definition, Woz is the best candidate for the job description. I could publish an article tomorrow describing how to build an inflatable sheep that runs TensorFlow, but that won't entitle me to claim I invented the first sentient sexbot.

So discussing earlier personal computers is equivalent to the absurdity of inflatable sheep. Brilliant commentary.

It saddens me when people don't get the point of a metaphor, and instead lean on the metaphor to discard the argument behind.

In this case, the point of the metaphor was to say that something obscure and barely sold/marketed is not a valid candidate for the "first X", where X, like "home computer" implies adoption.

Whether the parent used inflatable sheep or VCRs or thermometers as their metaphor is besides the point -- as the core of the analogy (the argument) remains the same.

It's also obvious that he used the sheep analogy for extra color/fun.

I also dislike this and I've often wondered if there is a word to describe this occurence.

To be clear, I don't mean to dismiss the work of the real pioneers of the small-computer world. Just pointing out that there was only one Prometheus who brought the fire down the mountain.

To stretch the analogy in a different direction, Altairs and the like were never going to grow into anything that people would recognize as a computer today. They were important from an evolutionary standpoint because they inspired and helped educate a generation of technology developers and advocates, but they were also dead ends.

On the other hand, if you pull the covers off of any desktop PC chassis today, almost every major component will be recognizable to anyone who ever owned a piece of Woz's handiwork. The IBM PC engineers weren't inspired by Altairs or Simons, but by the Apple II. (Which, itself, was the product of the last fight anyone ever won against Steve Jobs. Woz gets credit for that if nothing else.)

The Altair was very much like a modern PC in that it used a de facto standard S-100 bus and other standard peripheral connections, and was based on the Intel 8080 CPU which evolved into the 8086 used in PCs. It had the first commercial software. It was mass produced. It was able to run CP/M which has much more in common with DOS than Apple DOS.

The Apple II was more proprietary in nature and the line died out after the Apple III failed. Intel x86 based PCs are still made today. Edit - sorry, forgot about the IIGS.

We'll have to agree to disagree. There's nothing even remotely proprietary about the original Apple II -- seriously, have you ever seen a Red Book? And IMHO, nothing that didn't ship with a keyboard and a ready-to-use video display port can be considered either a "personal computer," or a progenitor of them.

It had an RS232 port that could be connected to a serial terminal with a keyboard. This is an emulator, but you get the idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxcFNOpnIIs

Sure looks a lot like any other early personal computer. Having a "video display port" seems like an arbitrary distinction.

Also if you want to talk about ubiquity, the TRS-80 which released a bit later in 77 than the Apple II massively outsold it.

True, the TRS-80 often gets short shrift in these arguments. What was revolutionary about it was the price, about $1K cheaper than an Apple II. It foreshadowed the day when almost everybody would be able to afford to own their own computer. I agree that the TRS-80 was an important milestone in its own right, even though it lost the race to call itself the "first recognizable PC," or whatever.

I think Apple's big win was in mindshare and getting the education market, maybe being more professional and establishing vendor relationships. You didn't see Altairs. I only knew about them from magazines. When I was in early gradeschool, all computers were Apple IIs as far as I knew.

The article was excellent, but you could have brought it up in a less smug way.

The Altair is pretty widely regarded as the first 'real' home computer. It's perfectly poised on that dividing line between "hobby electronics" and "consumer product".

I agree. I was just kidding GP.

I've never seen one in person though unlike Apple IIs, TRS-80s, TI-99/4As, etc.

I have to admit I've never seen those in person either. I have played with Amstrads, Amigas and Commodore 64s, though, and I have a BBC Micro in a box under my desk. :)

I see your Altair and raise a Micral:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micral

On the other hand, this never gets old:

http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

(Edit: blinkenlights-link already posted as I now notice …)

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