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Comment by charcircuit | Hacker News Reader

The modern era was the current era when that term was coined. The usage of modern in modern computers does not refer to the modern era. Here is a link to an example of Intel using the term "Modern CPU Architecture."

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-tec...

Here Intel is talking about CPUs from the present. It isn't talking about CPUs from the 1940s.

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Quite a hill to die on. If I were to exhibit the same kind of pedantry you are, where a compound noun can have exactly one meaning regardless of context and specialized terms are disallowed, then I'd point out that computer != CPU so your example is irrelevant.

Folks here are genuinely trying to help. "Modern computer" clearly has a special meaning in the context of building a computer from scratch; the term is used in contrast to calculators or specialized number-crunching machines, both of which are computers and are of interest to tinkerers.

>where a compound noun can have exactly one meaning

I am not trying to assert that. In computing when setting out to design or make something "modern" that has 1 expected meaning.

>then I'd point out that computer != CPU

The book focuses on the CPU part of the computer, but the way memory, graphics, and input is done isn't modern either.

>the term is used in contrast to calculators or specialized number-crunching machines

Those have CPUs in them too and most would be more advanced than the CPU from this book.

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