Talk:History of personal computers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page contents originate from History section of Personal computer.--Kozuch (talk) 20:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

And I think it should go right back. This article doesn't even have a proper introduction, and now the personal computer article is unbalanced and missing relevant content that should at least be summarized there. There is a lot more to editing articles than cut'n'paste. And why isn't this called "history of personal computerS"? There is more than one, you know. --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
The History section was way too long for an artice thats main topic is not history. It is logical, that after such a move it will be necessary to write new History section (which I actually said in Talk:Personal_computer). I named the page in singular, because the original article is in singular too. I am placing Intro-rewrite template here to satisfy your lead request.--Kozuch (talk) 10:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] And another thing

  • Even worse, much much worse, is no mention of the IMSAI (!!!), mention only indirectly and in passing of the Altair (!!!), and no mention of the Mark-8. Nor are any other S-100 systems nor CP/M systems mentioned. These are some of the most important in the history; any such article should start with these and then expand into others.
  • Example of need for reorganization: PC as Time Magazine Person of the Year is mentioned at least 3 times. Dougmerritt (talk) 16:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Be Bold! - you know what to do. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
First hack at fixing these problems. Deleted the duplicated breathless stuff about Time Magazine. Little bit of microcomputer phase 1974 through 1977 period. A well-equipped 1975 microcomputer had a teletype for input/output and mass storage, and might have had as much as 64 K of RAM. BYTE magazine appears. Altair begat the S100 bus. 8-inch mainframe floppy drives were harnessed to micros, which begat various disk operating systems and eventually CP/M. S100 boxes became commonplace for industrial and business applications until RAM became dense enough to make single-board computers practical. Years of struggle with the limitations of 8-bit 64 K address spaces which were never really intended for general purpose computing. Various multi-tasking business systems with multiple terminals and minimal proprietary networking. Computing power and mass storage were low, and expensive, but an S100 system with a local guru to run it was still cheaper than approaching IBM to automate your dental office or law practice. Computer stores popped up. But 1023 different 5 1/4 inch floppy disk formats made stocking software painful. All this needs to be researched and put in the article. We need references. And pictures. The pre-1984 history of personal computers is much more interesting than the post 1984 period, in my opinion. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
talk about evolution from crazed early adopters, kit builders, factory made PET/TRS80, the home computer boom, pc comes along, mac comes along, office machines get cheaper, finally home machines use the same os and hardware as at the office, and of course the throwing open of the Net. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
OH, and we've come full circle. First you had to approach the mainframe priests to use the Big Iron and every CPU cycle had to have an accounting code. Then for a while you could buy a desktop and snub the data center guys. Now the desktop is networked and again so hard to use that you need another priesthood to keep Windows alive and again every page you print needs an accounting code (at least at the office). Running a network depersonalizes your personal computer. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] a possible reference

See A Chronology of Personal computers. Not much analysis of the significance of events, but lots of key dates and references. --Wtshymanski (talk) 00:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)