World’s oldest original working digital computer gets a reboot

Layback Bear · 22 Nov 2012

Good point whs. When the big boys like IBM said the personal computers was a bad idea and Mr. Bill Gates thought different.

whs · 22 Nov 2012

Yeah, I know. IBM really mucked it up. On the other hand, there is very little money to be made with PCs - and that was below the IBM radar screen.

bigmck · 22 Nov 2012

I heard that Bill Gates tried to sell the DOS program to IBM, but they did not think it was worthwhile. Did anyone else hear that?

indianacarnie · 22 Nov 2012

bigmck said:

I heard that Bill Gates tried to sell the DOS program to IBM, but they did not think it was worthwhile. Did anyone else hear that?

History of Computers - Microsoft's First Operating System MS-DOS

And I had read this before, you might find it interesting.

Did Bill Gates Steal the Heart of DOS? - IEEE Spectrum

Night Hawk · 22 Nov 2012

Layback Bear said:

Good point whs. When the big boys like IBM said the personal computers was a bad idea and Mr. Bill Gates thought different.

It wasn't Bill Gates but Steve Jobs that brought in the desktop concept. BG brought in the OS side of things with Windows 1.0. Unfortunately the two went off in different directions.

Now if SJ had been working on some Windows desktop ideas we would be seeing some real powerhouse 7 machines these days!

No steam power accepted! No covered wagons please!

King Arthur · 23 Nov 2012

Layback Bear said:

indianacarnie was the first computer steam powered? How many Conestoga wagons did it take to gather all the parts.

While the number of wagons remains uncertain, there is little doubt that there was a lot of dysentery and river crossings involved.

whs · 23 Nov 2012

bigmck said:

I heard that Bill Gates tried to sell the DOS program to IBM, but they did not think it was worthwhile. Did anyone else hear that?

In fact there were early negotiations between Gates and IBM and the early versions (before 3.1) ran the IBM PCs. I myself had a 486 that my staff manager had gotten me (in 1991) - but I never used it. He thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, I thought it was a toy.

Night Hawk · 23 Nov 2012

I first ran with the Basic type programming seen on the Epson HX-20 and then ran into 3.1 sitting on a i386 while schooling in electronics. It wasn't long after I had picked up a used i386 desktop but stuffed with 5 1/4" floppy drives however.

The one at the school had a 3 1/2" in that one at the time as well as the i486 model sitting right next to it for writing up resume's.