🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 1 Aug 2018, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:


>> There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
>> - Kenneth H. Olsen, founder of the Digital Equipment Corporation
>
> I don't know (if) or when that was said, but by the early 1960s,
> home computers (actually a terminal connected to a super mainframe)
> were definitely a hot topic.
>
But that was about selling home users timesharing.

It may actually be the same thing, an expectation of centralized computers 
taking care of everyone, instead of a whole lot of computers.

Realistically, some of the early dismissal comes from the size and cost of 
computers,  initially few would be able to pay for them, let alone find a 
place for them.  But they were also probably blinded, unable to see a 
potential, maybe again because of the size and cost.

But once timesharing took off, there's little difference between offering 
it to a business and offering it to a home.  Cost factors in, but someone 
would have designed a cheaper Teletype machine, or even a non-mechanical 
terminal, and once you had the wider pool of consumers to draw from, you 
might make up in quantity what you lost in lower fees per user.

Even in the internet age, lots of ISPs offered "unlimited" useage after a 
while, and always fine print meaning "you can't connect all the time". 
LIke gym membership, they were selling something with an expectation that 
useage for many would be relatively low, so they get the money but didn't 
have to meet peak demands because relatively few would draw the peaks.

Things got cheaper becasue demand went up, which in turn allowed 
manufacturing costs to go down, which then brought in more conusmers.  IN 
the early days, who could imagine the future?  I have a quad core 3.4GHz 
computer with 8gigs of RAM and a 500gig hard drive, and most of the time 
it sits idle.  It was refurbished two years ago, I paid $351.  Way better 
than those early mainframes, who could have imagined?

   Michael