[SIGCIS-Members] Isaacson's book

Chuck House housec1839 at gmail.com
Tue Oct 7 05:45:32 PDT 2014


I was a bit snippy in my earlier comment; Tom Misa’s comment caused me to muse that maybe we should be grateful—selling 1000x as many books as any of us will surely boost interest in our field even if a few details are glossed or misconstrued.  And that has to be good

On Oct 6, 2014, at 8:24 PM, PeterEckstein at comcast.net wrote:

> On the interview, let me add:
> 
> Good: Recognizing that Atanasoff did not really invent the first "computer".
> 
> Bad: Saying that JVA worked alone, when in fact Clifford Berry did much of the engineering.  He was the "B" in the retrospectively named "ABC." 
> 
> Good: giving precedence to ENIAC and to some extent Colossus.
> 
> Rather bad: Never mentioning (that I heard, could be wrong) either Eckert or Mauchly by name.
> 
> 
> From: "Koblentz, Evan" <evan at snarc.net>
> To: "Haigh, Thomas" <thaigh at computer.org>, "Computer, SIG" <members at sigcis.org>
> Sent: Monday, October 6, 2014 4:02:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Isaacson's book
> 
> I heard Isaacson on NPR just now.
> 
> Good: Realistic treatment to Al Gore's contributions to the Internet.
> 
> Neutral: Power users today only learn software, not hardware, unlike in his transistor kit youth. (No mention of the present "maker" trend.)
> 
> Bad: Personal computing was invented in the Bay Area and Altair was the first one.
> 
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