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@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@snarc.net>
To: "Haigh, Thomas" <thaigh@computer.org>, "Computer, SIG" <members@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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