The 10 Most Influential Computers
Saw this today. Not sure Id include the ZX81 but rather the Spectrum as it was more popular.
What do you guys think? Do you agree with the selection?
http://pcplus.techradar.com/feature/features/10-most-influential-computers-06-07-10
What do you guys think? Do you agree with the selection?
http://pcplus.techradar.com/feature/features/10-most-influential-computers-06-07-10
Post edited by RND on
Comments
wtf is an abbacus, it is just a toy. might as well put speak and learn on there.
yer wii has got an entry.. for getting lardy gits like myself off the sofa :) hehe
yer the worlds biggest selling computer EVER doesn't get a mention ;)
very English list if you ask me..
It's the first computer I got and had a huge impact on me..type ins, learning basic etc.
I don't think the Mac deserves a place there.....it was the software which was important on that machine and the mouse I suppose... (questionable as they were not the only ones working on point and click interfaces..and they stole it from Xerox etc)..not the computer.
The commodore PET should be there instead of the MAC if anything. One of the first all in one Desktop computers, used in businesses and education extensively and ultimately lead to the development of the biggest selling home computer...the mighty brown bread bin.
EDIT: Apple one should be there too..
it has some sweet games. surely that makes it worthy. :razz:
The Spectrum certainly was more popular, but I'd think the ZX81 was far and away the more influential which is what the list is supposedly about.
Anyway, I thought they were doing quite well until they got the Mac, which shows this for being the thinly disguised piece of Apple fandom that it is. The truly influential machine in terms of WIMP interfaces would be the Xerox star.
If there is an Apple Computer that's worth a place, it's the Apple II as it was one of the first trio of complete home systems alongside the TRS80 and the PET 2001; all can claim to have come first depending on whether you go by the date they were launched, first shipped or were available in stores.
The Apple I was just a simple microprocessor board of which there were many around at the time; Commodore's equivalent product was the KIM-1 and both are pre-dated by machines like the MITS Altair 8800.
I must admit i'm happy as hell to have gone through those years in the 80's, exciting as anything when computers first came out (and farrrr better than those boring board games !) and seeing how its changed over the years.
Scary thing is it still seems like just yesterday.
Then later thinking a 66 mhz PC was super quick etc!! (i'll get my pipe and slippers).
Firstly the ZX81 opened us up to the microchip revolution and gave us all a starry-eyed idea as to what computers in the home could be capable of in 10 or 20 years.
Then the Spectrum suddenly blasted it all away with colour, sound and games. The future arrived early and everyone wanted to make their dreams come true with it. You can't leave it out of the list.
As for the others, yes, not too bad a list, just somewhat cobbled together withy little thought. I didn't know what an ENIAC or a DEC PDP-8 was, so I guess I'm now informed, but I think that the IBM PC (or moreover, the Apple Mac) has had very little influence. For most of us it was just a tool that did the job (not-very-well.)
And where's the most influential computer of all... The Cray X-MP! Surely that was a beast that had many people wondering about the future and how it would change our lives?
Er... and what did you type that in with if it wasn't a highly evolved version of the IBM PC? ;)
I suppose there are a few people out there who use machines based on the ARM or POWER CPUs, smartphones and games consoles to access the internet, but pretty much all modern computers are just that.
and even then they can't escape the x86 or it's derivative architectures, since that's what's running most of the internet :)
Yeah, I used them, but I certainly found nothing influential about them. They didn't influence anything I did, nor allow me to break any barriers in my work. I just complained about them and hoped that something better would be invented, something that would be worthy of my time. I guess it was also the limitations of software back then.
It's similar now, with the PC being a box of nothing to run the software you need. Current PCs are so restrained because of software limitations, but there's enough good (and influential) programs out there to make things better than it used to be. Now it's the software that makes the machine, while back in the 80's, the computer was as influential as the software, because you could do things with them. That's not so easy on modern PCs or their immediate predecessors.
See what I'm trying to say? :S :)
that sounds pretty influential to me :p
the IBM PC and compatibles, and the subsequent derivative architectures that have dominated the computing world for the last 20 years completely changed the nature of the industry... The huge range of *compatible* computers led to the dominance of DOS, and then onto Windows. This to me is a pretty influential step :)
The software industry has gone from having to code binaries hand tuned to every machine you want to run it on (every version is a port) to targeting a single architecture and API, knowing that you can sell your software to anyone running Windows NT, and have it work on whatever hardware they are using.
Standardisation is the key here, you see it in other industries. In the industrial revolution Joseph Whitworth brought about the standardisation of parts, with his system of standard threads. This was an essential step towards mass production. The IBM PC was the computer industry's whitworth thread. It was an essential stepping stone towards mass production of *software*
Yup, I was reffering to the Speccy with that comment.
Is it the computer that's influential, or the step itself? I'm not denying that early IBM PCs dominated the market and paved the way for things to come, but rather that it all happened through marketing, necessity and a whole lot of back-stabbing, rather than by people being inspired by it, which is how I'm basing my argument. All the computers on the list have to share the same ideal or it's meaningless. So as the ZX81 is the benchmark to all home computers and has a story that relates to the considerations of the common household user, that's how I judge the others on the list.
When the computer market began there were obviously plots and power-plays against competitors, but the consumer was still allowed to see for themselves which computers to buy - and work out what they could do with them. For me, these are the machines that were most influential and beyond that it was the software that took over while the boxes played second-fiddle.
Regarless of what "great things" have been achieved with them.
The emphasis is on influence, not on achievements.
In defence of the Mac, it was the machine that introduced the GUI to the world. Xerox didn't know what they had. The Star wasn't having much influence sitting in the PARC labs waiting for someone with $75,000 burning a hole in their pocket. The original Mac system software was quite a refinement on the Star too. Overlapping windows for a start. Apple also paid for the intellectual property, so the theft accusations are a bit silly.
it was the cloning that made the architecture take off as the de-facto standard, but the IBM PC was the design that started it all. That design influenced compaq and then all the other manufacturers and has influenced more or less every personal computer since. (excepting the power PC based macintosh etc, but even they've given in to using the x86 arch now)
This is how I understand "influential computer" The computers that influenced the development and use of computers.
I'm not sure I'd put the pdp8 in the list, but then I suppose the pdp was where unix and C came from. I agree 10 is a small number to have to pick and there are lots of other things I would put in the list. On the whole though I think that article has got it about right.
I'd agree with that, The babbage machines were a dead end, as you say he never even completed them.
Also while Colossus was the first electronic programmable computer I wouldn't have thought it's influence was huge either, since the whole thing was top secret and all the machines were destroyed at the end of the war. Some knowledge will have leaked out of Bletchley of course, but generally speaking everything was invented again after the war by people who didn't even know Colossus had ever existed
The concept of a mechanical 'counting machine' being possible was I am sure influential on everything that followed, so whether it actually got built or not didn't really matter. It's influence was getting people thinking about it.....which, could be argued, lead to all modern computers.
it also paved the way for modern day government computer projects like the NHS patient records system.
What you do is convince the government to give you loads of money and never actually deliver anything that works :lol:
a great legacy of computer projects sinking tax payer's money ;)
By the same logic I am surprised that a Slide Rule isn't on the list for the same reasons.
The ZX81 is far more influential than the Spectrum for a lot of reasons. Its cost was revolutionary, that gave it an availability to the general public never seen before. Also the ease of programming had never really been seen before as was the ability to use cheap (though crap) storage. All the Spectrum did was build on it which is evolutionary.
I would have gone for the custom Honeywell DDP-516's BBN made into IMPS. Without those no internet.
Xerox 8010 Star information System - First machine to ship with a mouse.
Colossus - No argument, massive influence and big advances.
Deep(er) Blue - Just for scaring people into realising what computers could do.
The Manchester Baby - No argument.
ENIAC - No argument
IBM PC - No argument