[ARC5] deathwatch for radio shack?

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <kgordon2006 at frontier.com>
To: <ARC5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 10:47 AM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] deathwatch for radio shack?


> On 26 Sep 2014 at 17:35, john rose wrote:
>
>>
>> Think of it! 5 (count`em 1 2 3 4 5) whole megabytes! You 
>> will never fill that baby up!
>
> "No one can possibly need more than 640K of RAM!" CEO of 
> Microsoft.
>
> "There will never be more than 6 IBM mainframe computers 
> needed in the entire
> world." IBM CEO.
>
> Sheesh...
>
> Ken W7EKB

    I find it interesting to look at how computers were 
treated in science-fiction in the 1940s and 1950s. Many 
stories of the world being taken over by very large scale 
computers which were out of control, etc. The computer in 
"2001 A Space Odyssey" is an example from a slightly later 
time.  No one seems to have thought of small personal 
computers that would empower people instead of enslaving 
them.  This was perhaps partly due to the general ignorance 
of what computers were or to the general ignorance of 
science or the fear of uncontrollable power from nuclear 
energy or to other things in our culture including the 
paranoia about the Russians. Whatever it was from it was so 
off the mark as to be ludicrous.
    I have no idea of what will become of Radio Shack but my 
understanding is that Bill Halligan had something to do with 
its founding.


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk at ix.netcom.com