Comments on: Happy birthday IBM 1401!

By: gabriel reilly

gabriel reilly — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:11:51 +0000

Ah yeah, the good old days!would i be right in saying that we’ve developed more in the last 50 years than in the entire human history?

By: Karlin

Karlin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:44:45 +0000

Hi John — yeah, one of my favourite books on computing ever! If you look in my podcasts on this site, you’ll see I did a whole segment on the book with Iona Technologies co-founder Chris Horn, who chose it as his personal favourite for the ‘geek bookshelf’. If you liked the book you might enjoy having a listen.

By: John Timmons

John Timmons — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:23:51 +0000

Hi Karlin

Have you read Tracy Kidder “The Soul of a New Machine”. It also gives an insight into the world of computers in days gone by.

It’s about the development of a Mini Computer in the early seventies by a team from Data General.

John

Courtown

By: Dennis King

Dennis King — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:00:18 +0000

Hey Karlin,

I just discovered your blog via a posting by a Dublin IT engineer, Aonghus Ó hAlmhain, who blogs in Irish. Tá blag agam féin — i nGaeilge ar ndóigh! — le sé mhí anuas.

Dennis
Seattle

By: Brian O'Donovan

Brian O'Donovan — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:53:07 +0000

Karlin,

Thanks for another great article. 50 years might seem like a long time to many youngsters, but it is only about half of the average life expectancy. It is amazing to think that this mainframe was regarded as making computing more accessible to the masses (which it probably was at the time). Now even youngsters in third world countries probably have more computing power in the mobile phone in their pocket.

To quite Bob Dylan “The world it is a changing!”
Brian