16 Jun
2018
16 Jun
'18
6:51 p.m.
From: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org>
> one of the Watson's saying there was a
probably market for
> <single-digit> of computers; Ken Olsen saying people wouldn't want
> computers in their homes; etc, etc.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that these were
urban myths... Does
anyone have actual references in their contexts?
Well, for the Watson one, there is some controversy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson#Famous_attribution
My guess is that he might actually have said it, and it was passed down orally
for a while before it was first written down. The thing is that he is alleged
to have said it in 1943, and there probably _was_ a market for only 5 of the
kind of computing devices available at that point (e.g. the Mark I).
E.g. Watson was talking about the multi-megabuck
704/709/7094 etc
No. The 7094 is circa 1960, almost 20 years later.
Olsens's quote was about the DEC-System 10...
Again, no. He did say it, but it was not about PDP-10s:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Olsen
"Olsen later explained that he was referring to smart homes rather than
personal computers." Which sounds plausible (in the sense of 'what he
meant',
not 'it was correct'), given where he said it (a World Future Society
meeting).
Noel