16 Jun
2018
16 Jun
'18
12:36 p.m.
On Fri, 15 Jun 2018, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
Precisely, but idiots keep repeating those "quotes" (if they were repeated
accurately at all) in some sort of an effort to make the so-called
"experts" look silly; a form of reverse jealousy/snobbery or something?
It really pisses me off, and I'm sure that there's a medical term for
it...
I came across a web site that had these populist quotes, alongside the
original *taken in context*, but I'm damned if I can find it now.
I mean, how many people could afford a 7094, FFS? The power bill, the air
conditioning, the team of technicians, the warehouse of spare parts...
Hell, I'll bet that my iPhone has more power than our System-360/50, but
it has nowhere near the sheer I/O throughput of a mainframe :-)
-- Dave
E.g. Watson
was talking about the multi-megabuck 704/709/7094 etc, and
I think that Olsen's quote was about the DEC-System 10...
At the time, those were the only computers out there. The "personal
computer" was the myth of the day. Go back and look at the prices IBM
and DEC were charging for their gear. Even in the modern context, that
hardware was more expensive than the rediculously inflated prices of
housing in Vancouver.