Talk:History of computing hardware (1960s–present)

message: I'm no designer, but would it be possible to clean up the table for the "History of Computing" series.  It is a bit of an eye sore.
--Small business 18:21, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: General

message: : With the development of storage area networks and server farms of thousands of servers, by the year 2000 the minicomputer had all but disappeared, and mainframes were largely restricted to specialised uses. The Google server farm is thought to be the largest, with a total calculation rate three times that of Earth Simulator or Blue Gene, as of 2004.
This is bull-shit. Mainframe is still IBM's most profitable branch (literally billions of dollars earned), because banks and governments would never accept the inherent unreliability of PC-farms. Also, PC based clusters simply cannot have the vast I/O performance, traditional to mainframes, which these big brothers require. Without tremendous I/O bandwidht (e.g. serve 15,000 interactive users and six fully loaded ATM circuits at the same time) the CPU power is of little real-world use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.70.48.242 (talk) 15:00, 25 January 2005
 
Amen. Definition of mainframe: an obsolete device still used by thousands of obsolete companies serving billions of obsolete customers and making huge obsolete profits for their obsolete shareholders. And this year's run twice as fast as last year's. Signed, an enterprise architect for one of the US's largest banks. 
65.25.216.35 03:59, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mainframes

message: I worked in a software store in Saint Louis Missouri from 1979 to 1981 and the TRS-80 was the dominant business machine.  Small businesses were paying $300-$500 1979 dollars for database and accounting packages plus $50 per hour for custom programming for their TRS-80. TRS-80's success in the custom business accounting and database markets got IBM's attention. Review the article on TRS-80 and it's contiuation even into emulators being written for Windows. The number of clones also testifies to it's success making it the foreshadow of what was to come in the IBM market. We need national sales figures for Apple and TRS-80 cited and figures for total sales of software products for both machines.  Working on a separate section for TRS-80  Alatari 13:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tandy's Dominance

message: Clipped the details of the cloning legal challenge and reverse engineering... interesting stuff, but in essence a digression:
"Because they expected a well-funded legal counter-attack, Compaq engineers developed a special reverse-engineering method called "clean-room" development, in which all reverse-engineered code was provably written from an English specification, and therefore could not possibly be an illegal copy of the copyrighted IBM code.
Legal battles established the legitimacy of the machines, and the lower prices made them popular.  Some introduced new features that the popular brands didn't have — the Franklin, for example, had lowercase display that the Apple II lacked, and Compaq's first machines were portable (or "luggable" in the terminology later developed to distinguish their quite heavy suitcase-sized machines from laptops)."
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nkedel (talk • contribs) 20:41, 7 June 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cloning

message: This is something you may find useful for summarising the article (see source to see how it works):
ImageSize  = width:400 height:400
PlotArea   = left:40 right:10 top:10 bottom:10 
DateFormat = yyyy
TimeAxis   = orientation:vertical order:reverse format:yyyy
Period     = from:1730 till:1860
AlignBars  = early
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:20 start:1740
ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:10 start:1730
Colors =
  id:gray value:gray(0.7)
# there is no automatic collision detection,
# so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap
Define $dx = 20 # shift text to right side of bar
PlotData =
  bar:event width:10 color:Red shift:($dx,-4) 
  
  from:start till:end color:red
  
  mark:(line,white)
  at:1747 text:"1747 Dr. James Lind: Lime juice cures scurvy"
  at:1770 text:"1770 Antoine Lavoisier: oxidation of food causes body heat"
  at:1816 text:"1816 François Magendie: protein is an essential food"
  at:1840 text:"1840 Justus Liebig: chemistry of sugar, fat and protein"
TextData =
  tabs:(25-left)
  pos:(100,400)
  fontsize:12
  text:"Timeline"
Regards, Samsara contrib talk 15:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeline 

message: To contributing authors of this article, I'm currently working on rewriting personal computer to make it something respectable.  My hope is that it can be a featured article in the near future.  This article has a pretty good history of the home computer and personal computer, and any editors who worked on it that would like to help on personal computer would be much appreciated.  Thanks in advance! -- uberpenguin 19:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  An invitation/plea 

message: Which was the first computer to utilise a cathode-ray tube to display information? (I discount the Williams tube used by the Manchester 'Baby' (SSEM) because in that machine the CRT was actually the random-access memory device.) When I first started using computers in the late 60s, results were always output either on punched tape, punched card or paper printout. The idea of hooking up a TV screen, now so obvious, was very rare. --82.138.200.126 16:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  VDUs 

message: The article is not complete. Some computer are still missing e.g. FM Towns
:Then be bold and add them yourself. :-) — Wackymacs 08:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  not complete 

message: What does triumph of the Nerds have to do with this article. Who knows maybe it does have something do with this article but Im just not quite sure. -- This unsigned comment was added on 03:25, 2006 September 5 (UTC) by Aceofspades1217 (Talk)
:Triumph of the Nerds is a 1996 documentary about the history of the personal computer revolution, it covers quite a bit of old hardware including the Altair, IBM PC, Xerox Alto and Macintosh. — Wackymacs 08:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Aceofspades1217 has obviously never seen the documentary. C'mon man it's a classic 2600:1700:5F81:22C0:4931:DA09:967B:B762 (talk) 01:59, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Triumph of the Nerds 

message: We jump right into the Apple II and IBM PC? C'mon, let's make this a litlle more deep - there's a lot of interesting stuff happening in the gradual transition between vacuum tube computers, and discrete transistors to the slow progression in SSI and LSI integrated circuits, and *then* Intel takes over the Earth. That's the trouble with an encyclopedia written by teenagers...no perspective. --Wtshymanski 22:51, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You referring to the intro paragraph or the entire article?  Don't assume everyone watching this page is under 40.  Alatari 15:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The whole article needs a tune-up. We have perfectly good articles on home computers and personal computers, we don't need to re-cap them here. We need more about the revolution that solid-state, ICs, and LSI made in big iron.  Is there *anyone* over 40 watching the article, or at least someone under 40 who can crack open a book or two? --Wtshymanski 05:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

text: If the pre-1960 article has 1960 info then it does need cleaning.Alatari (talk) 03:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  More than bitty boxes 

message: I'm organizing by date wherever possible.  Especially the pictures. And adding pictures to make the article interesting. Alatari (talk) 03:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Histories of individual brands of home computers belong in their respective articles - this article should be more of an overview and should NOT get bogged down describing how the Binford 64 shown at the June CES was replaced by the Binford 128 at the fall Comdex, until the company went bankrupt the following spring. Overview! Important historical developments!  Encyclopedia, remember, not trivia manual.  This article should acknowledge personal computers as becoming important especially after the mid 1990's but there's a whole lifetime in the period where most people never saw anything closer to a computer than a punch card for thier electric bills. More about big iron, less on gameboxes. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Article clean-up

message: Need a 1977 original Apple ][ pic whcich had a tape deck for I/O.  The current pic is from 1978.  Alatari (talk) 03:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture call

message: :Image:Data General Super Nova.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 21:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Data General Super Nova.jpg

message: This article has no section on cellphones. This is a huge omission!--greenrd (talk) 21:26, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You are so right, how can there be an omission this big? Who is running this page? 2600:1700:5F81:22C0:4931:DA09:967B:B762 (talk) 01:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mobile phones 

message: I propose renaming this article from History of computing hardware (1960s–present) → History of computing hardware since 1960 as more concise czar ♔ 16:42, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename 

message: Hi all, 
In my opinion the section Computer Systems and Important Hardware Timeline is quite biased towards Apple Inc. It is not true that the main advances on computer systems from 1998 on are only the Apple Inc products. This is section is not neutral. Samsung, LG, Motorola have great products that could be considered as the annual hardware reference as well --Xbosch (talk) 16:10, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair point. Feel free to add other processors/hardware to the tables. nagualdesign 19:23, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

text: Apparently the only advances in computing between 2000 and now are from Apple - how anyone could write that and consider it in the spirit of neutrality is baffling. iPhone releases past the first do not need to be included. New laptop models from Apple do not need to be included. The first release of Android should be. The release of the Raspberry Pi should be. It's not a section for every 'computing' release, it's for significant events. 92.0.104.159 (talk) 01:16, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It's probably best to try and add other hardware to the list for now, and leave the trimming for later. nagualdesign 02:25, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias on the Computer Systems and Important Hardware Timeline section 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 5 external links on History of computing hardware (1960s–present). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20020209154232/http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/gernelle.htm to http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/gernelle.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160303210719/http://febcm.club.fr/english/chronoa10.htm to http://febcm.club.fr/english/chronoa10.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20010605232405/http://www.ox.compsoc.net/~swhite/history.html to http://ox.compsoc.net/~swhite/history.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090705015058/http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/History/ to http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/History/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041115011247/http://davidguy.brinkster.net/computer/ to http://davidguy.brinkster.net/computer/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 02:16, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: We shouldn't have to read into the article to find out it's about 1966 onwards. I propose that the title be changed to "...(mid-1960s - present)" (although I'd also argue that "present" is never a good term to use in an encyclopedia, but don't want to detract from my main point).72.16.99.93 (talk) 20:36, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually the earliest date is 1963 so I personalyly don't have a problem with the title. There probably should be links to articles on 1st and 2nd generation computers. Tom94022 (talk) 06:54, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title is wrong/misleading 

message: The 1960's were dominated by IBM and the Seven Dwarfs, yet I can find no mention, outside the timeline, of major product lines from   Burroughs, Control Data Corporation (CDC), General Electric,  Honeywell, IBM, NCR, RCA or UNIVAC, to say nothing of, e.g., Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-6 and PDP-10, Philco TRANSAC S-2000, Scientific Data Systems (SDS) 9 and Sigma series. 
The 1960s was an era of radical innovation, in which, e.g., I/O channels, interrupts, changed from rarities to standard features, and in which concepts such as digital communications, display terminals, interactive computing, operating systems, paging, segmentation, time sharing and virtual machines either originated or came into their own. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 05:05, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not entirely surprising that a single article covering a 60-year span in a field that has advanced as quickly as computing might give short shrift to some topics.  Perhaps this article should be split into multiple articles. Guy Harris (talk) 00:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the focus on generations and components making up the hardware it is not surprising that most of the companies listed in this talk didn't make the article as for the most part they were followers.  They all do have separate articles as do most of the radical innovations also listed, BTW, including Channel I/O.  It does seem like the business aspects of the computing industry is not in any one Wikipedia article but that would be a huge article.  Tom94022 (talk) 06:43, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

text: After further thought it's probably a good idea to both rationalize two articles, this one and its precursor History of computing hardware and to include for each generation brief statements about the business aspects and key technological innovations beyond components.  Rationalization should include moving much of the 3rd and 4th generation material from the precursor article into  this one.  's lists above are interesting but it might be difficult to find reliable sources to support inclusion of any one company or technology in any one generation (IBM and the BUNCH a notable exception as to available RS's).  Tom94022 (talk) 17:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a lot of information in conference proceedings, house organs, e.g., Bell System Technical Journal,  IBM Systems Journal, IBM Journal of Research and Development, and professional society publications, e.g., IEEE Annals of the History of Computing; unfortunately not all are publicly available. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing all of the players in the 1960s 

message: Does anybody have dates for
*GE
**605
**625
**635
*Honeywell
**DDP-516
*RCA
**301
**501
**601
*Sylvania
**S 9400
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 05:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need dates for timeline 

message: The article is very much US-centric. I believe that it should mention companies and computers in, e.g., England, France, Israel, Japan. Although some European companies sold re-branded computers from US companies, Europe had a robust computer industry of its own, as did Japan.
As a secondary issue, the article is missing the history of university computers, e.g., Golem at the Weizmann Institute, ILLIAC at multiple universities. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  History outside of US and USSR