on 16:34 Tue 08 Feb, Raymond Lillard (ryl@sonic.net) wrote:
On 02/08/2011 03:28 PM, Dr. Ed Morbius wrote:
on 17:02 Tue 08 Feb, Les Mikesell (lesmikesell@gmail.com) wrote:
On 2/8/2011 4:40 PM, Johnny H wrote:
Thanks Mark, for this and your previous email.
Unfortunately, the thing he will probably be most remembered for is the 1977 quote: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."
I respectfully disagree. One mis-statement in a public speech does not come close to defining the man.
The statement is generally quoted without context as it is here. He was actually speaking of computer controlled homes, (temperature, lighting, etc...) rather than the PC (entertainment and communication) found in most homes today. We are of course, sneaking up on the home control thing (energy management), so in time he will have been mistaken in the context he intended.
Ironically, in those years my well appointed apartment was furnished with a surplus PDP-8, an air mattress, stereo system and a Mr Coffee. This was of course prior to wife and family. :-) I did get to keep the stereo system.
In fairness, Olsen wasn't the only one to make a comically understated estimate of future widespread computer use. Ed Yourdon proclaimed in 1975 (the year Apple Computer was founded): "unless you're very rich or very eccentric, you'll never have your own computer". In fairness, he fessed up to it in a later book: http://bit.ly/hlIO1v
Others have made similarly short-sighted remarks in public places. Most of us make them on less exalted stages and so are not called to account.
Most of us aren't CEOs of leading tech firms, with a core professional competency being to sort which way the wind blows (or self-proclaimed tech visionaries in Yourdon's case).
That said: in tech, the wind changes direction often, and there are many examples of the one-time pack leader making what are seen to be highly inaccurate dismissals of an upstart technology or products. Usually in the midst of trying to turn back the tide.
I'm just wracking my brains right now to think if there might possibly be some examples involving Linux, but I can't for the life of me think of one.