Raymond Lillard ryl@sonic.net wrote:

...

The statement is generally quoted without context as it is here. <<

Correct. Olsen is also famous for saying "People will get tired of managing personal computers and will want instead terminals, maybe with windows." (by which he meant, a windowing graphical terminal, a la X). He was right about that; witness the popular disenchantment with MS Windows and its endless cycle of patching, upgrades, malware removal and registry cleanup, and the fascination with cloud services accessed by lightweight clients like netbooks, tablets and phones. That's been good for the Linux and Centos communities, who have provided low-maintenance services for clients both on the desktop and in the cloud.

I venture to say that DEC was an influence on many of the old hands here and on other lists. The PDP-8 was the first computer I actually got my hands on (as opposed to being walked through the machine room and told "Don't touch anything! This is where your code gets compiled and run - careful with the card deck on top of that tape drive behind you!"). And later, I found myself teaching business students to program on a PDP-11/70 running RSTS/E. DEC was certainly heavily influential in our industry, both directly and indirectly, and Olsen was - of course - hugely influential on DEC.

Best,

--- Les Bell [http://www.lesbell.com.au] Tel: +61 2 9451 1144