on 17:02 Tue 08 Feb, Les Mikesell (lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> On 2/8/2011 4:40 PM, Johnny H wrote:
> > Thanks Mark, for this and your previous email.
> >
> > It is always sad when anyone dies, God rest his soul. To be honest, I
> > have never heard of him before but it appears he made a massive
> > contribution in his life and he is probably a good inspiration to many
> > people.
>
> 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."
That and snake oil.
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
The snake oil comment is also interesting in context. The main thrust
appeared to be that pouring the label "UNIX" over a pile of silicon and
bits didn't magically make all compatibility issues disappear:
http://sinix.org/blog/?p=16
Olsen without mentioning particular companies, likened some vendors
of Unix products to âsnake oilâ salesmen and said the claim that
Unix will resolve incompatibility problems within multi-vendor
networks is âa naive idea.â âIt still wonât resolve the problem of
interchangeabilityâ, he said, adding that the operating system is
just one of the several components needed to achieve compatibility.
He cited windowing ability and communications protocols as two other
major components.
Somewhat ironically, by the time Olsen made those comments (1987),
interchangeability was being addressed by the GNU project (the GNU
manifesto was written in 1985), windowing by the X11 project (1984), and
communications by TCP/IP (in BSD UNIX as of 1983).
Still, yes, among my first UNIX experiences were the campus PDP-11
systems, and I suffered for a while on VAX/VMS and Alpha/OpenVMS.
I've resisted the impulse to declare the death of a snake-oil salesman,
however.
--
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Robot Wrangler When you seek unlimited power
Krell Power Systems Unlimited Go to Krell!
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