[ML-General] Looking to develop curriculum for childrens technology camps

[Chris Bero]

>
> Where does the quad core android phone in my pocket fit on this chart?
>

Psh, that's a phone not a computer, silly.

Chris Bero

On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 6:57 PM, Matt <brimstone at the.narro.ws> wrote:

> On 02/07/2016 07:52 PM, david wrote:
> > Nits to pick:
> > Computers:
> > mainframe -- huge, multi-million dollar dinosaurs that have 1 to few
> > processors but engineered to serve thousands of ($$$) terminals and
> > designed to centralize data and functions.  Examples IBM, Unisys,
> Honeywell;
> > mini-computer -- washing machine sized computers, mostly for engineering
> > departments.  examples DEC PDP 8, PDP 11, Wang mini's, and so on.  Cost
> > tens of thousands of dollars and up;
> > micro-computers -- desktop machines originally designed for
> > single-person computing, but boy, did it grow up!  Cost around $1,000
> > and up;
> > Now, we have what I term the pico-computers (to follow the name history)
> > -- mostly designed as embedded device, grew into system-on-chip capable
> > of handling some desktop functions as long as they are not
> > comute-intensive.  Cost $5 to a few hundred, with peripherals covering a
> > wide spectrum.
> >
> > What's next?  A nano-comuter (quantum machines?)  Interfaces to humans
> > still gonna cost the same as all tiers but the (outdated) mainframe.
> > Capable of enormous compute power, memory requirements/accomodations
> > will be phenomenally large.
> >
> > Meaningless historical trivia:  The IBM PC was designed as a *terminal*
> > only, for their mainframes and the IBM engineers and marketers had
> > deduced it was incapable of operating as a stand-alone computer.
> > Follow-on trivia: in 1983, I designed and installed a network of PC's in
> > a department in a nuclear power plant, for purposes of database,
> > record-keeping, and some compute-intensive jobs.  When IBM came out and
> > examined what I had done, they turned white as a sheet and said, out
> > loud and to the room, "This is impossible."  And after the PC has
> > already established itself as a capable (sort of) stand-alone office
> > computer.  Yet it worked for many years.  My OS of choice at that time
> > was QNX, a variant of UNIX, of course.
> >
> > David Merchant
> > Man, how I do ramble sometimes.
>
> David,
>
> Where does the quad core android phone in my pocket fit on this chart?
>
> #matt
>
>
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