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

[Jon Doezal]

Not just any phone, a microphone.

On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 10:08 PM, Chris Bero <bigbero at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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 still gonna cost the same as all tiers but the (outdated) mainframe.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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>
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-- 
Sent from my Nokia N800.
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