

Sixty years ago the modern computer was born in a lab in Manchester. - czik
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7465115.stm

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fiaz
_The room-sized computer's ability to carry out different tasks - without
having to be rebuilt - has led some to describe it as the "first modern PC"._

Definitely a landmark achievement for humanity, but hardly a "personal
computer".

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r7000
This is for a lay-audience.

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jamesbritt
How does using "PC" help the lay audience? Would simply using the word
"computer" been confusing?

Now the lay audience goes away with false understanding. Who wins with that?

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ajross
It's a little spun, I think. Clearly there were earlier computers (like ENIAC
and Colossus, which the article mentions) that also pioneered critical
innovations. Equally clearly, there were many more inventions to come. The
article seems to pick out "program stored in volatile memory" (ENIAC, at
least, was hand-programmed offline. I'm not sure about Colossus) as the
defining characteristic of the "modern computer".

Meh. I might argue that CMOS VLSI process technology was actually more
important, being the biggest "hard part" of figuring out how to manufacture
the actual computers we use in modernity. But whatever, everyone has their own
favorites I'm sure: do we all get to write articles for the BBC?

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adnam
Last weekened I visited my aunt who lives round the corner from the Museum of
Science and Industry in Manchetster - it's well worth a visit if you're in the
area. <http://www.msim.org.uk/>

