I hope the URLs weren't munged by the cut-and-paste 1) https://spectrum.ieee.org/video/geek-life/profiles/extended-directors-cut-te... Extended Director's Cut: Ted Nelson on What Modern Programmers Can Learn From the Past The inventor of hypertext talks about the birth of personal computing, the web, and how to think beyond the currently possible Editors Note: Due to popular demand, we're releasing this extended version of our interview with Ted Nelson, in which he talks about the work of Douglas Englebart, and in more detail about the origins of Xanadu, and how he views programs as art. … Back in the summer of 2016, Nelson was a keynote speaker at Vintage Computing Festival East in New Jersey and IEEE Spectrum had the chance to interview him off-stage. 2) computer history as of 1978 https://ia802603.us.archive.org/28/items/byte-magazine-1978-07-rescan/1978_0... July 1978 Byte: pg 48: ANTIQUE MECHANICAL COMPUTERS, Part 1: Early Automata History-Williams pg 64: The First Ten Years of Amateur Computing, by Sol Libes pg 84: A SHORT HISTORY OF COMPUTING History-Reid-Green pg 124: HOW TO CHOOSE A MICROPROCESSOR Architecture-Frenzel 3) compatibility is good, incompatibility is okay too The "how to choose a microprocessor" article noted that the Z80 succeeded by being 8008/8080 code compatible, thus capitalizing on the pre-existing code base. Being "PC compatible" was essential for years, thus the intel/AMD duopoly and the reason the intel Itanium failed. But ARM started to erode that, and now Apple Silicon: https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/the-mac-is-selling-li... The Mac Is Selling Like Never Before Thanks to the M1 Chip Apple's homegrown chip fulfills Steve Jobs' whole widget design philosophy