Well stated. The question of so-called “firsts” is very subjective, which is why I generally prefer histories that go back far enough to show the very early development stages of a given technology. This is far more educational, as it tends to answer more of the “what, why and how”, and lets the reader establish their own opinion on what may be “firsts”. On Fri, Jan 2, 2026 at 03:58 Jeffrey Jonas via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
An interesting article: https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-neverending-quest-for-firsts/ links to
https://computerhistory.org/blog/programming-the-eniac-an-example-of-why-com...
Visitors to the Computer History Museum frequently want to know: what was the first computer? The first personal computer? In his recent post, “Programming the ENIAC: An Example of Why Computer History is Hard < https://computerhistory.org/blog/programming-the-eniac-an-example-of-why-com...
,” Computer History Museum Board Chair Len Shustek notes that one of the difficulties of computer history, and indeed, history of technology in general, is the question of “firsts”: what was the “first” X, or in alternate form, “who [first] invented X?” The problem is that for many of these “firsts,” there is no simple answer, because as Len pointed out, “What ‘first’ means depends on precise definitions of fuzzy concepts.” What seem to be questions with easy, factual answers quickly devolve into debates over semantics ...