[vcf-midatlantic] Inventor of the first personal computer dies - and it's not who you think

[Christian Liendo]

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 4:23 PM, william degnan via vcf-midatlantic
<vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
> Just want to say...I don't think Evan is saying the homebrew era stuff is
> not good, it's less evolved, kind of like cars were before the model T
> assembly line process was applied to cars.  There were many well-crafted
> cars before the model T, but they were harder to support, small scale
> operations.

When I think of "Homebrew" I think of the definition "made at home,
rather than in a store or factory." thats all.

I mean that was the term people used back then, I mean if I am wrong
please correct me

I understand where Herb prefers "craft computing" over "homebrew computing"

But for whatever reason it bothers me.

It's like when people call things artisanal.

I happen to like Homebrew because it sounds more grounded and it more
of what I believe people during that time would label those machines.


> When you compare the s-100s of 1976 with
> s-100s of 1986, clearly the former for "homebrew" in comparison.  Smart,
> crafted but certainly not industrially assembled.   The quality control of
> the industrial process was a necessary component of the appliance
> computers, ISA bus, IEE686 S-100, Apple II, etc.

Agreed. This is not to say there were bad or unsophisticated, they
were just not pre-assembled or pre-built.

I find the "Homebrew" era great because of all the various machines
that came out around that time.