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Oh, how I wish I could've been involved in the halcyon days of the computer industry. I'm sure it's all rosey looking from the perspective of someone who wasn't

by jchw 4y ago

Oh, how I wish I could've been involved in the halcyon days of the computer industry. I'm sure it's all rosey looking from the perspective of someone who wasn't there, but the scrappy young development teams, humble small organizations, mail-order software, and general naive optimism of the preceding era seems like it was so much fun. Probably very challenging, and I'm sure frustrating, but I can only imagine the satisfaction of having worked on the Macintosh and breaking so much new ground. I was born in time to experience the internet when it was a lot more fun and experimental, which I definitely am grateful for. I hope there are more "moments" like this in the future, though I can't help but feel they're mostly over when it comes to computers and technology. Things just can't stay scrappy and experimental forever.

Fr0styMatt88 4y ago
If you haven't read Masters of Doom before, I highly recommend it! Your comment reminded me of it.
diskzero 4y ago
It was pretty rosey for me, even with all the challenges, emotions and anxiety. I have experienced similar challenges, emotions and anxiety in jobs that were much less satisfying. I think the moments are out there still; you just have to seek them out. I wouldn't say working on Apple ][, Lisa, early Mac or other early PC efforts were as obvious and groundbreaking as they seem now. I think about a lot of parallel efforts going on at the time that I wish I could go back in a time machine to work on: Symbolics Workstations, early Wavefront/Alias software, Self, Smalltalk, Dylan and other languages that didn't become mainstream. There is so much out there that isn't over in computers and technology. It might be helpful to think about things that seem impossible, crazy and totally economically unviable. Sometimes we can let finding markets, solving scaleable problems and generating 10x returns for our investors cloud our vision.

by jchw 4y ago

Fr0styMatt88 4y ago

If you haven't read Masters of Doom before, I highly recommend it! Your comment reminded me of it.

diskzero 4y ago

It was pretty rosey for me, even with all the challenges, emotions and anxiety. I have experienced similar challenges, emotions and anxiety in jobs that were much less satisfying. I think the moments are out there still; you just have to seek them out. I wouldn't say working on Apple ][, Lisa, early Mac or other early PC efforts were as obvious and groundbreaking as they seem now. I think about a lot of parallel efforts going on at the time that I wish I could go back in a time machine to work on: Symbolics Workstations, early Wavefront/Alias software, Self, Smalltalk, Dylan and other languages that didn't become mainstream. There is so much out there that isn't over in computers and technology. It might be helpful to think about things that seem impossible, crazy and totally economically unviable. Sometimes we can let finding markets, solving scaleable problems and generating 10x returns for our investors cloud our vision.