We’ve been away for a few days celebrating Fallon’s fifth birthday in Orlando where the preferred destination has shifted from Disney to Universal Studios, source of all things Harry Potter. While we were away, IBM celebrated its 100th birthday by claiming, among other things, to have invented the personal computer, soiling the legacy of Ed Roberts and pissing-off all real geeks in the process. Here’s a video in which you’ll see IBM’s VP of Innovation innovating his way to this completely bogus claim at the 2:37 milepost.
This sin shall not go unpunished.
Among his milestones IBM’s VP of Innovation completely forgets to mention the company having helped automate the Third Reich.
And while IBM was celebrating other noteworthy achievements, a reader pointed out to me what he thought was an IBM data breach:
“My wife and I are Health Net customers. A month or so ago we received a letter from Health Net saying that their contractor, IBM, had been hacked and that our medical records including SS# had been stolen… You can imagine how I feel about it. I’m in favor of the bin Laden treatment for the hackers and serious bitch slapping for everyone else concerned, from the pointy haired managers to the OS pukes who have refused to create secure systems despite knowing how to do it. The people who have resisted IPv6, which provides authentication, over the last decade are another good target for serious bitch slapping. Someone said that the primary reason the computer industry advances is ridicule of second rate technology. Ridicule of insecure systems and networks is desperately needed.”
To be fair to Big Blue, it appears their system wasn’t hacked in the manner we’ve been discussing lately and IPv6 had nothing to do with it. Rather, in March IBM discovered nine disk drives were physically missing from the Health Net data center it runs in Rancho Cordova, CA. The drives contained personal and health data on 1.9 million of Health Net’s six million customers.
We’ve grown so unsensitized to these data losses that 1.9 million doesn’t seem a very big number anymore. And this particular data loss, since it doesn’t involve some invisible hand reaching through the wire, seems somehow less invasive. That surely must have been the way Health Net felt about it, given this particularly callous sentence from their press release about the loss: “While the investigation continues, Health Net has made the decision out of an abundance of caution to notify the individuals whose information is on the drives.”
Doesn’t this imply that Health Net believes that informing us of the loss of our medical data is optional?
Time for all you HIPAA lawyers out there to tell us what right we have to know when our personal health data has been stolen. Was Health Net just trying to spin this story in a smarmy direction or do they actually have no obligation to tell us?
As for IBM, this loss happened on their watch so what did they do about it? HealthNet outsourced its IT to IBM. IBM outsourcing involves a long check list of things to do to each server to lock it down and make it easier to support. IBM techs install support tools like antivirus and backup. Since they inherit network and application designs from the customer, IBM doesn’t guarantee they are hack proof.
Did you know that? I didn’t.
IBM tries to find problems, I’m told, bring them to everyone’s attention and they try to fix them. Sometimes a problem can’t be fixed or won’t be fixed in which case IBM writes a “risk letter” documenting Big Blue’s concerns and the business risks to the customer.
That’s what is supposed to happen. What really happens is usually a bit different. These days most IBM contracts are under funded to the point of being irresponsible. There may not be time or funding to do basics like securing the servers. With offshoring on top of outsourcing, very inexperienced people in foreign locations are doing much of the support work remotely.
But you can’t blame the physical theft of nine disk drives in Rancho Cordova on an entry-level support guy in Pakistan. This story appeared in Computerworld back in March and then quickly disappeared. I’d like to know what the Hell happened? Wouldn’t you?
As far as I can tell IBM never said a word on the subject.
Sometimes a “missing disk” is an inventory error or some other innocuous mistake other than it having gone for an unauthorized walk.
Not to mention Joe sometimes tech guys will upgrade hardware and forget to check off that it has been wiped, that is of course is it IS wiped and not just brought home by a tech or one of their friends. I was working across the street from a Verizon doing some “hired gun” PC upgrades and got to know the Verizon tech pretty well. When it was close to time for me to be moving on he said “Hey I know you like to refurb boxes for poor folks, ant to pull your truck up here?” and I ended up with 32 P4s that they had replaced. Imagine my surprise when I get home and not only did they boot but most of the data was still there! All I had to do was reset the password for the desktop and I could have had the DB of hundreds of Verizon customers!
Of course many here would have a heart attack, but the tech knew me and knew i wouldn’t do anything to damage my rep. I just pulled out Dban boot n’ nuke and reinstalled the OSes from disc image. you’d be surprised how many time PCs loaded with data are just “handed down” to someone the tech knows, sometimes wiped, many times not. So frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if these drives were upgraded and then the old drives passed out to friends/family of the tech. We tech guys can’t stand to waste anything and honestly destroying the drives is just stupid when a simple zero pass will make any data unrecoverable. I wouldn’t be surprised if these drives are in someone’s house right now as backup drives with them never knowing what they once held. It is just how tech guys roll.
Great insight!
Kevin, thank you for sharing that. That is just awful. Fact remains that the tech handing out machines that were his responsibility remains remains responsible for the data on those machines. They should wipe it — its just a simple process, right? — and then hand it out.
Pretty amazing, the first “personal computer” was a MITS wasn’t it? And the first “modern personal computer” was the Apple II (I mean the first where you could point at it and a child would recognise what it was).
The MITS was no Personal Computer it was kit, that by definition makes it not a Personal Computer. It was the first micro computer like the Apple I and many others but as far from a Personal Computer as you could get. Apple coined the term Personal Computer with the Apple II. As far as I know the Apple II and the TRS 80 were the first two Personal Computers. I don’t remember which came out first though.
The Tektronix 4051 predates to 1975. Ran BASIC, with graphics. A real computer. Shugart 8″ floppy. Ours sat on a movers dolly.
Yes, one of the micro computers of the day. The 8K RAM version factoring in inflation, would cost you $24,000.00 today.
Back in 1981 I worked for a small UK business which imported early desktop computers from the US. We were selling them as part of a relational database package aimed at pharmacies for patient/prescription/inventory management. Both the hardware and software were put together by a tiny outfit run from a hut in Belleville Illinois. At the time, Microsoft boasted in their advertising that the Belleville company were users of their COBOL compiler. how I wish I’d put 100 bucks into THAT little business!
Later that year we took delivery of a machine with an amazing 8″ Winchester hard disk drive. Everybody crowded round to see it. It was good for 10Mb and cost eight thousand pounds. In 1981!
Last week I bought a 1TB drive for 40 quid. Hey, Bob, where do you think we’ll be in 30 years’ time?
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the Xerox Alto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
Although a very innovative company, Xerox was really into business machines and systems.
Yeah, but that’s hardly personal (average man could own it…) Nobody said the MITS was the first computer… that would be silly.
Why does the fact that it was a kit disallow it? It was a computer and it was cheap enough for a “normal person”. To me that makes it the first “personal computer” the fact that there was some assembly (OK, it was a huge project in a box – I get that) shouldn’t count against it. Now whether or not a “normal person” might actually have wanted one, that’s another matter entirely…
I think the Apple II stands up though, it’s the first machine that fits my definition above (a computer, obtainable by a “normal person” – a reasonable definition I think) and is clearly recognisable as such by a “normal person” (the MITS thing looks like a box with switches and lights).
When the term “Personal Computer” was coined it was for a cheap micro computer that you would take out of the box, plug it in and it works. It had of the shelf software you could buy like games and business applications that the average home owner could use! It was not for only geeks like me. That’s why the term didn’t come out until the Apple II, TRS 80 and PET.
Well if you want to want to define the term to disallow the MITS that’s your choice, it’s your loss.
But that doesn’t make IBM right anyway. Probably just promotes the Apple II (I’m sure someone will argue that some machine that cost a year’s salary should come higher up the list… whatever).
But IBM didn’t invent the personal computer.
Saying that a computer is not a personal somputer because it had to be assembled is not correct. All of my computers at home, including a MITS 8800A were assembled from parts yet most of them rivel the best from the current personal computer manufacturers. From a functional point they are the same yet your definition says that they cant be personal computers.
Exactly what is personal about the Altair? I’d say it was a HC (Hobbyist Computer), not a PC. And it was a HC that did nothing except excite nerds (who had nothing better to do than dick around with a clunky piece of shit).
Actually as long as we are debating who had the first personal computer… there was the Processor Technology Sol System 20 which anyone would recognize as a personal computer AND it predated the Apple II and the TRS-80. It only required a monitor to get started. (just like the Apple II)
Wow, what memories you people bring back. I had a TRS-80 and later an “IBM compatible” machine built by some unheard of US manufacturer.
At work, we had a small micro that used three cassettes to sort accounting transactions. Then we went to a Burroughs mini computer with a console, terminals, and two stand-alone disk drives (Mork and Mindy). (If we brought the machine down too far, we had to use a paper punch tape with the bootstrap loader to get it back up again.) Final, the office went to networked microcomputers with access to the Internet.
Those were the days. I started writing programs and using computers with the old IBM punch card systems. The CPU had a rotating drum for storing the program and data.
Steve Wozniak did get the Apple 2 systems out a few months before the TRS-80’s hit the market, but I don’t recall there being a lot of places you walk into and buy the computer. Neither the Apple 2 or Commodore Pet, both launched at the time, had all that large of a distribution network that I recall. I personally would give it to TRS-80 given that it was the first real computer that was widely available to consumers. The Commodore Pet and Apple 2 were launched in the Spring of 1977 and the TRS-80 was launched in November 1977. I have to say that at the time it was the TRS-80 that was available in my town at the time and not the Apple 2 or Pet. The west coast may have found it easy to walk into a store and buy them, but central US didn’t see them until a bit later. In fact there never was a store in my home town that carried any Commodore computers until C64. I bought one of the TRS-80 units when it came out, and in fact still have it. It was until years later when the Apple IIe came out that I bought an Apple.
Physical loss of hard drives and laptops wouldn’t be a problem if they would simply encrypt sensitive data.
And if you are a person or entity that would specifically be targeted for your data, you should use whole disk encryption and always shut down your computer instead of using sleep mode.
Seriously, I don’t think that IBM is using sleep mode on their servers in the data center.
If I meant IBM I would have said “IBM” instead of “if you are a person or entity that would specifically be targeted for your data”.
Hard drives with sensitive data have been stolen from various companies and government entities, often inside laptops.
Well, they certainly invented the “IBM Personal Computer”…..
To which the phrase “I’m a PC” refers.
“I’m a PC” doesn’t refer to IBM, it refers to Windows.
Yes the whole phrase refers to Windows in the commercials, but the “PC” part refers to the IBM compatible devices that run Windows.
This is all highly disturbing.
– Anyone senior working for IBM who doesn’t know the history of the industry needs a caning. This is basic stuff, and if they don’t know it chapter and verse, then their heart really isn’t in their job and one has to question their commitment and their qualifications to do their job.
– The loss of health data is amazing. Although the loss of nine physical disks shouldn’t actually pose a huge problem I wouldn’t have thought. Given the way storage configurations work, I would have thought the data on the disks would be all but irretrievable once the disks were removed from the storage subsystem. The exceptions to this all involve complicity by the storage admins in the organization concerned.
Of course maybe we’re talking about a less complicated type of disk…
– The whole outsourcing/offshoring thing is a product of economic rationalism triumphing over common sense and experience. Total outsourcing never works because in the vast majority of cases the contractors don’t have any ownership of buy-in to the systems they are looking after. They don’t have to care. They just have to live up to contractual obligations, and if the customer’s lawyers weren’t sharp enough, then this can lead to all sorts of problems. And I have seen it happen time and again. As for offshoring – any
One who trusts their systems to this strategy deserves everything they get. From a systems support point of view it quickly gets very difficult. Timezone and language barriers are a reality and impede the support process. Forget your RTOs.
>> anyone who trusts their systems to this strategy
>> deserves everything they get
Unforunately, the people who’s personal data is in that system get what they DON’T deserve, which is to have their information stolen.
Yes, you’re quite right.
They’ve apparently forgotten that the Florida Operation that created the IBM PC was tasked to do so from off-the-shelf technology, to meet the threat from the Apple II. They completed their mission using a rip-off of QDOS, purchased for ~$25,000 by Bill Gates and backed by IBM lawyers, if my memory serves.
They bought QDOS outright for $50,000.
And were, eventually, sued by Seattle Computer. M$ lost, but by then the judgement was a trivial amount of money.
Should one mention the TRS-80 and the Commodore PET were outselling the Apple II in 1980?
I remember how Apple’s press release boilerplate used to cleverly state that Apple “ignited” the PC revolution because even though they more or less invented the PC as we know it (I like the “a child would know what it was test above) others came before them and in parallel.
Still the Apple II (1977) predated the IBM PC (1981) by many years.
Not only did they not invent it… they didn’t believe in it. It was a purely defensive move. They sooooo didn’t believe in it that they didn’t even care that they didn’t own the IP behind it and the rest is history.
I do battle every day with an IBM managed data center. One of my latest is managing the keys to encrypt tapes being sent out for archival. IBM sold my client a couple million in tape drive upgrades and SW to drive this thing… however, they will not own the responsibility of actually making sure the system is secure. Quite the opposite, they have required the client to manage the master keys of all the tapes. When it came down to it, it was apparent they would not agree that they would be responsible for securely managing a backup CD with this set of master keys, as responsibility would mean liability. So part of my job is to securely manage a CD, to support a $1xx Million dollar a year data center operations saying they can ‘secure’ manage the systems and the PetaBytes of data.
Of course, now that I get to go into the sausage factory, I see all the other stuff they ‘do’ so well, and I’m glad I’m avoiding investment in both my client’s and IBM’s stock
— I’m glad I’m avoiding investment in both my client’s and IBM’s stock
Ah, but by cheating the clients, is how IBM makes money. They’ve been doing it since Watson, Sr.
I’m not sure why anyone uses IBM for services, I’ve never seen them do a good job anywhere. The only major contracts (read large) I’ve seen them on, they were fired for gross negligence and subsequently sued. When we bid on deals they are usually the company that files a protest and hold the contract up for 6 months to a year every time (and they still lose).
They must be doing something right, despite the rumors I hear of global services losing money and my above mentioned antics, they are still around and their services division is still huge.
Perhaps IBM was referring to their first ‘PC’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100
It still wasn’t the first, though.
Shock / Awe . . . history is rewritten !
But everyone rewrites history . . . in English speaking countries Francis Drake is a hero. In Spanish ones, he’s a blood thirsty pirate and murderer. Their heroes are Cortes and Pizarro, killers of tens of millions of innocent civilians and even bigger thieves . . .
Who discovered America? Columbus, the Chinese, or the Vikings? And how do you discover a place when 160 million people have already been living there for thousands of years?
So let IBM have it’s little fun . . . they are not the biggest sinners by far.
LulzSec is doing us all a favor, even Sony and the CIA. Unless we can live in a world with no hackers, not even one (impossible right ?), then these hackers, who break in and publicize it, are going to get us all safer, more secure systems.
The really dangerous hackers are the ones who break in and leave quietly, without any trace.
LulzSec is not doing us any favors.
I have to think that someone in Congress is dusting off copy of the PATRIOT Act for computers waiting for the right time to present it.
I wonder what the founding fathers would think of the Patriot Act . . .
Well, as a strict constructionist, I’m not allowed to pose the question. The world remains as it was in 1789.
You have too much imagination to be a strict constructionist . . .
Speaking of imagination, does anyone besides me think the new Apple headquarters in Cupertino is “butt ugly”? This kind of thing does not age well . . . have a look at the Montreal Olympic Stadium site if you don’t believe me. But Steve being Steve, no one will dare challenge him. There’s no imagination or design there . . . it’s almost anti-design. Geometry dominating man.
If you want to see some nice architectural design look at this place in Spain:
https://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2078196_2284989,00.html
The founding fathers set up a federal government (to succeed the confederate government that was too weak) with limited power, and filled with checks and balances. However, when “power tends to corrupt” comes into play, the checks and balances disappear. Then the limited federal government becomes unlimited, and so too the powers of the president become unlimited.
Were the founding fathers alive today, they would realize they had come upon hell. Anyone in government who believes they know what is best for everyone else should be declared insane and thrown into the nut house.
— Anyone in government who believes they know what is best for everyone else should be declared insane and thrown into the nut house.
If government employees experts in the field, say neurologists, it would be insane for a redneck rough carpenter to assert that he knows more about the human brain than the government expert. Working for a profit making corporation would not make the neurologist’s work any smarter. If anything, it would make his work suspicious, since he would be looking out for the narrow interests of said corporation, rather than the society as a whole.
Robert, obviously, I was referring to public policy in my statement. What on Earth has that to do with a neurologist? Do neurologists set public policy for the government?
As to your statement about “rather than the society as a whole,” you have come back to my comments about public policy. However, you appear to be implying that government concerns itself with what is best for society as a whole. Oh, if only that was true. However, each political party tries to impose their own biases, beliefs, and viewpoints on society as a whole. When government is filled with people with an unnatural and all-consuming lust for power, that’s what you get.
Well, here I go again breaking my rule about not discussing politics or religion in public. You get the last word, Robert. I have said my piece.
I don’t think anyone who pays attention could successfully argue other than that the Republicans look out for the 1%-ers and the Democrats look out for the 99%. You may prefer your government one way, while I prefer mine another.
And, yes, the Federal government does employee neurologists to make public policy.
I highly doubt the 99% figure Robert. Both Democrats and Republicans have their constituencies. And it’s very strange, as others have pointed out, that an entire population of 300M+ has to sort itself into just two party platforms. Surely a wider range of opinion exists, and wider representation is required. Countries like Italy, where there are many parties holding power, are in fact more democratic. You have much more choice for the one that best represents your viewpoint. And yes, real democracy can be chaotic.
— And it’s very strange, as others have pointed out, that an entire population of 300M+ has to sort itself into just two party platforms.
There’s a simple reason for that: the vast majority of elections (local, state, Federal) have no requirement that the winner gain 50%+. Thus, we don’t (there are a few exceptions which I recall reading about, but don’t have a link to hand) have run-offs. Without a runoff paradigm, non-major parties have little leverage. The construction of the current donkey/elephant regime happened pretty much from the beginning. Names have changed (a 1800 Democrat is today’s racist Tea Bagger, for example), but that’s about it.
Parliamentary systems, Europe and elsewhere, where parties to elections receive representation in Government work more democratically. As Republicans and other Right Wingnuts like to crow: this isn’t a Democracy, it’s a Republic. Well, not around election time, of course, only when they want to skin the 99%-ers.
As one journalist to another, I’d like to know why there was no follow-up on the ComputerWorld story. I’d also like to know why the computer press never seems to uncover ineffective, inept schemes like the one described here. Or why it fails to cover, or even ask questions about, the failings built into oursourcing and offshoring data security.
I’m pretty sure I know the answers but would rather not face the fact that I spent a lifetime in a racket disguised as a public trust.
Apple? MITS? The first “personal computer”?
I was working on a Cado Systems 40 around 1975. Cado stood for Computer Assisted Document Originator (i.e. Word Processor), but was able to do accounting thanks to software by Open Systems. It came with a monitor, keyboard, and two eight inch single floppy drives. While the MITs was a build it yourself project with no keyboard or monitor, the Cado was a complete system running on a 8080 and later an 8085a and up to 48K of RAM! Later models even had hard disks as large as 20 Megabytes.
Cado, by the beginning of the 1980s, was one of the fastest growing companies technical companies. Imagine a whole computer system for less than $20,000 — the cost of a secretary.
Unfortunately, Cado was designed with the idea that hardware was expensive and could be compensated for by clever programming. The system was a bear to program. The IBM AT and systems from companies like Compaq could provide bigger and faster hardware at a cheaper price. Systems such as DBase II proved easier to program.
As the PCs took over, prewritten commercial software proved to be even cheaper. We charged over $3,000 for a complete accounting package. Peachtree could provide the same thing for around $300.
Back in 1975, no one would have any problems recognizing a Cado System as a computer, and for thousands of small businesses, it provided them with their first true computer. Unfortunately, history is written by the winners.
The clever part of the MITS (and the Apple II actually) was recognising that you could make a computer out of so few parts that it didn’t need to cost a fortune. Then it could be “personal” (owned by an ordinary person).
I said the Apple II was the first “modern personal computer” by which I meant a child would recognise it (the MITS doesn’t look enough like a child’s mental image of a computer to be recognised as a personal computer – though it is probably more important in historic terms).
All things considered, it is quite an accomplishment that IBM has been in business for 100 years and is still solvent and innovating. Celebration is appropriate!
Marketing is marketing is marketing. See Apple. See Microsoft. Marketing is marketing is marketing.
Read “The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM”.
IBM is a success story, from the perspective of both technology and business.
How can you support / celebrate IBM when their client Health Net has lost credibility and it’s customers lost their privacy? What is to celebrate, when their is incompetence displayed by insecure practices.
This type of corporate incompetence has been highlighted further by hackers who infiltrated its Sony Playstation Network.
Now there are calls to increase privacy legislation, but how can this work across international borders if it can’t be done internally?
Celebrations are just inappropriate, when Public Companies like IBM are not held accountable.
Ignoring the marketing BS about the “first PC”
I remember in the 80’s, when I started writing software, being amazed that IBM was spending $30 million dollars a _day_ worldwide on R&D.
Have had my run-ins with the pinstriped borg (later loafers and sports shirt) and software manuals (on paper) large enough to be used in hand-to-hand combat.
It seems a bit tawdry that they’re reduced to being viewed as service organisation, given all the investment in Mandelbrots, microelectronics, packaging (Ball Grid Array anyone?) etc .
I don’t follow them so closely that I understand the relative income differences between the consulting/service stuff and hardware sales, royalties etc. these days…?
Have you looked at their SEC filings? Revenue/profit from services and financial activities dwarfs all else. This condition is recent (last decade or two) and on purpose. The Watson stuff et al, is just for show. It’s really, at heart, a bunch of slick talking used car salesmen.
Sneed Urn – I personally don’t measure business success by longevity, but by the culture. I consider IBMs culture flawed in the time of WWII. Having financially benefited by recoding Nazi bureaucratic data. I see little evidence that the culture wouldn’t accommodate it again as this article points out.
By your measure the VOC or Dutch East India Company deserves celebrating. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock. Running from 1602 – 1798, with cultural venality linked to VOC’s very survival. Not to mention it’s heinous cartel practices.
The point is do we trust Public Companies with private information when they amorally sweep breaches under the carpet?
Or do we take your head in the sand approach and celebrate their longevity and deceptive culture?
Well said, Bob.
Why hasn’t someone sued in the Health Net case? Someone in Congress ought to use this example of corporate incompetence and racketeering as a test case for developing criminal laws against underfunded outsourcing of HIPAA data..
Notice they don’t allow comments on many of their videos and and century celebration press releases.
Let’s not forget the Dutch East India Company’s practices of local native exploitation, slavery and corruption coupled with bribery. I guess one could say IBMers as public figures have been proven to do all of those things at one point or another.
The IBM 5100. I remember playing “Moon Lander” on that.
The 5100 was one of IBM’s unsuccessful attempts at making a Personal Computer.
The “persistent innovators” were finally given 12 months to bring a PC to market.
The restricted time was the reason for choosing Intel rather than Motorola. The Intel dev tools were much better even though the Moto chip was superior.
The folklore at the time was specific: IBM didn’t want to deal with a major company supplier (and one that supplied the competition), while Intel was quite shaky and easy to manipulate.
A friend of mine at IBM Boca Raton tracked down the guy who made the CPU decision for the original IBM PC and asked him why they chose Intel. The guy said that he wanted to use the same manufacturer that Apple used, but the manufacturer couldn’t guarantee enough production to meet demand. So they went with Intel.
IBM didn’t invent the personal computer but they invented the licence to print money with it. Which they gave away to Microsoft.
M$ got rich because IBM was asleep at the switch. The IBM/PC sold like hotcakes because Lotus 1-2-3 ran only on PC/DOS (for which M$ retained the rights). Then, IBM chose not to sequester the BIOS, allowing Phoenix to clone it. Thus creating a huge market for M$ DOS and tools. Then Apple contracted for the Office programs. Do you see any active innovation in all this? Didn’t think so.
The IBM brand had enough clout in those days to make its PC the unofficial standard for businesses looking to buy one of those new-fangled personal computers. If they had purchased the O/S outright instead of licencing it, they would have been the ones reaping in the “Microsoft tax”.
That’s what I meant by “inventing the licence to print money”.
I worked in the “computer center” of an aluminum rolling mill in 1974. We had an IBM system 3 and a Datapoint 2200 “personal computer”. It had a CRT, keyboard, and cassette tape backup for programs. As I recall, it ran some kind of custom program to keep track of quality control issues at the plant.
According to WikiPedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_personal_computers), that machine was first sold in 1970. It was predated by the “Kenbak-1”, of which only 40 were built.
My vote is for the Datapoint.
The fact that I have had used or worked all the machines listed above makes me feel even older than having to increase the font on the iMac I am reading it on. I remember when this was all new and exciting.
Best comment by far. I know exactly how you feel.
-z-
It’s this kind of story that keeps me coming back to the Cringe. Truly, heads should roll at IBM for this appalling security compromise. The nerve of that company, buying a self-congratulatory 2-page ad in the Washington Post (yesterday).
Fair but these points are standard fair for the it industry where aggressive cost competition have made these sorts of incident par for the course.
Re nazi support I think that is a low blow. It wasnt ibm, it was a local subsidiary. IBM withdrew from racist south Africa in the 80s well ahead of other firms having learnt this lesson.
IBM knows (knew?) that it did not invent the personal computer. See their related website:
https://www.ibm.com/ibm100/us/en/icons/personalcomputer/
How that claim made it to the video is still a very interesting question.
I hear IBM was going to run a retraction about inventing the personal computer, but they couldn’t find the template on their tape drive…
Couldn’t be any more personal than those ‘volkstabulators.’ But also, wouldn’t they have tabulated the lists of Japanese Americans from the 1940 census data?
There were 8008 machines before that.
“The 8008 was the CPU for the very first commercial personal computers, the (French non-kit) Micral and the (US kit) SCELBI.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8008
The Datapoint 2200 used a discrete component version of the 8008 – they were going to use the chip but ran into a disagreement with Intel. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint_2200, the DP2200 was software compatible with an 8008-based system. CTC (Computer Terminal Corp.) actually commissioned Intel to build the 8008.
As a regular participant at ACM programming competitions, I’ve been rather tempted to ask the IBM recruiters what their personal thoughts are on the foundations of their company.
And IBM is just one of the dirty ol’ bunch with those ties…
Apple did not have the first personal computer nor was the term “personal computer” coined for their product. Here is an ad from 1975 for the IMSAI 8080: http://bluefaqs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Imsai-8080.jpg Notice the use of the term “personal computer” in this ad, which appeared one year before the company Apple Computer existed. The IMSAI 8080 is similar to the MITS Altair 8800, mentioned earlier in this thread.
Here is an article from 1977, that describes the Xerox Alto as a personal computer: https://www.digibarn.com/collections/books/xerox-parc-1970-80/alto-article/index.html The Alto actually first appeared in 1973, and it had a GUI. That means that the Alto was a personal computer three years before Apple computer existed. You Apple fans don’t think that the Alto is a personal computer merely because of its price and because of the way it was marketed? Then, the article from 1977 must be wrong. Look at the photos of kids playing GUI games with the Alto, in a bedroom.
However, we can go back in time many years before to find personal computers. Here is the Heathkit EC-1, which first appeared in 1960: https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=787 This was a very affordable computer that was marketed to individuals. Note that it was offered pre-assembled, as well as in kit form. In regards to whether or not a kit computer is a “personal computer,” I would argue that being in kit form makes the computer much more personal to its owner due to the intimatcy gained from building it. So, “by definition,” a kit computer is more of a personal computer than a pre-assembled one.
Enjoy, fanboys!
IPv6 does not provide ‘authentication’.
IPv6 has all the same security problems inherent in IPv4, plus new ones all its own. It is less secure than IPv4 due to its design flaws, not more secure.
Citations please.
Read the relevant RFCs.
Look at all the unfilterable ICMP which is required for ND to work. Look at extension headers, the use of which can cause hardware-based routers to punt packets and cause the RP CPU to go to 100%.
In other words, you can’t cite an authoritative person or company who has said that IPv6 is less secure. With unlimited addresses and the eventual elimination of NAT it looks like the source IP (and associated individual) can better be instantly identified if not “authenticated”.
He’s just given two pretty good verifiable technical arguments why IPv6 as available at the moment can very well be considered less secure then IPv4. Verifiable if you know the technology. If you don’t you go find those references 🙂
IBM is also guilty of poisoning ground water in Endicott, NY by illegally dumping thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals right into the sewer.
The Hewlett Packard 9810, 9820 and 9830 were desktop computers that ran BASIC and other languages in 1972. They were “personal computers” in that a single person could lift one (along with its printer) and take it out of the lab and home for the weekend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_9800_series_desktop_computers
Every time I see the name Cringely, I cringe because he’s the idiot who lied about having a PhD from Stanford. Then he compounded it by pretending to have learned anything from the experience, as if the lesson that you shouldn’t lie about your educational history is a revelation.
So I’m pleased as punch to see that this idiot faker is calling out IBM for claiming accolades to which they are not entitled.
It’s always more fun to throw rocks when you live in a glass house.
A citation would be useful, especially since more than one person used the pen name “Cringely”.
Very old story. This Robert X. is the one in question; modulo the OP opinions.
While it may be true, it seems absurd. Hence the request for citation. And using a pen name doesn’t constiute lying, although it can cause confusion.
From the fount of all knowledge (and not hard to find):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
Thanks. The wiki gives the situation some context. He did all the work, including the work for the dissertation, but just did not “complete” the dissertation. Kind of reminds me of the old social networking rule from before the days of computers: if someone says they went to college, ask if they graduated. Perhaps an honoary degree will be forthcoming.
Well, you can make some argument that they did. Not with the 1981 PC, but ith the mid-1975 5100 series. They had all the right pieces. Cost about $20k with all the bells and whistles including BASIC, APL and 64k of memory.
I was more amused by the claim to have invented the laser as I’m sure that Maiman and Gould would argue the point.
Even more amusing was claim to have invented the vacuum tube computer. I’m sure they must have forgotten that there were vacuum tube computers in use in England in the mid-1930’s. The first fully electronic ones were COLOSSUS (at Benchley Park in England) and ENIAC in the US. The first all electronic commercial computer in the US was UNIVAC.
“IBM………helped automate the Third Reich ”
This is just another pitch by the Jews for war reparations. They’ve milked the Germans now try milking the Americans.
The only thing the Germans did wrong was pick on the Jews.
No gays demand reparations. No retards demand reparations.
Try getting money out of the CCCP!
Will the Palestinians get money from the Jews for lost land in 1948?
Will Syrians get money for lost land in 1967?
Will Jews get money from IBM? YES!
Native Americans, if given the same latitude with regard to prior occupation of the land as Zionists (they were here for 10’s of thousands of years, Zionists for a couple of hundred) have the right to all of North America.
I’m a bit disappointed how the story jumps between topics. While the security breach should be exposed as well, the shameless boasting of the IBM executive is the key to another story that nobody seems to want to publish, and I’m wondering why Cringely, of all people, doesn’t take it up: The way the modern IBM is run by boasting, greedy, hypocritical executives who treat their employees in a way that would make the Watsons rotate in their graves. The shiny facade hides a demotivated workforce, which is either leaving or has to endure a deliberately disfunctional culture without any respect or honesty.
What I find funny is that data breaches, hard drives vanishing and so on weren’t given much press when it happened at Los Alamos in the 1990s (where the hard drives most likely contained nuclear weapons secrets), but personal info getting hacked is cause for alarm.
Naturally, any security violation is important, but which one will turn your front yard 2000 degress F?
ah yeah, offshoring. stupid foreigners can barely find the light switch. how the f shall they administrate a server? clearly this is something only american uberhumans can do.
I hold with Joe’s idea. While it is possible that the disks were stolen, a little more probable that they weren’t disposed off properly physically, IME Occam’s Razor dictates that someone simply didn’t fill out the correct forms properly. With disks in the neighborhood of tens of thousands in any single data center, this is bound to happen.
Just look at the quantities of fissile material missing from nuclear facilities, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. A small portion of it will in all probability really have been stolen, but for the vast majority a simple inventory error is far more likely.
>IBM’s VP of Innovation completely forgets to mention the company having helped automate the Third Reich.
Other American corporations financed and equipped the Nazi blitzkrieg:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Averell_Harriman#War_seizures_controversy
IBM actually sells a product on their DS3500 and DS5000 disk arrays that would protect against lost customer data even if a disk drive is physically stolen by using self encrypting disk (or SED ) drives in a supported array.
https://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/disk/ds3500/features.html
IBM sells a product on their DS3500 and DS5000 disk arrays that would protect against lost customer data even if a disk drive is physically stolen by using self encrypting disk (or SED ) drives in a supported array.
https://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/disk/ds3500/features.html
First world wide computer based on a microprocessor:
The R2E company was founded in 1972 by André Truong Truong Thi and François Gernelle, ex-engineers at Intertechnique. It is one of few French high tech companies established in the 1970s under the model of the Californian garage company. .
The first model delivered by R2E was the Micral N; the first world wide computer based on a microprocessor, shipped as a system since February 1973.
The company delivered series of personal computers derived from the original Micral. Micral developed also local networks of business microcomputers overlapping the minicomputer market.
R2E was acquired by CII-Honeywell Bull with the goal of delivering personal computers under the Bull-Micral logo.
After the introduction and the success of the IBM PC, Bull-Micral introduced IBM compatible devices.
CTC made a computer that could be programmed to handle the protocols of IBM and the seven dwarfs (Sperry, Burroughs, Honeywell, GE, Control Data Corporation) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_personal_computers#The_beginnings_of_the_personal_computer_industry
“the design of the Datapoint 2200’s multi-chip CPU and the final design of the Intel 8008 were so similar that the two are largely software-compatible”
Who are the missing 2 dwarfs?
RCA and NCR, IIRC
Sounds to me like Cringely’s gotten a little cranky. That’s what happens when you spend too much time in the land of Harry Potter with single digit kids. (Been there, done that.)
A few points.
* IBM may not have invented the “personal computer,” but it did invent the Personal Computer ™.
* We don’t know that the drives were stolen.
* California has a law requiring disclosure of data breaches involving personally identifiable information. That’s why HealthNet disclosed it.
* Data breaches like this are unfortunately not that uncommon. See the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse database on data breaches. see https://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach
* There is no such thing as a perfectly secure or hack proof environment. But of course you know that.
cheers,
dt
@ Scott
Good point, but it’s Bletchley Park, not Benchley. My mother worked there, also during the Enigma years. Man was she, um, “surprised” to watch U571 and see the US take the credit for that.
One can certainly debate whether the TRS-80, Apple ][, PET, or some other device was the first “personal computer”, but anyone who was paying attention to computers at the time knows that the IBM PC was not.
The headline on articles about IBM’s new PC was “The Empire Strikes Back“, and the text was all about whether this response from Big Blue would succeed against the upstart Rebels that were already sneaking into the workplace. I remember reading one of those press releases for the IBM Personal Computer, comparing the capabiilties to an Apple, and (teenager that I was) thinking that it sucked rotten eggs because it didn’t even do graphics!
Come on, let’s be happy. I grew up on this back in Oz in 1980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=essijBzQhgM
> This story appeared in Computerworld back in March and then quickly disappeared
https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214600/Health_Net_discloses_loss_of_data_to_1.9_million_customers
(or cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IGpVwXftEnQJ:www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214600/Health_Net_discloses_loss_of_data_to_1.9_million_customers )
Bob, your claim that IBM helped organized the Third Reich is really a bit naive…..like all quality businesses, IBM worked both sides of the street during WWII. True they took Hitler’s money, they also did a lot of work for Uncle Sam. Did you know that among other items, IBM was one of the largest manufacturers of M1 Carbines during WWII? I use to own an IBM made M1 Carbine. I would tell people that I owned the first IBM “PC”…..Personal Carbine.
See here: http://scottyparker.com/ibm/ibm_main/ibm_main.htm
Takes one revisionist to know the bull of another, Cringely.
Yes, so right.
Misleading title?
There are some very good points & questions later on in this article. Why is it hidden behind thinly veiled whining about a video about IBM being 100?
The only important or even relevant part of this post is the missing drives. Why is that not a post on its own with the fluff discarded?
Seagate makes FDE or Full disk Encryptions drives. These drive can encrypt at wire speed and should have been used in Healthcare applications that store patient data.
If Healthnet had used the FDE disks and lost the physical disks, no patient data would have been lost.
IBM, Oracle, and SGI all have RAID arrays that support these drives.
It’s reckless that they didn’t use them.
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Ed Roberts (Altair) did not invent the personal computer, the French did… Micral computer from André Truong, was invented years before, it seems, and the first Altair eirily resembles the first Micral.
Problem is, does it count if its not from America?