Turn on, tune in, log on (Internet Has Psychedelic Roots)

SFGate ^ | April 24, 2005 | Book Review by Ian Garrick Mason

[Cultural Jihad]

Turn on, tune in, log on
The PC and the Internet sprang from pot-smoking, acid-dropping California dreamers

Reviewed by Ian Garrick Mason

Sunday, April 24, 2005

What the Dormouse Said

How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry

By John Markoff

VIKING; 310 PAGES; $25.95

---

In the world of high technology, a visionary is a person whose obsessively held hunch happens to come true. For everyone else, fate holds either obscurity, or, for an unlucky few, habitual derision, as with Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olsen, who has been unfairly held up as an example of technological cluelessness ever since he told a convention in 1977 that "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."

A similar fate was courted by Xerox Corp. when it elected not to commercialize the Alto, a prototype personal computer invented at its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973, almost a decade before companies like Apple, Radio Shack and IBM entered the PC market. In contrast, PARC itself would go down in business history as a nexus of farsighted West Coast researchers who were ignored by their buttoned-down East Coast masters.

John Markoff, a San Francisco technology writer for the New York Times, extends this visionary-centered narrative even deeper into the history of personal computing and the Internet. "What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" is an enthusiastic argument in favor of the idea that it was the uniquely Californian scene that brought forth the technologies we depend on so much today -- that the PC and the Internet sprang as much from a cultural environment of back-to-nature independence, personal freedom and psychedelic drugs as they did from engineering diagrams.

[Cultural Jihad]

The first computer mouse, designed by Stanford Research Institute, was wooden, with two large wheels and three buttons. Photo from "What the Dormouse Said''

[Enterprise]

[LdSentinal]

Hmmm . . . so Al Gore dropped acid.

[ProudVet77]

For everyone else, fate holds either obscurity, or, for an unlucky few, habitual derision, as with Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olsen, who has been unfairly held up as an example of technological cluelessness ever since he told a convention in 1977 that "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."

That's insulting to Ken Olsen. He is the guy that took the computer out of the computer room. His mini-computer concepts revolutionized computing and led to the PC. And in 1977 his view was commonly held in the business. And if you want to be specific - "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." is still true. EMail, Freeping, and looking at porno is not a reason. The home PC is not a requirement to live.
And while I do not want to put words into Kens mouth, I suspect he would have been happy to have people have "thin-clients" at home, which digital was doing a long time ago.
One last point, Ken Olsen created probably 2 or 3 million jobs in his lifetime. How many has the author created?

[HAL9000]

That's insulting to Ken Olsen. He is the guy that took the computer out of the computer room. His mini-computer concepts revolutionized computing and led to the PC. And in 1977 his view was commonly held in the business.

Ken Olsen was wrong and DEC is gone.

And if you want to be specific - "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." is still true.

We could also say that there is no reason for any business to have a computer, or any individual to have a car.

[Milhous]

Who knows what Markoff's smoking? Don Estridge built the first IBM PC while working for IBM in Florida. The Pentagon started work on ARPANET, the predecessor of today's Inet in 1957. San Francisco first gets mentioned 16 years later in 1973.

[ProudVet77]

"Ken Olsen was wrong and DEC is gone."
DEC being gone has nothing to do with his thoughts about PCs. I might add that the head of IBM in the early 60s figure that the entire world would need only two or three computers to solve all it's problems. Anyone laughing at him? IBM is still there.
Olsen's biggest problem was he could not lay people off. His second biggest mistake was to replace himself with Bob Palmer. Bob was a total jerk, and destroyed digital.
Did you know the the DEC RDB team went on to develop Oracle 8i, when Bob sold them off? Without them Oracle would be a nothing. The same guys got bought out by Gates, and developed SQL7.0, which if you know the business was a huge step. Palmer also sold of the network business, which by the way at one time was the largest computer network in the world. It also was the first with the gigabit speed. Palmer also sat on his butt and waited for gates to come up with the 64bit version of windows. (Windows 5.0) Well we had the Alpha 64 bit chip and the real hard core computer people were eating them up like jelly beans. We had converted VMS in less than a year to run on Alpha (which was a much larger and complicated OS), but Gates decided to stick with Intel and just kept leading Palmer along for 3 years or so. Then in order to save DEC from a questionable lawsuit by Intel he sold the Hudson Fab that had created Alpha to Intel for pocket change.
And if you want to be specific - "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." is still true.

60+ percent of all homes do not have computers in them. of the 40% I'd say have them just to get email from their kids in college. Fact is most people do not want to do ecommerce, or bank by computer. I also remember all those clever ideas about recipes and shopping lists on your home computer. Never happened. Maybe 2% of the population need computers in their homes.

[HAL9000]

DEC being gone has nothing to do with his thoughts about PCs.

But his lack of thought about PCs has everything to do with DEC being gone now.

I might add that the head of IBM in the early 60s figure that the entire world would need only two or three computers to solve all it's problems. Anyone laughing at him? IBM is still there.

Thomas J. Watson wasn't running the show when the microcomputer revolution arrived. The infamous remark was supposedly made in 1943, but there is some doubt that he ever said it at all. In any case, IBM became the leader in PC technology and survives today. DEC could have done that, but didn't.

Olsen's biggest problem was he could not lay people off.

If he had laid himself off ten years earlier, DEC might be around today.

[ProudVet77]

But his lack of thought about PCs has everything to do with DEC being gone now.
If you really knew the product line you would know that DEC had a PC, called the DECMate. Further, how many American PC manufacturers are still standing? IBM is selling off their PC business to a Chinese company, compaq is gone, radio shack is gone, want more? The forces that brought DEC down have very little to do with PCs. Dell uses 3rd world PCs and has zero serivce, HP uses 3rd world gear, but has decent service.
I know DEC's history very well, between my brother and I we had 30 years with them. You obviously have a personal issue with Olsen. Easy to complain, just hope you are as great a man as he was, and are remembered 100 years from now. My guess you will not be written up in the computer industry history in 100 years.

[HAL9000]

f you really knew the product line you would know that DEC had a PC, called the DECMate.

I vaguely remember it, and the Rainbow. There was nothing compelling enough about them to save the company.

You obviously have a personal issue with Olsen.

I do respect his accomplishments with the PDP and VAX products.

[Clemenza]

Don Estridge built the first IBM PC while working for IBM in Florida.

Yep, and the a-s ugly campus in Boca that they abandoned about 5 years ago is still there, with a relatively high vacancy rate. I understand that they may demolish part of it as the buildings were poorly designed, in contrast to the early IBM PCs, which were pretty cool to a certain 8 year old the first time he sat in front of one.

[Gondring]

So you think--unlike the author--that use of the quote is fair?

[ProudVet77]

Yes. To take one thing that someone said, during a truly illustrious career is unfair. It's particularly true when most people don't really know much about DEC an/or Ken Olsen, because it makes him like a fool. He was one of the nicest men to ever to build and run a multi-billion dollar corporation. The stories about him and his Ford Pinto are true, he truly was a humble, likable man. He never laid off a single person when he was CEO. 98% of this people are solidly loyal to him. He was very old fashioned in a way. DEC used to give away holiday Turkeys to all it's employees. But more than that, he instructed this plant managers to personally hand them out.
It's not unlike the MSM telling us that at least the garbage got picked up on time under Sadamn Hussien. Totally non-sequitor.

[Gondring]

You seem to contradict yourself. Did you read the article, especially the part you quoted??

It says he is judged unfairly by the quote.

[ProudVet77]

Can you point that out to me?
Read the article twice, and the reference to while Ken is in the leading paragraph, it is not even clear to me it's in the book itself.
I'd actually be curious as to how old both the review and the writer are. I get the impression the write was not there when all tis was going on. He totally leaves out the mini-computer revolution which is what set the table for the PC revolution. And the silicon revolution which was the thing that ultimartely let the PC revolution occur actually started in Texas.

[Gondring]

Can you point that out to me?

Okay... see the italics and bold...

For everyone else, fate holds either obscurity, or, for an unlucky few, habitual derision, as with Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olsen, who has been unfairly held up as an example of technological cluelessness ever since he told a convention in 1977 that "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."

[ProudVet77]

Thanks, I truely didn't see that.
I've noticed that I've begun missing a few things, time to visit the eye doctor. My persrciption must need changing. Thanks again.

[Gondring]

No problem. I was just a bit confused by your post at first. :-)

[strategofr]

Well, I think it is important to distinquish between the root and the branch. Drugs and PCs, in a way, both sprang from California freedom. That just tells you that experiments are sometimes good, sometimes bad. The vague implication that drugs led to computers is untrue.

The subject reminds me of a great book published in 1984---Hackers. Much of the basis of the PC came from the Model Railroad club at MIT. It's set in the 60's. They were into ever-more complicated ways to control model railroad trains using jerry-rigged electronics, and some corporation laid a computer on them. A PDP 10 or PDP 11, possibly.