An interesting point of view...

I'm currently reading The Innovators, by Steve Jobs biographer, Walter Isaacson. It really is a brilliant book. The story in the book is that each chapter is a different evolution step in the history of computing. Where I am at now is that the computer has been invented. We are in the 70's and about to leap forward.

What I read last night is that Nolan Bushnell is starting to play about, and starting an evolution which shall soon end up with his developing Pong and founding Atari! The first thing he does is get a Data General Super Nova machine and tries to play about with them, to get his first game working. Keen readers will know, our friends in Soul of New Machine are trying to build a successor to this machine. [Im skipping over the Eclipse, as that is basically vaporware IMHO!]

This Super Nova machine is described by Isaacson as looking like a fridge. But he said that the Super Nova was slow and hard to use. So Bushnell moved on, and eventually came to the idea that he would build hardware, and go the coin-op route, and put the arcade machines in bars. Before he did this, the idea of computer games at homes and also of arcade machines basically did not exist.

This evolution is huge for the modern world of computing. Games and Graphics become a new driver of hardware and software. The computer begins to evolve beyond offices and databases. It's interesting in that light, our friends at Data General lost their battle before they even started. Their machine was doomed to fail for reasons outside of their control. This is a touch harsh, as the machine they built did well. But the market is served and the company themselves was already doomed.