I do like our little chats. Sometimes I can't tell if you are winding me up or being serious but no matter. Let me try and make some things clear:
Heater might claim Brit invented the telephone.
I have never claimed such a thing. But now you bring evidence to me that it might be true!
Are the Scots really British?
Indeed they are. Ever since the Acts of Union in 1707. At which point the countries of Scotland and England both voted to commit suicide and be replaced by the single united kingdom of Great Britain.
Had you been following the news recently you would know that Scotland held a referendum as to whether they should become independent again. Sadly the citizens of Scotland voted against it. I say sadly because with an independent Scotland the door opens to an independent England as well.
It's interesting news to me that Bell was still a Brit when he invented the telephone!
Logie Baird did indeed transmit the first pictures using electrical signals over wires. Sure enough Farnsworth and whoever improved that idea by removing the mechanics. It's still not clear to me who was first there.
In a way it does not matter. Like many things when the time is right many people are thinking about and working on the problem. It's like that debate about the first electronic computer. Well it kind of depends how you define "computer" exactly.
The BBC computer was a bit lost on me. I have never owned a TV. By the time it came out I was working with a group that designed it's own 16 bit multi-processor embedded computer for military systems, so I always imagined things like the BBC were toys. Wrongly as it turns out.
The Wright Brothers...Jees I have no idea. The more I read about that time in the development of flight the more I find out there were many people trying this and that. And that were all spying on and borrowing ideas from each other.
When I think of educational resources I think curriculum, syllabus, course materials, and textbooks.
Yep, me too. Back in the day of the BBC micro they did exactly that. Today with the Raspberry Pi the foundation is doing exactly all that. That is the whole point of the exercise after all.
I don't quite follow that the BBC is a non-profit in the UK and a for-profit everywhere else.
Easy. The BBC is basically a state sanctioned broadcasting company. Used to be that if you owned a TV in Britain you had to pay a few quid for a licence fee every year. That money goes to the BBC and they have a charter that says they have to use it to provide news and entertainment and whatever.
Personally I love it because it means you can actually watch (and listen to) interesting stuff without constantly being disturbed and annoyed by advertising. It also means money is used to produce interesting documentaries and other programming without being beholden to some corporate interest.
But, what about when the BBC has made a brilliant TV series or documentary or whatever? They can then sell that material to other TV channels all around the world. There is no charter that says they have to provide it for free to everyone in the world, only the Brits. It's good business.
The first 7 US Presidents were born as British Subjects (thank you again!)
Unlike the seven men who preceded him in the White House, Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) was the first president to be born a citizen of the United States and not a British subject.
Lately, inventing TV may not have been that great a contribution to society overall.
An American invented Facebook.......not our proudest moment!
Al Gore invented the Internet.
And as Abe Lincoln said:
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.
I only said "used to be" because in the modern world TV programming, like that of the BBC, can be obtained without owning a a good old fashioned wireless TV receiver box. It comes over the internet to your computer and browser.
The logical conclusion of that in some countries in Europe is that 1) Everyone is on the internet 2) Ergo they can all get the programming. 3) Ergo everyone has to pay the TV licence fee no matter if they own a TV or ever watch the channels on their computers or not.
I find that kind of despicable. You cannot opt out. A licence becomes a tax. I have no idea if it is true in Britain today. I hope not.
@Heater
You can't tell if I am winding you up or I am serious? The quotes from Monty Python might be a clue.
Requiring a license for TV might be a good thing. But not just an annual fee, we should have an examination about responsible viewing. This all might reduce gun ownership in the USA.
About Scotland...
It seems that today there are more Scots in the USA, than in the whole of Scotland or the whole of UK. Thus I am getting more confused about claims that a Brit versus claims that an American did something. see population figures ==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_people
What I have learned is that an elementry school teacher is generally a nice naive soul that will teach any textbook they are told to. We don't start children off with actual education, it is more indoctrination.
The Smithonian Insitute has recently been scandalized for asserting that the Wright Brothers invented the modern airplane. Gustave Whitehead was two years ahead of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead
And I see in the above thread, a Japanese may have actually invented the TV and never gotten recognized... argh...
That reminds me of my visit to the National Science and Technology Museum in Ueno Park, Tokoyo. You will find a nice jet engine on exhibit there that seems to indicate some of the earliest jet airplanes were being tested in secret by the Japanese for the Germans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Kikka
All in good fun....
BTW, the Italians supposedly built the first aircraft carrier.
Frankly, I'm miffed that I can't buy a BBC license. It's a great deal, and over time, the Beeb has done a good job producing programming with those license fees. Maybe one day they will open it up globally. I'll buy in as easily as I would, say HBO. No worries here. I can mooch some here and there on YouTube, so there is that. But it's a nice model with great results. Not the only model, mind you, but a fine one I would pay for.
Seems the US is figuring out how to do this. HBO is going to offer subscriptions directly to people now, sans cable, and Netflix, right along with other networks are figuring out they can fund some pretty great programming, sell direct to people, and it's all growing nicely. Good times, if you want to ditch your TV.
This:
How is any 'for profit' enterprise supposed to compete with a media giant like the BBC giving away free boards?
Sometimes drives me batty.
Truth is, a for private enterprise would likely not do such a thing as it would not be likely to deliver the margins and growth they would expect. This is why the Pi exists due to a foundation as well.
But it's not about that.
It's all about creating markets that private enterprise can exploit to great effect sometime in the near future. Education, infrastructure, technology, all fall under this class of effort where we know it often pays off, but it's difficult to source privately. Lots of reasons for that, and I've only put a couple here.
What private enterprise gets is a generation of more computer aware kids just like they got from the BBC Micro generation. Lots of great people today got their start on 8 bit computers by the likes of Apple, Acorn, Commodore, Sinclair, Atari, et al.
BTW: The Apple 2 computers were not cheap either. But, they did get a lot of school / education contracts locked down. And that was a really great deal for everybody involved. We had cheaper offerings out there and lots of people bought them, but the Apple and BBC Micro both featured great programming environments, documentation and education support in general.
I've got the machines I owned back then. Had to get new ones, because I let the old ones go, but still. The Apple 2 is a great computer, and it's completely, totally documented right down to the hardware schematics. So was my Color Computer. Others varied in both the programming environment and documentation. The choice of these kinds of somewhat expensive, but well designed machines, for education was a great one. I am not as familiar with the Beeb Micro as I am the Apple 2, but when I compare early learning stories, it's clear both machines hit the education target nicely.
Personally, I learned enough on 8 bit Apple 2 computers to kick off a career that has served me nicely in life. This was true for many of the 8 bit machines too, but that education focus really packed a punch. Worth it.
Note, Apple is absolutely HUGE today. And the UK can talk up ARM, which is also a perfectly respectable company of size. Not an Apple, but not bad either. Good things came from those efforts way back when. I'm sure you all can think of a few more, and the people, and their history.
Back to that private enterprise.
Know what they want? People. They want people who can get into this stuff, who love it, and who can do great things. And they want a lot of those people. The market for computer code will top out somewhere around 5 billion dollars in the next few years, with strong growth beyond that! We aren't ready.
The difference between being ready and not is whether or not we see that strong growth, and with it, a brighter, more tech driven future.
They also want markets to present demand to them too. A more tech savvy body of people means better markets, and it means they are more likely to earn enough to make that demand worth satisfying too. Funny thing about demand. There is actually near infinite demand when one looks at the state of people, their wants and needs. But, there isn't really near infinite liquid dollars to go with that demand, and when we don't make the investments needed to insure a lot of our future people can add enough value to society for their demand to be meaningful, we actually do private enterprise a great deal of harm, because they won't have as fertile fields to work in, which means more work, less dollars, less growth, etc...
If we want great crops to profit from and exploit and to be able to invest in the future and hedge our bets against risk, then we need to make the investments necessary now for that to all actualize in the future, or it just won't be there. Think the farmer putting the right work into the ground, tending it nicely, and investing in quality seeds and or making sure the seeds used from last year are well prepped to produce. Do that, and it's a great harvest. Don't do that, and it's not a great harvest.
Nobody really wants to compete with this, if they get it at all. They will want to build on it and exploit it to the max, which is precisely why the investment is being made, and it's made for the same reasons and expected outcomes as it was last time too.
They can sell other boards to these more tech savvy kids looking for more. Heck, they can make a bit better, bigger boards that are compatible with, and that build on the educational materials, programming, etc... that will center around these. Lots of money to be made. In fact, the more people think about it and get behind the effort, the more money there is to make!
Certainly a Python reference may be a clue as to humorous intent. There were no such references in that post of yours that I commented on (#29).
Is this the right room for an argument?
@Potatohead,
It's all quite amazing really:
1) There was Clive Sinclair and his Sinclair Radionics company building cheap calculators and micro-computers.
2) Chris Curry leaves Sinclair to start CPU Ltd. with Herman Hauser. Later Acorn Computer Ltd. Producing the 6502 based Acorn Atom and Electron computers.
3) Acorn gets the BBC Micro contract.
4) Subsequent sales of which bring in huge profits and they move on to develop the ARM processor. Not being impressed by any of the 16/32 bit offerings on the market.
5) Years later the ARM is used in pretty much all mobile phones.
6) Steve Jobs and Apple make a huge hit with their ARM based music and phone devices.
Mighty oaks do truly grow from tiny acorns.
To whom should I attribute Apple's success? Steve Jobs, the BBC, Chris Curry and Herman Hauser, Sir Clive Sinclair?
Or what about Sophie Wilson who architected the original ARM? Or what about Chuck Peddle who designed the 6502 that allowed that early success?
Even the US now recognises that Bell wasn't first with the telephone.. it was an Italian. Also an immigrant though. As Italian friends told me years ago, to my surprise. "Bell did not invent the telephone".
As for the BBC Microcomputer, it was the one I wanted back then - I could never afford it. Actually the cheapest A-version was in reach, but what would be useful to me would be the B model with floppy disk drive - and it was always out of reach. The other one I wanted was a floppy-based Apple II, couldn't afford that either. But at least I got to work with that years later when I got a job. We used them at work for some specific purposes, like antenna control and data monitoring.
In the 1830s he [Meucci] moved to Cuba and, while working on methods to treat illnesses with electric shocks, found that sounds could travel by electrical impulses through copper wire. Sensing potential, he moved to Staten Island, near New York City, in 1850 to develop the technology.
I'm sure he did
Years after the BBC Micro was popular and the IBM PC had taken over everything I found a BBC Micro built into a test rig for some flight computer for AirBus built by Marconi Avionics.
A. Everyone tries to move to America to cash in on their inventions.
B. America is so infiltrated with Freemasons from the Scottish Rite Temple that there are more Scots in the USA than the UK.
C. Inventors seem to invent a history to go along with their actual device.
D. Public elementry schools in America seems to have no bearing on real history. (But I doubt that elementry school anywhere really does.)
Between the USA and the UK, there will be perpetual disagreement about the following:
1. Which has the better system of medical care.
2. Which has the better system of television.
3. Whether the Magna Carta or the US. Constitution better accomodates human rights.
I am still a bit gobsmacked that Bell didn't invent the telephone and an Italian did.
BTW, just to put it all into context: There will very soon be a growing market opportunity for Propellers in the UK. Parallax can build something that works like, or attaches to, or runs along side of these little buggers. And Parallax knows education cold, which makes that opportunity one worth consideration.
Just one of many little macro things we will see from a public investment like that.
I want to make a brief observation about this "who invented what and when?" discussion we see come up from time to time.
Latency.
At the time of these notable efforts, our ability to communicate globally was limited at best. Regions maximized these efforts, and the creators of history references didn't have everything they can today. There is a latency between the time of those inventions and our communications capability today.
We frequently take the state of things now for granted. It's so automatic. Hard to visualize what it really was like back then. I personally have a great recall of my childhood, and can rattle off times, places, people, events with relative ease. It really is different today. The word "regional" had far more significance than it does today. And the number of things not true for kids today that was true for most of us is staggering in the amount of impacted daily life context. They really do operate somewhat differently than we did, and that plays out today as clashes along basic boundary lines and overall expectations and perceptions that take real work to grok and get past too.
When we look at the past through the lens of today, it's easy to invoke some motive or politics. Don't get me wrong, there were and are those things in play. They always are in play. But, it's not the whole story. Latency in our ability to communicate and information availability is also a core consideration.
-and the same British innovative ecosystem developed the Psion (20 years ahead of time) with the operating system EPOC, which turned into Symbian, which ran most all mobile ARMs at a time. Until Android.
This is precisely why we do this stuff, when the politics don't get too much in the way. The free market people really don't see it, and to them, it's money left on the table when a public effort happens. Of course, they have it right when it comes to crappy, misguided public efforts, but everything has risks. Smart people doing smart stuff carries a lot less risk. All in all, both are important to us as people.
One could say Creative Labs also helped Apple out, as did SONY, Panasonic, and others making portable music devices. The Walkman, which used cassettes, and was actually crappy, unless it was used as a portable FM radio kicked off a generation of "music on the go" people, who then clamored for better, solid state devices, and also sources for music aside from Napster. Interesting tidbit: I made money "tweaking" Walkman type devices and cassette players, just as I did televisions. Both devices were capable of some fine results, but rarely were in optimal condition and rarely stayed there.
Those education computers did wonderful things. I could own one, write programs to generate known, reference (well reference enough, not pro quality) signals, and I could do the same with audio. Some scrounging around in thrifty stores and work put into "fix me up and keep it" opportunities to score electronics gear left me with an ability to take Smile and tweak it into it's max performance. The sale was easy: "Gimme an hour, and pay me what that hour is worth." I take my reference tapes, or computer, some little tools, many of which I made by carving out of hard plastics and wood, use that hour to bring out the best of their gear, and they paid nicely almost every time. Good times, and just one example of what these kinds of investments do.
Jobs, being a music lover, saw this, and maximized it with the iPod, which quite literally redefined portable music. It's not always who gets there first. In fact, it almost never is! It is all about who executes well and who does not. Being late to the party carries the advantage of being able to build on others efforts. Being early has the advantage of advancing the state of things. It's all a vibrant dance with a ton of potential for those willing to get after it and execute well, adding value to lives.
The sales pitch of the iPod was sleek, sexy, etc... and it came with iTunes too. All good. But the real sale was consistency. People didn't have that with music prior to solid state. It was mechanical, fiddly, and getting really great sound was either expensive or an art. Now, the purists will say bad things about mp3 files, and they are right about all of them, and there are some worse than cassette out there too. But overall, it meant having a quality experience, cheap, easy, repeatable, sharable.
If the scenario were to repeat today, it would be different. The basic experiences are there now. Nobody really needs their audio gear tweaked, or their TV calibrated, unless they are home theatre geeks, and even then, it's just not a big deal for the vast majority like it was when tech was early and crude...
Today?
Automation. Making lives more simple, freeing time to do stuff, etc... Today a smart kid could make a lot by simply helping people maximize their tech to free themselves up for other things.
In the US, demand for robotics is going to see a growth and high cap just like the one we know is there for computer code. Small to mid sized manufacturers are clamoring for better options to help their people do better, more, more consistent, etc... 250K small firms all potential tech adopters. Plus startups and growth.
If I were to make a public US investment, like the one the UK is attempting with these little devices, it would be robotics. Somebody can make a really cheap one with a few axis, ideally 5 or 6, of movement possible. I see lots of great hobby projects going on. More is needed.
Couple that with computer code, and soon we should see high schoolers doing spiffy things, writing programs, understanding the linear algebra, kinematics, etc... much of which they can mooch from game development code, BTW, and all that will pay out just nicely in 10 years or so. Needed yesterday.
Comments
I do like our little chats. Sometimes I can't tell if you are winding me up or being serious but no matter. Let me try and make some things clear: I have never claimed such a thing. But now you bring evidence to me that it might be true! Indeed they are. Ever since the Acts of Union in 1707. At which point the countries of Scotland and England both voted to commit suicide and be replaced by the single united kingdom of Great Britain.
Had you been following the news recently you would know that Scotland held a referendum as to whether they should become independent again. Sadly the citizens of Scotland voted against it. I say sadly because with an independent Scotland the door opens to an independent England as well.
It's interesting news to me that Bell was still a Brit when he invented the telephone!
Logie Baird did indeed transmit the first pictures using electrical signals over wires. Sure enough Farnsworth and whoever improved that idea by removing the mechanics. It's still not clear to me who was first there.
In a way it does not matter. Like many things when the time is right many people are thinking about and working on the problem. It's like that debate about the first electronic computer. Well it kind of depends how you define "computer" exactly.
The BBC computer was a bit lost on me. I have never owned a TV. By the time it came out I was working with a group that designed it's own 16 bit multi-processor embedded computer for military systems, so I always imagined things like the BBC were toys. Wrongly as it turns out.
The Wright Brothers...Jees I have no idea. The more I read about that time in the development of flight the more I find out there were many people trying this and that. And that were all spying on and borrowing ideas from each other. Yep, me too. Back in the day of the BBC micro they did exactly that. Today with the Raspberry Pi the foundation is doing exactly all that. That is the whole point of the exercise after all. Easy. The BBC is basically a state sanctioned broadcasting company. Used to be that if you owned a TV in Britain you had to pay a few quid for a licence fee every year. That money goes to the BBC and they have a charter that says they have to use it to provide news and entertainment and whatever.
Personally I love it because it means you can actually watch (and listen to) interesting stuff without constantly being disturbed and annoyed by advertising. It also means money is used to produce interesting documentaries and other programming without being beholden to some corporate interest.
But, what about when the BBC has made a brilliant TV series or documentary or whatever? They can then sell that material to other TV channels all around the world. There is no charter that says they have to provide it for free to everyone in the world, only the Brits. It's good business.
The first 7 US Presidents were born as British Subjects (thank you again!)
Lately, inventing TV may not have been that great a contribution to society overall.
An American invented Facebook.......not our proudest moment!
Al Gore invented the Internet.
And as Abe Lincoln said:
I only said "used to be" because in the modern world TV programming, like that of the BBC, can be obtained without owning a a good old fashioned wireless TV receiver box. It comes over the internet to your computer and browser.
The logical conclusion of that in some countries in Europe is that 1) Everyone is on the internet 2) Ergo they can all get the programming. 3) Ergo everyone has to pay the TV licence fee no matter if they own a TV or ever watch the channels on their computers or not.
I find that kind of despicable. You cannot opt out. A licence becomes a tax. I have no idea if it is true in Britain today. I hope not.
You don't know the half of it.
Al Gore invented the algorithm.
A friend of mine in Paris has just told me that he has signed up to a streaming service that gets him BBC iPlayer and ITV player on his PC.
You can't tell if I am winding you up or I am serious? The quotes from Monty Python might be a clue.
Requiring a license for TV might be a good thing. But not just an annual fee, we should have an examination about responsible viewing. This all might reduce gun ownership in the USA.
About Scotland...
It seems that today there are more Scots in the USA, than in the whole of Scotland or the whole of UK. Thus I am getting more confused about claims that a Brit versus claims that an American did something. see population figures ==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_people
What I have learned is that an elementry school teacher is generally a nice naive soul that will teach any textbook they are told to. We don't start children off with actual education, it is more indoctrination.
The Smithonian Insitute has recently been scandalized for asserting that the Wright Brothers invented the modern airplane. Gustave Whitehead was two years ahead of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead
And I see in the above thread, a Japanese may have actually invented the TV and never gotten recognized... argh...
That reminds me of my visit to the National Science and Technology Museum in Ueno Park, Tokoyo. You will find a nice jet engine on exhibit there that seems to indicate some of the earliest jet airplanes were being tested in secret by the Japanese for the Germans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Kikka
All in good fun....
BTW, the Italians supposedly built the first aircraft carrier.
Seems the US is figuring out how to do this. HBO is going to offer subscriptions directly to people now, sans cable, and Netflix, right along with other networks are figuring out they can fund some pretty great programming, sell direct to people, and it's all growing nicely. Good times, if you want to ditch your TV.
This:
Sometimes drives me batty.
Truth is, a for private enterprise would likely not do such a thing as it would not be likely to deliver the margins and growth they would expect. This is why the Pi exists due to a foundation as well.
But it's not about that.
It's all about creating markets that private enterprise can exploit to great effect sometime in the near future. Education, infrastructure, technology, all fall under this class of effort where we know it often pays off, but it's difficult to source privately. Lots of reasons for that, and I've only put a couple here.
What private enterprise gets is a generation of more computer aware kids just like they got from the BBC Micro generation. Lots of great people today got their start on 8 bit computers by the likes of Apple, Acorn, Commodore, Sinclair, Atari, et al.
BTW: The Apple 2 computers were not cheap either. But, they did get a lot of school / education contracts locked down. And that was a really great deal for everybody involved. We had cheaper offerings out there and lots of people bought them, but the Apple and BBC Micro both featured great programming environments, documentation and education support in general.
I've got the machines I owned back then. Had to get new ones, because I let the old ones go, but still. The Apple 2 is a great computer, and it's completely, totally documented right down to the hardware schematics. So was my Color Computer. Others varied in both the programming environment and documentation. The choice of these kinds of somewhat expensive, but well designed machines, for education was a great one. I am not as familiar with the Beeb Micro as I am the Apple 2, but when I compare early learning stories, it's clear both machines hit the education target nicely.
Personally, I learned enough on 8 bit Apple 2 computers to kick off a career that has served me nicely in life. This was true for many of the 8 bit machines too, but that education focus really packed a punch. Worth it.
Note, Apple is absolutely HUGE today. And the UK can talk up ARM, which is also a perfectly respectable company of size. Not an Apple, but not bad either. Good things came from those efforts way back when. I'm sure you all can think of a few more, and the people, and their history.
Back to that private enterprise.
Know what they want? People. They want people who can get into this stuff, who love it, and who can do great things. And they want a lot of those people. The market for computer code will top out somewhere around 5 billion dollars in the next few years, with strong growth beyond that! We aren't ready.
The difference between being ready and not is whether or not we see that strong growth, and with it, a brighter, more tech driven future.
They also want markets to present demand to them too. A more tech savvy body of people means better markets, and it means they are more likely to earn enough to make that demand worth satisfying too. Funny thing about demand. There is actually near infinite demand when one looks at the state of people, their wants and needs. But, there isn't really near infinite liquid dollars to go with that demand, and when we don't make the investments needed to insure a lot of our future people can add enough value to society for their demand to be meaningful, we actually do private enterprise a great deal of harm, because they won't have as fertile fields to work in, which means more work, less dollars, less growth, etc...
If we want great crops to profit from and exploit and to be able to invest in the future and hedge our bets against risk, then we need to make the investments necessary now for that to all actualize in the future, or it just won't be there. Think the farmer putting the right work into the ground, tending it nicely, and investing in quality seeds and or making sure the seeds used from last year are well prepped to produce. Do that, and it's a great harvest. Don't do that, and it's not a great harvest.
Nobody really wants to compete with this, if they get it at all. They will want to build on it and exploit it to the max, which is precisely why the investment is being made, and it's made for the same reasons and expected outcomes as it was last time too.
They can sell other boards to these more tech savvy kids looking for more. Heck, they can make a bit better, bigger boards that are compatible with, and that build on the educational materials, programming, etc... that will center around these. Lots of money to be made. In fact, the more people think about it and get behind the effort, the more money there is to make!
Funny how that works, isn't it?
Certainly a Python reference may be a clue as to humorous intent. There were no such references in that post of yours that I commented on (#29).
Is this the right room for an argument?
@Potatohead,
It's all quite amazing really:
1) There was Clive Sinclair and his Sinclair Radionics company building cheap calculators and micro-computers.
2) Chris Curry leaves Sinclair to start CPU Ltd. with Herman Hauser. Later Acorn Computer Ltd. Producing the 6502 based Acorn Atom and Electron computers.
3) Acorn gets the BBC Micro contract.
4) Subsequent sales of which bring in huge profits and they move on to develop the ARM processor. Not being impressed by any of the 16/32 bit offerings on the market.
5) Years later the ARM is used in pretty much all mobile phones.
6) Steve Jobs and Apple make a huge hit with their ARM based music and phone devices.
Mighty oaks do truly grow from tiny acorns.
To whom should I attribute Apple's success? Steve Jobs, the BBC, Chris Curry and Herman Hauser, Sir Clive Sinclair?
Or what about Sophie Wilson who architected the original ARM? Or what about Chuck Peddle who designed the 6502 that allowed that early success?
Those interested in the history here will love the docudrama about it "Micro Men" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM
Made by the BBC of course
As for the BBC Microcomputer, it was the one I wanted back then - I could never afford it. Actually the cheapest A-version was in reach, but what would be useful to me would be the B model with floppy disk drive - and it was always out of reach. The other one I wanted was a floppy-based Apple II, couldn't afford that either. But at least I got to work with that years later when I got a job. We used them at work for some specific purposes, like antenna control and data monitoring.
From the article on your link: I'm sure he did
Years after the BBC Micro was popular and the IBM PC had taken over everything I found a BBC Micro built into a test rig for some flight computer for AirBus built by Marconi Avionics.
A. Everyone tries to move to America to cash in on their inventions.
B. America is so infiltrated with Freemasons from the Scottish Rite Temple that there are more Scots in the USA than the UK.
C. Inventors seem to invent a history to go along with their actual device.
D. Public elementry schools in America seems to have no bearing on real history. (But I doubt that elementry school anywhere really does.)
Between the USA and the UK, there will be perpetual disagreement about the following:
1. Which has the better system of medical care.
2. Which has the better system of television.
3. Whether the Magna Carta or the US. Constitution better accomodates human rights.
I am still a bit gobsmacked that Bell didn't invent the telephone and an Italian did.
My national pride is crumbling. I just hope that Mr. Goodyear did perfect rubber. But I fear that may not be the case...
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2010/mayaball-0524
Next to fall..
The Penrose Tile. It seems Arabian mathmaticians and decorative artist figured this out long before Mr. Penrose. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-islamic-penrose-tiles-0
Just one of many little macro things we will see from a public investment like that.
Latency.
At the time of these notable efforts, our ability to communicate globally was limited at best. Regions maximized these efforts, and the creators of history references didn't have everything they can today. There is a latency between the time of those inventions and our communications capability today.
We frequently take the state of things now for granted. It's so automatic. Hard to visualize what it really was like back then. I personally have a great recall of my childhood, and can rattle off times, places, people, events with relative ease. It really is different today. The word "regional" had far more significance than it does today. And the number of things not true for kids today that was true for most of us is staggering in the amount of impacted daily life context. They really do operate somewhat differently than we did, and that plays out today as clashes along basic boundary lines and overall expectations and perceptions that take real work to grok and get past too.
When we look at the past through the lens of today, it's easy to invoke some motive or politics. Don't get me wrong, there were and are those things in play. They always are in play. But, it's not the whole story. Latency in our ability to communicate and information availability is also a core consideration.
Just saying....
Erlend
(Sir Erlend some day, I am sure)
Indeed!
This is precisely why we do this stuff, when the politics don't get too much in the way. The free market people really don't see it, and to them, it's money left on the table when a public effort happens. Of course, they have it right when it comes to crappy, misguided public efforts, but everything has risks. Smart people doing smart stuff carries a lot less risk. All in all, both are important to us as people.
One could say Creative Labs also helped Apple out, as did SONY, Panasonic, and others making portable music devices. The Walkman, which used cassettes, and was actually crappy, unless it was used as a portable FM radio kicked off a generation of "music on the go" people, who then clamored for better, solid state devices, and also sources for music aside from Napster.
Those education computers did wonderful things. I could own one, write programs to generate known, reference (well reference enough, not pro quality) signals, and I could do the same with audio. Some scrounging around in thrifty stores and work put into "fix me up and keep it" opportunities to score electronics gear left me with an ability to take Smile and tweak it into it's max performance. The sale was easy: "Gimme an hour, and pay me what that hour is worth." I take my reference tapes, or computer, some little tools, many of which I made by carving out of hard plastics and wood, use that hour to bring out the best of their gear, and they paid nicely almost every time. Good times, and just one example of what these kinds of investments do.
Jobs, being a music lover, saw this, and maximized it with the iPod, which quite literally redefined portable music. It's not always who gets there first. In fact, it almost never is! It is all about who executes well and who does not. Being late to the party carries the advantage of being able to build on others efforts. Being early has the advantage of advancing the state of things. It's all a vibrant dance with a ton of potential for those willing to get after it and execute well, adding value to lives.
The sales pitch of the iPod was sleek, sexy, etc... and it came with iTunes too. All good. But the real sale was consistency. People didn't have that with music prior to solid state. It was mechanical, fiddly, and getting really great sound was either expensive or an art. Now, the purists will say bad things about mp3 files, and they are right about all of them, and there are some worse than cassette out there too. But overall, it meant having a quality experience, cheap, easy, repeatable, sharable.
If the scenario were to repeat today, it would be different. The basic experiences are there now. Nobody really needs their audio gear tweaked, or their TV calibrated, unless they are home theatre geeks, and even then, it's just not a big deal for the vast majority like it was when tech was early and crude...
Today?
Automation. Making lives more simple, freeing time to do stuff, etc... Today a smart kid could make a lot by simply helping people maximize their tech to free themselves up for other things.
In the US, demand for robotics is going to see a growth and high cap just like the one we know is there for computer code. Small to mid sized manufacturers are clamoring for better options to help their people do better, more, more consistent, etc... 250K small firms all potential tech adopters. Plus startups and growth.
If I were to make a public US investment, like the one the UK is attempting with these little devices, it would be robotics. Somebody can make a really cheap one with a few axis, ideally 5 or 6, of movement possible. I see lots of great hobby projects going on. More is needed.
Couple that with computer code, and soon we should see high schoolers doing spiffy things, writing programs, understanding the linear algebra, kinematics, etc... much of which they can mooch from game development code, BTW, and all that will pay out just nicely in 10 years or so. Needed yesterday.