Rorthron wrote: ↑Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:31 pm
am afraid I don't understand your point here. What are you referring to?
All right, I will try to explain myself better.
Electric cars have been available on the market for at least a decade, although only in the last few years.
Cloud computing has been widespreadly available since about the same time.
Quantum computing is still at an experimental level but it is publicly accessible, although in a limited way.
Now, let's take a time machine and go back to 1987.
Is solid state data storage an existing technology? Yes but still at an experimental stage.
Can I enter a shop and buy a solid state drive, or a PC equipped with such a device? No.
Is the IT industry actively promoting it? Very little, the marketable current technology is by and far the conventional hard disk with heads, cylinders etc.
Let's go back to the present time. What I didn't get was your comparison between the situation nowadays, when the technology you mentioned is not only already available to the public, but actively marketed (with the exception of quantum computers), and the time when Sinclair made those reflections, when solid state technology was nowhere near as accessible, neither anyone except Sinclair and maybe a few others (I suppose) would believe it would have been the way to go for the industry. Perhaps, were you trying to say Sinclair's reflections were so trivial anyone else could have made them? If that's the case, I don't think so.
Rorthron wrote: ↑Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:31 pm
That is very clearly
not at all what I have said. My statements have been anything but "outlandish", and your accusation is quite unreasonable and unnecessary.
I understand I did not express myself clearly. I didn't accuse
you to produce outlandish statements, far from it! If I believed that, I would not have taken the time and patience to answer you. I was referring to how I perceived your unfair (in my opinion) portrait of Sinclair. I got the impression that you depicted Sinclair as a buffoon etc.
who produced outlandish statements (again, not you). Freakin' language barrier...
(Probably I exaggerated in assuming you consider Sinclair like that anyway.)
Rorthron wrote: ↑Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:31 pm
I really don't think knighthoods settle anything very much.
Again, it seems I was not clear enough. I just said that I am not downplaying Sinclair's contribute to the industry. Quite the opposite in fact, as I stated in my previous posts. The knighthood reference was only meant to emphasize this.
Rorthron wrote: ↑Sun Jun 24, 2018 1:31 pm
What I am calling "subjective" is something that is subjective. You are quite wrong if you are saying such terms are objective.
It would be quite wrong to believe a classification operated in a certain field of knowledge (socioeconomics) on an objective basis (the fact that different groups of people have different needs) to be subjective. What I am trying to say is that, in purely socioeconomic terms, a product branded as "business" is a consumer good as well as another one branded as a "consumer" one. The technology behind them would be different, but to the marketing department it's just a matter of labeling products according to the primary marketing target.
What is subjective is the single individual's perception instead. The QL itself is an example of this. It was, at least to my knowledge, more successful among computing enthusiasts than businessmen, who were already looking at IBM or Macintosh systems for their needs despite the huge, and much stressed by advertising at the time, difference in price. Anyway, I reckon myself I am way off topic