Say that you were dumped back into the 1960's...

Streck

...bringing along no fancy modern technology, just your knowledge.

How well would you cope with learning to use or program the computers of the day, assuming you had access?

Would you even want to?

Would you know enough about how computers really work to be able to help advance the field?

In the mainframe world, IBM rules as king, though there is a smattering of much smaller competitors such as Burroughs, Control Data, Honeywell, and UNIVAC.

A new class of computer, though, has arisen - the minicomputer, from a very young DEC.

Operating these computers requires an understanding of computer science:

http://www.cca.org/photo/rcsri/pdp-8.jpg

Microcomputers, microprocessors, do not exist.

For programming languages you have ALGOL, APL, COBOL, FORTRAN, LISP, and of course assembly. BASIC and Pascal do not exist.

The first ARPANET nodes aren't deployed until 1969.

Would you help? Would you run?

Fofamit

I would help and do the best I can despite my average knowledge of computer programming and a lack of a background in such things.

Also, I would track down Bill Gates and become his best friend.

acidlacedpenguin

Lougle

edit: also, I'd promise Gates to work for him for free until we got bought at which point we'd be partners and I'd accept 2% of the profits with a non-termination clause, and give him the right to claim any ideas I contributed as his own, and that I'd work behind the scenes. I'd have this made as a legal document and have him sign it in front of a hundred witnesses.

archonwarp

I feel like dropping any modern internet-savvy person into the early ages of computing or personal computing could have a tremendous effect on the way things turn out, assuming you want to go all hypothetical and time-changing with this. If I could work in a computer that gave me influence or potential of influence, I'd work on getting the PC age going as quickly as possible. I'd work with DARPA and try as early as possible to get the internet up and running as my number one goal. Since we're assuming I've brought my knowledge with me, I will try to use any influence I can towards getting computers as accessible as possible for regular folks. Knowing that ultimately PCs and small electronics WILL end up in the hands of most people around the country and world, the best time to establish standards is now. I'd work my hardest to keep net neutrality from ever becoming a politicized issue, most likely by using governmental funding for as much of the infrastructure as possible and establishing clear limits on what control private enterprise can have over the lines.

I'm thinking more present-day with this, but here is the biggest thing I'd like to change:

UIs would be different with functionality and common sense as the forefront. As it currently stands, people who haven't grown up with computers have a difficult time wrapping their heads around the nesting menus and separated pathways necessary for some of the most basic computing tasks. Wrapping menus and options together in a logical way would be one of the first things that I would do to get the personal computer age going as quickly as possible. Of course this means that we have to basically invent the GUI and have machines powerful enough to handle this, but I think it could be done. Even using a basic smartphone today, I notice how the thing I want to find isn't always where I'd expect it. I feel there should be more than one way to access most things people want on a device, and hopping platforms shouldn't be something that causes gnashing of teeth.

Rigor Mortis

I'd spend a few years learning Japanese then try to get in on the ground floor with Nintendo. Maybe hang with Shiggy a bit then head up their North American arm. I would localize the real Mario 2.

Ayulin

While it's 10 or so years after the time frame being discussed here, I saw this a while ago. Today's technology as taken to via time-travel, then redesigned in 1977.

As for what I'd do in the 60s... Eh. I can't imagine myself being able to contribute in any meaningful way. I could get behind pushing for simpler and easier to use UIs, but as for actually getting to that stage itself...

Synthesis

I'd tell Brezhnev to stay the hell out of Afghanistan. He probably wouldn't believe me, but he might be convinced if I mentioned the Americans were going to do it too, and also told him who won the next ~40 Stanley Cups.

DietarySupplement

Hm I saw the thread title and thought you were asking if I got dumped back in the 1960's by a girl or something. If so I was going to be all over this thread.

I'd say I'd get in line to work at Bell Labs. The stuff they did back then (and well into the 80's) was pretty slick.

ToyD

I would work on these fantastic machines that sit in the sky and don't fall down called Satellites. They allow ubiquitous communication on half the globe at once (ymmv on the periphery) and you can rent a node for your communications for a low, low price.* We manage the hardware and launch, you merely set up the transmit station.

*price may not be low, low

DietarySupplement

Oh, for that matter: get in on the lucrative Cell tower licensing. I'm probably going to get it wrong, but: apparently back in the day you could lease spectrum ranges from the FCC. These spectrum ranges eventually got picked to host cellular traffic, so big carriers had to either outright buy or license the rights to them from the owners.

Case in point: the founder of Sirius Satellite radio got rich doing this. He is a girl now.

grouch993

I would have bought up and registered all the machine guns and sears. Then when 1968 and 1986 rolled around they could be sold for large amounts of money.

Do we know we are getting dropped there or is it Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court time?

Would pack along the Way Things Work books.

You could run out and patent all sorts of things before others did.

Dark Shroud

I would go work for Bill Gates and invest all my money in various companies than then Gold. Remember there was a big crash in the 80s as well. They happen every 10 years.

Stormwatcher

I would catch a plane to London and would shag till i'm dead.

Shadowfire

Alternate between buying Microsoft and IBM stock for a while until I drop the millions I had accumulated into Google during the IPO.

Roland_tHTG

I'd absolutely be a hippy that buys stocks with the money that wasn't spent doing hippy things.

Bionic Monkey

I don't know enough about computers to help with their development, so I'd just go the investment route. Drop as much as possible into IBM, Microsoft and Apple, Nintendo, and eventually Google.

Roland_tHTG

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

I'd spend a few years learning Japanese then try to get in on the ground floor with Nintendo. Maybe hang with Shiggy a bit then head up their North American arm. I would localize the real Mario 2.

You would be about 70 years late for getting in on the ground floor at Nintendo.

Atheraal

Well, after cursing myself for not being into sports stats and thus ensuring some basic starting funds, I'd probably devote myself to an instrument in preparation for Woodstock. Maybe 'invent' a few new musical genres along the way. It'd be neat to go meet some of the pioneers of electronic music.

Later on, I'd use my fame and money to accelerate the adoption of computers by the general populace. Then create social networking with an eye toward making it into the new democratic voting system. Once I'm supreme world dictator, I'd probably look up my parents and see exactly how much paradox the timestream can take.

Ryna

I guess I'd try not to have sex with my mother ala Back to the Future

Rigor Mortis

Roland_tHTG wrote: »

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

I'd spend a few years learning Japanese then try to get in on the ground floor with Nintendo. Maybe hang with Shiggy a bit then head up their North American arm. I would localize the real Mario 2.

You would be about 70 years late for getting in on the ground floor at Nintendo.

Well, more specifically, I was thinking I'd be the one to walk by in '66 who said "Hey, so, you heard about these newfangled eletronic games? Way more profitable than playing cards."

mspencer

I don't know about the 60's, but I wonder how the BBS scene of the 80's would have evolved with some additions:

1. public-key cryptography
2. inexpensive telephone adapters that suppress the first ring of every incoming call (so ring-back would be more practical)

Public-key crypto enables trusted communications through untrusted channels, and making ring-back more practical makes it much easier for everyone and their dog to turn their modem-equipped PC into a system that can answer incoming calls and share data. Makes it easier to disconnect content from the board it arrives on, and makes it easier to imagine a network where the system you dial into is just a bandwidth provider.

Weretaco

60-70% of my job is working with a database first designed and written in 1967. I think I'd be fine

November Fifth

I think knowledge of future technology would be somewhat tempered by an inability to advance material sciences. Unless you had detailed information about microprocessor and battery design, it would be difficult to actually speed up the pace of computer development.

I think your best bet for jump starting the industry would be inserting yourself into the Xerox PARC project and giving them Lotus 1-2-3 and Peachtree Accounting equivalents. They already had everything else by 1973. Convince them to put a PC on the market, then reinvest profits from that into an early internet.

Dark Shroud

I think helping with forward thinking for standards would probably be the most helpful.

IPv6 is the big one I can think of in addition to HTML & CSS design.

Security concerns when it comes to logging into accounts is yet another. Not to mention getting standards for cell communication.

theSquid

I'd make a bunch of patents and then sue everyone but only after they've made billions from the idea like a true arsehole.

Falken

Alright so:

I find jack tramiel, and become his buisness partner.

Round about the time of the Commodore PET, I say to him "hey, wouldn't it be a really good idea to go to lots of electronics companies and see if they'd like to licence the design?".

Then the PET would be in a similar position to the PC as regards to clones, only far earlier. A full range of models, from a basic one that's just a keyboard computer, to high end dual floppy models with intergrated monitors. As the range evolves into having vic-20 and c64 capabilities, the future dominant computer platform is assured.

Round about 1983, purchase Amiga International. Get the amiga 500 and 2000 models out by 1984 and include commodore 8-bit emulator cards. slowly transition the clone market over. Set MOS tech to cloning and improving the 68000 cpu. Get a new chipset in the high end models every two years, which trickle down into the cheap ones.

(so, the IBM PC, atari ST and macintosh are stillborn. Lets leave Acorn alone for now)

Round about 2010, post this thread from my sweet ass new amiga, then look out the window across the acres of land that is my estate. I pick up the phone and tell a servant to get a bentley ready. "Which bentley sir?" The blue one. "which blue one sir?"

Unknown

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