Indeed! I was one of the first Apple ][ users. My machine is serial # 753. I used it in one of my Syracuse restaurants to take orders from customers as they arrived in the front door, then printed their orders in the kitchen to very quickly prepare their meals. That was in 1980-84. The Floppy Disk drive that Steve W. had designed in 1978 was as important as the computer itself was. I recall spending $200 for a floating point card. Without both of those the computer was pretty useless, actually. Adding a Silentype thermal printer was a game changer, too, for what I was doing.
I regard Jack Tramiel's Atari ST as the most exciting, and capable, home computer of the era, however. It was the one that made it possible for me to create the first graphical touchscreen point of sale computer. By 1985 Star Micronics was building the first commercial point of sale printer and MicroTouch was building touch screen sensors. A single PoS computer was a day's work and about $4,000 worth of hardware in those days. Today there's no work and the hardware cost is about $300. If you adjust that for inflation and factor in the labor it's somewhere between one and two percent of what it used to cost. To compare what we could do with 320x200 resolution and what we can do now with 1920x1080, well, my god, it's just scary. The software and hardware are so advanced that people just can't imagine.
For me, the journey from 1968 to 1986, was the one that was every bit as exciting as anything that has happened since 1986.
If you had visited my restaurant in Syracuse, New York in 1980 when you were about 10 years old you would have had your lunch ordered on an Apple ][ computer and printed in the kitchen. If you had visited my restaurant in Eugene, Oregon in 1986 when you were about 16 years old you would have had your lunch ordered on an Atari ST computer and printed in the kitchen.
I was the only person demonstrating anything on a touchscreen at the many computer and restaurant shows where I demo'ed what I had built between 1986 and 1995. I used to tell people that someday there would be touchscreens everywhere. I got a lot of smug laughs and dismissive comments from the computer professionals I talked to in those days but by working on my own I always ensured the freedom to do what I was doing. I never needed to try to predict the future because I was instead preparing it.
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Re: Primitive Technology
I regard Jack Tramiel's Atari ST as the most exciting, and capable, home computer of the era, however. It was the one that made it possible for me to create the first graphical touchscreen point of sale computer. By 1985 Star Micronics was building the first commercial point of sale printer and MicroTouch was building touch screen sensors. A single PoS computer was a day's work and about $4,000 worth of hardware in those days. Today there's no work and the hardware cost is about $300. If you adjust that for inflation and factor in the labor it's somewhere between one and two percent of what it used to cost. To compare what we could do with 320x200 resolution and what we can do now with 1920x1080, well, my god, it's just scary. The software and hardware are so advanced that people just can't imagine.
For me, the journey from 1968 to 1986, was the one that was every bit as exciting as anything that has happened since 1986.
1986 - The Mother of All Years
If you had visited my restaurant in Syracuse, New York in 1980 when you were about 10 years old you would have had your lunch ordered on an Apple ][ computer and printed in the kitchen. If you had visited my restaurant in Eugene, Oregon in 1986 when you were about 16 years old you would have had your lunch ordered on an Atari ST computer and printed in the kitchen.
I was the only person demonstrating anything on a touchscreen at the many computer and restaurant shows where I demo'ed what I had built between 1986 and 1995. I used to tell people that someday there would be touchscreens everywhere. I got a lot of smug laughs and dismissive comments from the computer professionals I talked to in those days but by working on my own I always ensured the freedom to do what I was doing. I never needed to try to predict the future because I was instead preparing it.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Gene Mosher.
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