Triumph of the Nerds Part II: Riding the Bear

In my last "Programming Languages" class we watched the second part of Triumph of the nerds, Riding the Bear, this video talked about the market that was made some years ago, that involved computers, and it was thanks to IBM. We also were able to know a little bit more about Bill Gates' and Microsoft's history, that of course involves IBM.

We all know about IBM, i bet almost everyone of us, have used an IBM product, their technology is well known and of course of great quality as expected of such an international and big company, but IBM has walked a long path to get there, sometimes had great moments and sometimes not.

IBM were one of the greatest companies, they achieved great things, they sold lots and lots of personal computers when everyone felt the need of one, everyone wanted an IBM computer, so that implied one things, competition.

Companies had to create computers that looked like and worked like an IBM, because everyone wanted the best, so companies like Compaq decided to create a computer that worked exactly as that one and of course were less expensive. So a battle began, Compaq needed to create that product without getting into legal problems, and that's when the inverse engineering came.

So another important thing about this video were the Operating Systems, Bill Gates did a great part of developing IBM's operating systems, even though Bill Gates got almost anything from it, on the other side Bill Gates decided to start with Microsoft, and of course develop operating systems as well, so IBM decided to "break up" with Bill Gates.

Just for the record, IBM made this ridiculous stereotype of an IBM employee, they had to look like exactly the others, all wearing suits and ties, but the funniest part is their ideas, You'll know what I mean at the end of this.

I'll lave you with an IBM jingle:

Triumph of the Nerds Part I

In our last "Programming Languajes" class we watched a documental called "Triumph of the Nerds", and this entry talks a little bit about it..

One of the parts that I remember the most is what all the developers used to eat, they hat lots of soda and junk food. And they slept everywhere, anytime. That's kind of "funny" if you compare it to our times, I think that everyone at our area feels the same way when programming, but this guys had a complete different idea in mind.

They tried to improve everything that existed, at first people didn't had a personal computer, so a computer was really expensive and had no much uses, but this is the people that makes the world keep going ahead, the Nerds are the ones that made the world how it is, and made an industry worth of the time and everything that involves it.

In 1975 a calculator company called MITS created this product called "Altair 8800", that was a microcomputer, so it was the first comuter you could buy and have it at home. Even when you had to build it by yourself and it might not work it had a huge popularity.

Another product that changed everything was the "Apple 2" created in 1980 that was the first masive Apple computer, the important thing about it was the thought that leaded to this, creating a software that made people wanting to buy a computer just to be able to use the software, and it was when they created VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, and it caused a big impact to people that wasted days calculating something that this software could do it instantly.

So, this is just a part of what the video talks about, but I think that it proves that Nerds are a "necessary evil".

Introducing myself

Hi! My name is Rosario Madariaga and I'm 23 years old.

What I expect from this class is to actually to completely understand Clojure, I've heard a lot of comments about this language, but I don't want to judge it without knowing it. So, I really hope it's not complicated for me to get used to it.

I would say my favorite hobby is to dance ballet, even though I don't like dancing, but I truly believe it's different, it requires a lot of discipline, strength and patience. I also like, photography, video games, movies and spending time with my brother. :)

Two movies that I've enjoyed recently are Safe Heaven and Monsters University both movies are cute and actually have a message. About books I would say Dreamcatcher by Stephen King, I'm not pretty sure if there's a movie about it, but the book is really good, I like science fiction novels.