Comments by "Dan" (@Dan-di9jd) on "Asianometry" channel.

This sounds silly. How or why would a IBM produce different calculations when they both use the same instruction set architecture? And how is a Compaq easier to work with when they're both loaded with the same Windows OS and software?
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I watched a few of these videos about USSR and the computer industry that never really took off. I think one of the big things that are missed is what is driving the industry as oppose to just raw innovations and progress. For example, in the USA, you had AT&T/Bell Labs and the Xerox Labs that drove a lot of the modern computers, servers, languages, internet, networking, and software. But what really pushed computers were the innovators who sat in their garages making these software that we see today and companies like Apple and Microsoft taking them and making it their own. But the major issue with USSR is that it was totally driving by the State and it's totally unclear if the average person could even take a computer home much less make software for them.
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In the west, computer technology was sometimes meant for military applications but it was mainly driving for the consumer marketplace. I think the biggest downfall with Soviet Era innovations was that it was mainly driven by military applications which of course only so much you can do with things. They weren't inventing a computer envisioning that someday someone could shop on it but out in the west, Bill Gates was hoping computers could be in every home.
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@ yeah but I would say it’s the primary reason that it failed. I guess what I’m getting at is the innovations comes from it being open and it seems when you make it a closed secret it becomes hard. Like some of the game systems of the 1980s seem to be they tried to sell this system that they had to make the software for. But with companies like NES and Atari they went to companies and said hey here’s a sdk and you can make some cool games and sure enough it worked a lot better for them.
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@ I also suspect since the government controlled it they wanted the “wow” factor or go home kind of attitude so everyone was working to 1 up USA not really realizing the driving factor was people out side of the company developing the software for it.
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I had a Compaq in 1997-8 timeframe. It was my first major computer. It was 166mhz, 24mb ram, and I forget the HDD size but it was small enough to where I could only load one major game on it. I found it in the attic and booted it up again and sparks and smoke flew out and it was dead. lol.
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@Will-m2t9l ummm no, I remember building PCs back then wasn't as intuitive as it was today. Problem was most of the MB and PSU were garbage and caused the PC to randomly turn off or reset. Then there was the whole jumper bios thing you had to do which was so silly and hard. Today you can buy a much better PSU and MB and get way better performance over any factory built PC.
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