It's been said on previous YT videos - the system probally ran civil engineering calculations for building bridges and roads. They may have even been for work in Maryland (the state) where the Bendix 'lives' - at the System Source Museum outside of Baltimore MD. It's down in Texas to get fixed by Usagi.
Wikipedia says it could be rented for $1485/mo, and the average salary in 1956 was $3600 or $300/mo, so it would have to replace 5 people (engineers must have earned more), if you don't count the extra cost of software, power, and maintenance.
I remember from a book on Richard Feynman that a classroom full of bright students was about as fast as the computer the Manhattan Project got, except, of course, the computer didn't get tired.
Not really a computer though - they didn't exist in the USA at the time. If I remember correctly it was a series of IBM calculating devices chained together.
Hilarious that the 1st person other-side account of this bizarre cry for attention from Scott is being down-voted here.
Scott may feel he needs some attention-- so dredging up something he already posted a few years ago is somehow a good faith folksy rumination that will help people? I wish him well if he believes that.
I have a surfaceBook- I never take off the keyboard. I would never use a touch-screen on a laptop as finger marks on the screen are not optimal for working.
I get that about touch. For me typing and touch/pen input would make two distinct modes. In typing mode, I absolutely want the precision of a mouse/touchpad. Arms need to be rested on the table or similar. Working free-..ehm.. armed, in front of you is a disproven scifi-only concept. Same as transparent displays...
I still run the Confluence 3.5 version (off the open net). The WYSIWYG runined Confy. It's an awesome, easy, fast wiki if you just stay at 3.5. And you edit it all in text.
I really don't like the idea of ever putting all my passwords on a server that requires Agilebits to run it. You guys are a dev shop. Let users keep their passwords themselves and keep the stand-alone version (and extensions for it!) going with simple version upgrade fees.
