An alternative history... 4287

Well, I can live with Comic Sans, so I did read (most) of it, and I really didn't come away with a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve. In fact, the who article seems a bit jumbled together, although nowhere near a Dr. Bonner soap label jumbled.

So you discuss some history of various projects, denigrate the Intel architecture (prehaps rightly so - Wiki does agree that the IBM Stretch project did have many advanced elements of modern computer design - like cache and pipelining - back in the early 1960s.), indicated that you were in the hierarchy of several different failed technology companies throughtout the decade (apparently because they had technology too advanced for their times, and so garnered no outsider investing), taught young Paul Allen and Bill Gates the ropes (hmmm), and seem disappointed that no one is really pursuing Logarithmic ALUs for widespread use (your description of logarthmic addition - sounds a lot like Slide Rules - can you create a discription of it's operation with more clarity and examples?)

Also, you believe fully modeling the human mind with said ALUs and flourescent scanning microscopes, among other technology, is quite possible - while this may indeed be true, I'm not quite sure if we want the Technological Singularity just yet :p

OK, if you want critiquing -your text needs editing - perhaps decide if you want to have a recitation of your work history and how it relates to computer design history, or a discussion of computer design history and how your work history relates to it, but not the back and forth mishmash you have now. Also you seem in the last few paragraphs to, um, er... - oh hell - well, degrade into a screed against current educational methods, with a bit of artifical machine immortality thrown in. I guess my problem is - what point are you trying to address here? Box' (arggghhhh!). Bleh, haven't heard that too much. That point aside, are you trying to stress different educational techniques (well, nothing is new under the sun, of course - isn't what you are describing kind of a Montessori technique under the new name of 'Unschooling'), or artifical immortality, or how potential investors can be blinded to new prospects by limited thinking (this is certainly nothing new), or how technological advancement stalls when everyone gets too comfortable with current trends, or ... well, what?

Althought I admit I did find "Babies just a few months old are started out with quality high-powered magnifiers, and are given additional tools as soon as they are able to safely handle them, e.g. by putting tools into a box" amusing, as it reminded me of the old Apex Tech commercials for mechanics: "As you learn each tool, you put it in your toolbox and it's yours to keep" Also, I find the technology, design and operation of any type of clbuttic (pre IBM-360) electronic machine interesting, especially pre-digital type like collating, sorting, addressing machines that magazines like LIFE used in the 1930s-1940s (I bring this up as I used to have an old LIFE magazine with an article describing how their systems worked, with an cool illustration of anthropomorphic machines performing said functions.)