Christie's auction and other computer history events

[Paul Koning]

>>>>> "Vintage" == Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> writes:

 Vintage> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005, Eric Smith wrote:
 >> Evan wrote: > He believes his prices are ** lower ** than > what
 >> they should be.
 >> 
 >> Of course, since he is on the selling side.  Duh.

 Vintage> He also misses the point.  Except for nerds like us, nobody
 Vintage> knows who any of the early computer pioneers were/are (with
 Vintage> the exception of perhaps Thomas Watson Sr/Jr.)  If we're
 Vintage> talking about papers from Einstein, Edison, Bell, etc.,
 Vintage> those are universally (at least in the West) acknolwedged
 Vintage> because they affected society directly and at a much larger
 Vintage> scale.  But the things that Babbage, Hopper, Eckert,
 Vintage> Mauchley did do not compare in terms of notoriety and direct
 Vintage> impact.

I suspect Babbage is more widely known that Watson, as well he should
be. Watson was a good salesman and manager, but so what, there are
plenty of those around.

Looking back at the Christie's site, some of the names there are
famous well outside the geek community (and, probably, more so outside
that community).  Shannon and Turing are examples.  Then again,
Shannon's most famous paper isn't the one listed in the highlights
(though it IS listed in the full catalog: "A mathematical theory of
communication" -- lot 180).

And Capek is famous in the science fiction world, and generally as the
one who coined the word "robot".

    paul