• FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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        1 day ago

        Well, at a low level they are still basically the same. x86 still starts in 16-bit real mode. Mice still use USB 1 from the 90s.

        Mostly it’s just a lot faster and covered with more layers of abstraction.

        • legion02@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          But you don’t know what I mean. Computers as most people know them now are tablets and cell phones. I blame X and the elder millennials for that.

          • samus12345@lemm.ee
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            24 hours ago

            Computers filled rooms back when the boomers (and earlier gens) were creating them, so even a desktop isn’t how they were known then. But it laid the groundwork.

            • legion02@lemmy.world
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              24 hours ago

              Was Franklin laying the groundwork for computers as we know them when he discovered electricity? You have to cut things off somewhere for a statement like that.

              • samus12345@lemm.ee
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                24 hours ago

                It could be said so, but it’s a much, much more distant connection than working on things that are literally called “computers.”

                • legion02@lemmy.world
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                  23 hours ago

                  So then the Greek Antikythera mechanism counts too then? Or maybe the Bell transistor. My point is that none of these things resemble computers as we know them.

    • drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      That’s like saying that nerdy millenials invented mRNA vaccines. A very small percentage of the population worked on them while the rest weren’t even aware they existed for most of that time.

      • samus12345@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Regardless of how few, it was still people from that gen and computers wouldn’t exist today if they hadn’t laid the groundwork.