[cctalk] Re: Classic computing - earliest years

For cars, I think most states offer the "classic car" designation at 20 years? Search for "VCF Domesticating the Computer" for my VCF talk on an overview of computing history (but yes, with more of a focus on the 1970s). Towards the end is a white background chart where I try to show the "merging" of minicomputers and microcomputers (that comes together with the 386 around 1986/1987). Elsewhere is a US government sponsored report, indicating that 50% of households still didn't have a computer until 1992/1993. But home/personal computer is just one slice of all this. VAX/VMS was another established OS (around mid/late 1970s). CP/M (to my knowledge) never broke the "64K barrier" -- I'm not sure if QDOS did either, but it was at least a good enough baseline for PC/MS-DOS to later evolve towards the more organic .EXE format. It's ironic how I think Microsoft internally was said to be adamant about not calling it "DOS" and using "MS-DOS" consistently (in documentation, discussions, ads, etc). And yet, their software installed to C:\DOS :) - Steve On Wed, Oct 15, 2025 at 5:12 PM Murray McCullough via cctalk < cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; wrote: