Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Followup to "Future of Computing"

We've just had another Brush With Greatness here at AstroRoach. Shortly after my post on the 1954 "Home Computer" I was delighted to hear from Troels Eklund Andersen, a Danish support technician who wrote:

"I'm the creator of that picture, and I'd be interested to know in what department of where that image has been on display, so I have that for my records.

Also, the thing about Fortran being launched in 1957 is true, however I would find it likely that people at Rand Corp were aware in 1954 that IBM had initiated development on Fortran already then.

Nice blogging :) "

I replied:

"Thank you for your comments. I never imagined that I'd would actually communicate with the creator of that image. Your picture is responsible for a great many smiles!

You're right about Fortran. IBM was was working on Fortran in 1954, and RAND would have been likely to know this.

To answer your question, the image was on display in the Information Systems Division of the Boy Scouts of America National Office, located in Irving Texas just west of Dallas.

If you have records of everywhere your picture has been displayed, is it online somewhere? I'd love to see it."

This inspired me to hit the search engines again. Mr. Andersen is indeed the creator of the picture, which was created for a photoshopping contest and not as a hoax, as explained in a Popular Mechanics article from 2004 concerning the image.

Further searching brought me to the HOME COMPUTER OF THE FUTURE - OFFICIAL SITE which is maintained by Troels and is loaded with interesting behind-the-scenes information, including the identity of the man in the photo. It appears that Troels is planning a "sightings" section but it's not live yet. It should be interesting.

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