Toward a history of (personal) workstations

I originally accepted this keynote honor for five reasons: to respond to Alan Perlis' request (he told me I could present anything from a new taxonomy to personal reminiscences); second, to identify the important artifacts that should be preserved in The Computer Museum; third, to posit a framework of the history of workstations that can be written in the next century (we're all too close to create it); fourth, to summarize my own involvement on interactive computing including timesharing and large personal computers (both styles of use led to personal workstations); finally, to record my work on Digital's VAX Homogeneous Computing Environment that was totally announced last year. I led the architecture for this environment over the decade from 1973 to 1982 and was strongly influenced by the personal workstation computing movement including Ethernet. This work hasn't been described outside of product brochures.

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