Altair 880

Neil Gershenfeld said that "we are now in the PDP era of personal fabrication." in his TED talk about his fab labs. But if you are going to make an analogy to the computer revolution, shouldn't you also consider the RepRap to be the Altair 880? Seems to me there's quite a lot of similarity.

Yeah, that's my take on it. The Darwin is roughly equivalent to the Altair or Apple 1. I did some figuring and, adjusted for inflation, each of those would go for about $2000 today.

Sigh... Keep in mind that REPRAP is in the Altair 880 era of personal fabrication. Gershenfeld is still futzing around in the ENIAC era for all of his fine talk.

Forest, was that a bit of snootiness I heard creep into your typing? ;-)

Demented

I frankly have no time or patience with MIT "gurus" who are long on profundities and fine words and short on doing the sweat equity of actually creating something worthwhile. Ask yourself what Gershenfeld's Center for Bits and Atoms has actually DONE that's been of any lasting value. Sad to say, the same goes for the much touted Media Lab started by my old friend Nick Negroponte. All talk and motion, no product.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2008 11:53PM by Forrest Higgs.

Haha, I just finished reading Fab by Gershenfeld. I'm now finishing up The Singularity is Near. They both have the same problem you sited...lack of action or product. Very funny.

Demented