On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:24:08 +0000, Charlie Self wrote:


But we don't know. Particularly since major developments on the PC have pretty
much been consumer driven, I'm not at all certain a huge amount of difference
was made by government purchasing officers. Might be. I'm not at all convinced.
I know technology was government driven during WWII. I've seen damned little
evidence of it since, particularly since the early space "race" ended.

The microchip was a direct result of the space program, and is the basis
for all our modern electronics - computers, cell phones, home
entertainment, home appliances, automobiles, etc. It was developed
because of the need for miniturization and reduced weight. There were
many other inventions in technology and medicine as well. I suspect we
would have eventually developed all the things that came out of this, but
at a diminished rate - maybe years, maybe decades. And as we all know,
time is money - every day without a new business/industry making profits
to be taxed and employees in high paying jobs to be taxed is lost revenue.

-Doug