The Kitchen Computer and the Screen Scraper
By Michael Swaine
Recently I gave a talk on... well, I'm not sure what I was talking about, but the attendees seemed to enjoy it. They were a forgiving group of vintage hardware aficionados gathered in San Jose to show off their IMSAI and Altair systems and Cray collectibles, as well as to discuss paper-tape formats and the late-20th century archaeology of Silicon Valley, under the auspices of the Vintage Computer Festival (VCF).
They were selling, too. It's nice to see that there's still a market for obsolete technology, given that it becomes obsolete so quickly. The market is strong: I understand that one e-commerce site is selling Sinclair ZX-81s for $100. I believe they sold for $99.95 when new in 1981.
One highlight of this weekend in plugboard paradise was a field trip to the nearby Computer Museum History Center, where, among the vintage hardware on display, there was at least one computer specimen that nobody at the festival had managed to bag: the Honeywell H316 General Purpose Digital Computer—a.k.a. Kitchen Computer. This 1965-era minicomputer was built in to a large, handsome desk with sweeping, Scandinavian lines. Honeywell intended the lady of the house to maintain her recipes here.
I imagine the reason that none of the VCF collectors had added an H316 to their collections was that Honeywell never managed to sell any.
However, 3Com recently decided that this kitchen computer notion is an idea whose time has finally come. Its version, not yet announced as I write this, is the stylish, pastel-hued Ergo Audrey.
