Why not? That's what it was designed to be. :)

hehe. imagine what would they do if they could type, edit their work on a modern computer.
well duh captain obvious.

I loved DOS!

The first O/S I bought for myself was MS-DOS 4.01!

But I recall DOS 4 tending to be a conventional memory resource hog and you had to get really inventive with config.,sys and autoexec.bat when trying to play a new game... and have mouse driver support ... and have Soundblaster AWE-32 wavetable music instead of FM systhesis... etc

Then I bought MS-DOS 6.something or other and it made it easier to get games running with a utility that would automatically put what it could into the high memory area etc. - so already this was the first sign of having to rely on an O/S to do stuff for me that was becoming a hassle with the command line

So along came Windows 3.1 which my folks bought and loaded on the PC - and I cursed it. I bought WordPerfect 6 for DOS, proving I was carrying on the fight for DOS. But if I'd really thought about it at the time, what was the DOS version trying to do - well, it was trying to emulate a Windows experience with the WYSIWYG mode.

And then there was Windows 95, and I cursed that (although it was an O/S in its own right as it no longer needed to run on DOS)

And then there was Windows 98, and I cursed that.

And then there was Windows 98SE, and I cursed it - mainly because I didn't have it and it cost too much to buy and I already had Windows 98.

And then there was Windows XP, and I cursed that (although this is the O/S I've used the most to date)

And then there was Windows Vista, and I cursed that too - although I think we can all agree that I was justified in this case!

And I'm still getting to know Windows 7 so I curse it now and again, but I have to admit it's a good O/S, although a little naggy. And the command line is still there if I really, really need it. And the only time I've actually had to use a command-line program with Windows 7 is to use diskpart to kill off an OEM reserved disk partiton on a Dell notebook which served no purpose as it couldn't actually be used to recover the system - and many would argue that my deleting it was unnecessary and really just a waste of time (OK, it was more the principle... but that's another story).

So what I'm really trying to say is that although I may give the appearance that I was dragged kicking and screaming from DOS to the Windows world... it was more about me wanting to avoid the hassle of change, rather than embracing the benefits of it.

So the question I should really ask myself: Would I want to go back?

c:\type notachan.ce!

I was being sarcastic.

Nothing... they be too busy freaking out about the magical glowing lights, the strange steel beasts that roll across the land, and giant metal dragons that terrorize the sky :-)

I think they'd be too busy browsing for free porn....

For more reasons than I would ever care to list - no.

Well... Oscar Wilde would be... And I guess Mark Twain lived in the age of steam so he wouldn't be that surprised by cars and planes.

Personal computers can't cost $40,000 1970's dollars. ;) Single user computers have been around forever. That's not enough. A PC needs to be sufficiently cheap that a common person can own one. While GUIs are popular on modern PCs, they do not a PC make.

Steve Wozniak, arguable inventor of the personal computer (not hobbyist kits):

Once, he told his father that someday he would have a computer of his own. His heart was set on a little 4K Nova. “Well, Steve,” said his dad, realistically, “they cost as much as a house.” Woz was a little shocked. “Well, I’ll live in an apartment,” he answered.

Nova's were little cheapo mini computers that were popular from the late 60's and throughout the 70's. The alto had 64x as much memory! :O

The Alto is an odd bird but I'd call it a "proto workstation" shaped mini computer.
This 'history' seems to have a pc centric worldview and is letting it color its perception of computing's past. Perhaps in 20years the alto will be a smartphone or tablet?

The difference is that the Alto was specifically designed to be a personal computer. That was the whole reason for its existence. Their high cost was due to them being essentially research prototypes.

It's also too small to be a minicomputer :)

Well Natami MX boards are now available to developers and soon for anyone else, have a look here http://www.natami.net/hardware.htm

Amigas are not dead,.................they are just sleeping ;)