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Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2000 08:48:51 -0700
To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
From: Charles Dye <raster AT highfiber DOT com>
Subject: RE: Trivia
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At 06:03 AM 11/5/00 -0800, David Rust wrote:
>The decision to name the Altair was inspired as you say but I think he was
>just pointing out that Forbidden planet was the precursor to many sci-fi
>standards including popular names. The (forbidden) planet in the movie
>(1956) was called Altair 4. Maybe they foresaw the Altair lasting through
>four generations.

Altair is in fact the name of an actual star, the inspiration for
both the Forbidden Planet and the Star Trek references -- and
ultimately for the computer as well.  Like Algol (another computer
word) and Aldebaran, it's Arabic.

A few months back I found an address for MITS.  It's in a really
gritty industrial neighborhood, not the kind of place you'd want
to be caught after dark.  It's overshadowed by the skyscraper
where Microsoft later had offices, and an easy walk from the
little computer store where I used to work (much later.)  Tough
to imagine anything revolutionary coming from that part of the
city.

raster AT highfiber DOT com