Some things ya wish you never said

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."

Ken Olsen, President, Digital Equipment, 1977

Mikek

PS. Then Al Gore invented the internet.

Reply to
amdx
Loading thread data ...

"640k should be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates

Though it appears neither Bill Gates or Al Gore actually said these things.

--

John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

He already knew we would be moving to mobile platforms in a few decades:)

Reply to
asdf

Really? DECs highly protected, proprietary PC-line flopped and they were building a mainframe that nobody wanted at the time.

petrus bitbyter

Reply to
petrus bitbyter

And now people are rushing to go back to the centralized model.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Bring back time sharing!

--
John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

"Modern technology has put on every desk the equivalent of a large computing center of the '60s, with all the maintenance and administrative problems of a large computing center of the '60s" Lou Gerstner, IBM

--
Roberto Waltman 

[ Please reply to the group, 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Roberto Waltman

Yep. Now it's called "cloud computing".

tm

Reply to
tm

He didn't say that, but DEC did produce an early PC (Rainbow 100), which demanded that you purchase pre-formatted floppy disks from DEC, thus bringing mini-computer mentality to the PC market.

Interestingly, the lack for foresight is not limited to a few individuals. None of the early science fiction authors ever came close to the current model of a personal computer. It was always a giant central mainframe (Multivac) or galactic database with terminals scattered everywhere.

I can't say that I'm doing much better. In about 1985, I decided that computers should best be sold as a throw away product in department stores, toy stores, and supermarkets. However, with the present trend in pad computing, that may eventually come true. Based on this my logic, I decided that the computer repair and consulting business would only be viable for about 10 years maximum. 28 years later and I'm still in the same business with no end in sight. (In the distant past, I had been involved in making LED watch hybrids, and calculator repair, which might explain my pessimism).

Ummm... it was the "National Data Information Super Highway".

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On my business card is the company motto: "If this stuff worked, you wouldn't need me". Few has ever disagreed.

My big failure has been in educating users to act as their own IT department. I discovered that users want all the benefits of computing, without any of the responsibilities or maintenance. While I continue to search for the mythical intelligent user, I do my best at damage control and recovery (for a price, of course).

The centralized model does have some advantages. All that's required is giving up control, versatility, personalization, privacy, control, and some spare change every month. Is that too much to ask for having someone else take out the garbage, clean the house, and fix things for you? Is the cloud actually a fire?

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

The centralized vs. distributed/stand-alone issue REGULARLY oscillates. People seem to forget what has "come before" and fall for the same "greener grass" -- until they discover that it's greener because of the regular application of *manure*.

That's not true. You can even let each user work in a world of their own creation (e.g., under virtualization) as long as you can avoid the BofH syndrome!

Reply to
Don Y

Wooosshhhhh!

Reply to
krw

DEC were not the only ones to underestimate the market.

IBM originally thought the total global market for (mainframe) computers would be "about a dozen".

I remember back in 1974 an electronic engineer telling me that 64k ram was enough for anyone as it would take days to type in that much data. Anyone remember the tedious input by Term-Mem-Term of the Sinclair MK14.

Even James Burke admits to guessing the size of the computer market today low by several orders of magnitude but at the time he said it a few hundred thousand units sounded ridiculously optimistic.

No one really expected Moore's Law to hold good for quite so long!

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

Most people don't need to compute and don't want to be an IT manager. PCs inherited the "computer" model, and that was what people had to use to play games and send email and browse. But most people really want iPad and smart-phone appliances, not computers, not tangles of power strips and cables and software maintenance.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

I had a Sinclair 1000, I bought an extra 16k of memory to plug into the external connector. I really splurged! Mikek:-)

Reply to
amdx

Users have primitive HTML terminals all over the world (PCs, tablets, Smart phones).

There are a limited number of real big servers (YouTube, FaceBook etc.).

Thus, the prediction was quite good.

Reply to
upsidedown

You did better then me, I started repairing VCRs in about 1983 when sales took off a couple years later. By 1992 it was clear the VCR prices were going so low that repair would not be a profitable occupation. I stopped in 1993 and moved to Florida. Before I quit I told another tech I was leaving and he might want to pickup my work. He did, but a year and half later I talked to him, he was only working two days a week at the shop. VCR's coming into the shop had just about disappeared. Now I sell shrimp :-)

I hope I still do next year!

Things are in turmoil. Here are some examples.

Restaurants: Chef Randy Evans, chef and co-owner at the Haven restaurant in Houston, Texas, can?t take Gulf shrimp completely off his menu because shrimp corndogs are among his signature appetizers, but he will probably reduce the number of entrees that include shrimp. Evans said, the price for shrimp ?is crazy high? right now, rising from around $3 a pound a while ago to $6.90 a pound at the end of May 2013. He hasn?t raised the price on corndogs, but he said if the wholesale cost goes higher he might?or he might switch to a smaller, less expensive shrimp.

As shrimp prices rise, Houston-based Landry?s, which owns more than 500 restaurants, has been ?strategically enhancing? its menus, said Rick Liem, the company?s executive vice president and chief financial officer, saying more focus is being put on other types of seafood, including fish, lobster and crab. He said he expects shrimp prices to continue to ?increase dramatically?.

Chris Shepherd, chef at the Underbelly restaurant in Houston said, shrimp already is ?astronomically expensive. I don?t know too many people who don?t like shrimp,? he said, ?but we don?t use it as much.? Shepherd traditionally uses shrimp as a garnish when serving other fish, but now, he said, ?it has to take center stage? or he won?t use it.

Grocery Stores: Joy Partain, consumer affairs manager at Kroger, the largest grocery store chain in the United States, said grocers are doing their best to keep retail shrimp prices down. ?Although shrimp prices are higher across the board for all retail buyers,? grocers decided to absorb ?some of the inflated costs.?

Cyndy Garza-Roberts, public affairs director at HEB Grocery Company, with more than 350 stores in Texas and Mexico, said it has raised prices as ?the demand for Gulf Coast shrimp is high and catches are down,? but she added that the chain is committed to ?maintaining the lowest possible prices.?

Distributors: Hector Medellin, who oversees business development at Seafood Wholesalers, a Houston-based importer and distributor, said, ?There?s a huge hole in the market. It?s not ?How much is shrimp??, but ?Do you have shrimp??. I?ve never seen anything like this where shrimp actually goes up by the hour.?

Jim Gossen, chairman of Sysco Louisiana Foods, a seafood distributor and manufacturer acquired by Houston-based food distributor Sysco last year, said demand for shrimp of all kinds continues to grow. Last September, Gossen said wholesale prices for large imported shrimp averaged $7.50 per pound; this month, they go for $9.40. Recently, restaurants have been less likely to offer shrimp specials, he said, because it becomes hard to turn a profit.

Reply to
amdx

It's called Cloud Computing now, except back then nobody was poking around on your disk except you and the sysadmin.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

I didn't need Gerstner to tell me that. I'm typing this on a machine that would have been the most powerful computer on the planet in 1995.

But an awful lot of folks are going over to just a phone and a tablet.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Yep, talking to a friend this morning, he said now that he has his smart phone, the computer just sets in the corner. He did say something about he might need the computer to make the router work for his daughters iPad. Mikek

Reply to
amdx

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.