The Static Page

Fire In The Valley, Part II.

You've had a week exploring what you fondly remember, what you treasured and what you wish you had from as the personal computer took hold.

And the road was often a rocky one.

Companies folded as nearly as fast as they rose, often because of simple mistakes, sometimes because of wierd philosophies. Ed Roberts of MITS insisted on exclusivity for his dealers, which cost him a lot of good will initally, and then considerable sales later. The original IMSAI collapsed generally because of the est-fomented disconnect between what the sales force were selling, what manufacturing could make and what engineering could design. Apple stumbled badly with the Apple III, trying to design it by committee. Other failures were more inexplicable, like (as Meerkat reminded us) Texas Instruments cancelling it's 99/8 mere hours before it's official launch, an act of "Noooo!" if ever I've seen one.

So here's your chance to boldly rewrite history. What mistakes would you have had those startups not make? Do you think you could talk them out of those mistakes? (And let's go easy on Bill Gates for the moment - look instead on the mistakes other people made in his favour.)

Wade Bowmer, aka Static.

Comments? Email me at static dash page at yceran dot org.