Comments on: ONE OF THE GREAT MISCALCULATIONS IN IBM HISTORY

By: teqjack

teqjack — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:59:42 +0000

The ad overstates a bit, I think the
study was Sperry-Rand under government
sponsorship not IBM, and concluded that
only government would buy computers in
the UNIVAC class. IBM looked at the
study, figured a few businesses would buy,
looked at some tech newer than included in
the study…

In re PC, IBM corporate did not think the
then-small market would expand beyond a few
enthusiasts (like HAM radio), even though they
were already supplying hand-held computers
equivalent to the best desktops in the
commercial geek market to their hardware
maintenance groups. A group of engineers
in Boca Raton disagreed, designed one, and
after a lot of to-and-fro the main company
gave a limited go-ahead.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:40:47 +0000

nlpmt, by 1980 you could already buy expensive small home PCs. They didn’t do much but they were available.
http://www.old-computers.com/news/

By: nlpnt

nlpnt — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 02:11:37 +0000

At about this time the first PC probably WAS in pre-development…and someone at IBM decided that sincethey’d always made their money off hardware, they’d contract out the OS to a third party…

By: Eliyahu

Eliyahu — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:07:21 +0000

IBM didn’t foresee the growth of the personal computer, either. But then, neither did anyone else, including the Sci-Fi writers who usually predict just about everything else…

By: Toronto

Toronto — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:27:46 +0000

What’s wrong with just having a teletype, a modem, and an acoustic coupler for your phone, and dialing into the PDP? Sheesh – kids these days. Next they’ll want ARPANet accesss.

Anway, the context for this ad is that it was before the PCjr and OS2.

By: Rick Auricchio

Rick Auricchio — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:55:19 +0000

Thanks, Fire. I fell into the “out of context” trap all these years.

So Olsen was referring to the Automated Home of the Future that we’ve seen here on the MM site. I don’t recall the title to search for it.

By: Firebrand38

Firebrand38 — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:24:22 +0000

Yeah he said that but the context has always been missing. He wasn’t talking abouit computers like the Apple II. See http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp

By: Rick Auricchio

Rick Auricchio — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:11:27 +0000

Then there’s the famous quote from Ken Olsen, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corp (DEC), who in 1977 said “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”

This was a year after the Apple II came out…