10 Nov
2011
10 Nov
'11
3:39 p.m.
On 10/11/11 9:27 AM, Jason McBrien wrote:
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Brazil had
really odd rules
concerning computers for a while. In the 1980's, in an effort to create a
local computer industry, the government banned imports of computers. This
made it somewhat difficult to get the industry started. There were all
kinds of clones and knock-offs being produced for a while.
A watered down form persists in the form of high import tariffs -- a
laudable and necessary idea, except for loopholes which Dell and such
seem to exploit. Brazil doesn't have a corresponding ban on
foreign-owned local manufacturing, or if it does, it's incompletely,
ahem, enforced.
Also, these policies have not helped the Windows problem: Brazil is one
of the worst-infested countries on the planet, by numbers (and hence
also in terms of malware and the black hat industry that has grown
around it there).
--T
I don't think many of those Unitrons where made,
they would probably be
worth a bit of money to a completest collector, but not much to anyone else.