9 Apr
2012
9 Apr
'12
1:18 p.m.
On 4/9/2012 3:35 PM, David Riley wrote:
No, the engineers just needed some more time to produce a more finished
product. Although there might be indirect factors that I'm not taking
in account (like maybe an earlier time to market causes a higher rate of
adoption of the brand/item), the product would have likely cost only
marginally more if done right.
I hope I'm remembering correctly, but I think the 1541 was a victim of
Jack Tramiel's rush-to-market engineering.
The original 1541 engineer(don't remember which guy it was) had said
separately that due to lack of time for testing(and time to find the
bug), that some million man hours were wasted while people waited for
the drive to load various software over the years. (bug caused a huge
performance problem)
This is covered here
http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/dp/0973864966
But I think everyone here knows the story better than I do.
Keith
On Apr 9, 2012, at 3:06 PM, Keith Monahan wrote:
I don't disagree with this.
On 4/9/2012 2:29 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Agreed, but I doubt the personal computing landscape would have looked
anything like it did without him. Sometimes you need ruthless SOBs to
get things done. You couldn't have had an Apple without a Commodore to
compete with (that's sophistry, perhaps, but I still believe it). That's a shame. His impact on computing is
frequently forgotten these
days.
It should probably be noted that Jack was a pretty ruthless business man
and made decisions that were contrary to a stable and reliable machine
and accessories. He was famous for demanding prototypes be
available for CES, accepting
orders for something that wasn't ready for mass production, and then
forcing the engineers to release a sub-standard product.
While not optimal, this got computers into people's hands who wouldn't
have been able to afford something better. It's always a pick-2 of
getting it done fast, cheap and right, no?