10 Nov
1998
10 Nov
'98
4:21 p.m.
On 11 Nov 1998, Eric Smith wrote:
Absolutely. I agree 100%. If he had priced it in the range that a
hobbyist could afford, and proportionate to the cost of the system ($500
for the kit?) then people would buy it. Its nothing to throw down $25 or
$50 if you're getting a manual and support with that.
I congratulate
you and MITS upon being major influences in the founding of
the computer hobby market. It's too bad you didn't get the profit from
your efforts that they did from theirs, but that's YOUR fault, not theirs
or the hobbyists. You underpriced your product.
I think Mike reached exactly the opposite conclusion that I did. Bill
priced BASIC too high. If the various versions had ranged in price from
(say) $50 to $150, instead of $150 to $350, I think he would have found
a lot more takers. What made people think that a good BASIC interpreter
and a Disk Operating
System were worth $350 and $500, respectively? Seems ludicrous even in
in 1998 dollars; in 1976 dollars that was utterly insane.
I think Chuck's reasoning that Micro-Soft wouldn't last at those prices
was appropriate. Chuck just couldn't predict that 4 years later IBM would
be licensing an operating system from Microsoft that would prevent them
from being Yet Another Software Company.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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