The Beatles - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

26 Jun 1998

...
   I just found a
discarded Packard Bell 486 (I almost left it because the 
 case looked like a 286's). I don't know why you all dislike those things 
 so much, this case is very good. Anyway, when the machine boots, the ROM 
 displays a "Packard Bell" graphic, complete with a 3-second fade-in (if 
 only people paid so much attention to _useful_ stuff). Underneath, it 
 displays, "America grew up listening to us. It still does." Now, this is 
 my question. What does this mean? When was this company founded, and 
 what was their original product?  
 Packard-Bell, as you see it, is simply not the company it used to be. As
 with so many American company names, someone bought the name.  
<Some Defence-Related stuff PB did in the 1950's SNIPed>

...
  I have no idea what happened to Packard-Bell. They may
still be around,
 doing defense work, or they may have been swallowed up. The Packard-Bells
 at CompUSA, however, are simply not related.  
The way I seen it, P-B may have been a defence contractor during WWII 
and later, but their main claim to fame was that for decades, they 
were one of the biggest manufacturers of Broadcast radios, and 
Television Sets.

I know for a fact they were making TV's (of the humongous console 
variety in vogue at the time) in the early 70's because I remember an 
inane TV commercial for it.  In the 50's and 60's there were some 
other major players that manufactured TV's (they actually *made* the 
stuff): Admiral (my grandmother had one), Motorola, GE, RCA and 
Zenith.  Others were: Pilot, Curtis-Mathes (still around, I think), 
Hofmann, Westinghouse and a whole bunch of other minor players.

Then the Japanese arrived (en force) in the mid 70's, and the next 
thing we knew thousands of americans were out of work, and no 
Televisions (or Computer monitors, for that matter) were made 
domestically.  Packard-Bell was one of these victims.

I don't know who is behind the resurrection of the P-B brandname.  I 
suspect they wanted to appeal to baby-boomers who fondly remember 
watching 'Hopalong', 'Cisco' or 'Bonanza' on their parents'
Packard 
Bell console TV.

Jeff

...

 By the way, Packard-Bell has nothing to do with HP.

 William Donzelli
 william(a)ans.net

  +------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Disclaimer:                                                       |
|                                                                  |
|  These opinions are entirely my own, and in no way reflect the   |
|  policies or opinions of my employer.                            |
|                                                                  |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+