11 Aug
1997
11 Aug
'97
9:23 a.m.
On Mon, 11 Aug 1997, Marvin wrote:
I just read the book "Accidental Empires" by
Robert X. Cringely that was the
basis for the PBS movie, "Triumph of the Nerds."
Sam Ismail wrote:
I'll add that I thought the book to be extremely
entertaining and a great
read. I'll comment on the fact that not much mention was made of CP/M in
that history seldom celebrates the losers.
I just recently saw "Triumph of the Nerds" (playing a lot lately on a PBS
station near you, no doubt) and was fascinated by the view of history
presented in it. Basically, if it did not involve Apple, Microsoft, or
IBM, it wasn't history; they only started talking about CP/M when it got
to the "and IBM needed an operating system" part of the story.
One curious bit. The statement that Apple had 50% of the PC market share
when IBM came out with its PC stuck in my mind. Going through my pile of
old BYTE magazines, I found a BYTE from that era (well, 1984 actually; which
is actually a match for era because they were building up the Macintosh
story) which gives 50% of the market share to Tandy...
Roger "cut my teeth on a TRS-80 Model I" Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
11 Aug
11 Aug
10:08 a.m.
On Mon, 11 Aug 1997, Roger Ivie wrote:
One curious bit. The statement that Apple had 50% of
the PC market share
when IBM came out with its PC stuck in my mind. Going through my pile of
old BYTE magazines, I found a BYTE from that era (well, 1984 actually; which
is actually a match for era because they were building up the Macintosh
story) which gives 50% of the market share to Tandy...
Roger "cut my teeth on a TRS-80 Model I" Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
Tandy rarely released hard numbers of units sold, and since they were
vertically integrated (manufacture, distribution _and_ retail), any counts
of sales were those in the hands of end users. Apple, IBM, etc.
considered a system sold if it was at a Computerland or other retailer,
whether or not it actually reached a home or office. This skews the
figures a lot when Tandy _did_ release them. Of course, they also had
multiple product lines between the strictly home units (Color Computer),
home/light office (Model 1/3/4) and serious office (Model 2/12/16/6000).
And the Model 100 was a special case: my RSCC delivered at least 500 of
those at $1,000 a pop to the Los Angeles Times alone, since _every_
reporter wanted one and the NEC 8201 didn't have the built-in modem.
There were a lot of single sales of those as well. Then of course when
the Tandy 2000 came out followed by the PC compatibles things started to
get confusing. Oh yeah, I forgot the pocket computers.
--
Ward Griffiths
"the timid die just like the daring; and if you don't take the plunge then
you'll just take the fall" Michael Longcor
9948
days inactive
9948
days old
1 comments
2 participants
participants (2)
-
gram＠cnct.com -
IVIE＠cc.usu.edu