First Internet message and ...

[Richard Pope]

Fred,
     Agreed!
GOD Bless and Thanks,
rich!

On 11/26/2019 9:16 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
> Good point.
>
> Some companies that COULD HAVE been the leaders made great inventions 
> and/or engineering, and then fumbled the marketing.
>
> I'm thinking that Xerox Parc could be said to have "invented" the next 
> generation of personal computers, but did they ever cash in on that?
> I can visualize a Apple/Microsoft argument, "But we stole it FIRST!"
> (like English/French/Spanish in America)
>
>
> On Tue, 26 Nov 2019, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
>
>> I would make a strong argument that DEC invented the PC: Twice 
>> actually. The PDT11/150 is a pretty amazing system: 64k of memory, 
>> serial port, printer port, RT11 operating system and if I recall 
>> correctly someone wrote a version of Visicalc and a nice word 
>> processor on it as a demonstration.
>>
>> Unfortunately Dec saw that such a system would cannibalize their 
>> sales of pdp11 computers and sold the damn thing as a communication 
>> controller. Sad beyond belief.
>>
>> They did it again with the Pro/350: A system that had integrated 
>> graphics, 512k of memory, dual floppies and a hard disk, easy to 
>> install card options (Ethernet, TMS, etc) and of course a real time 
>> multi-program operating system and (with Synergy) a fairly neat GUI.
>>
>> Unfortunately Dec saw that such a system would cannibalize their 
>> sales of pdp and vax computers and crippled the living daylights out 
>> of it. Ultimately selling it as a front-end processor. Sad beyond 
>> belief.
>>
>> It wasn't just having the technology, it was having it and knowing 
>> how to market it. You need both to make a good product and DEC really 
>> was all about protecting their current market share (which is insane 
>> as they came to be by exploiting a niche in the computer industry).
>>
>> Oh well.
>>
>> CZ
>