Osborne/KayPro

Adam Osborne was author who wrote the best book on how computers work.  He then turn journalist , telling computer company how to run their companies.  Very insightful.  He decided the build his own computer.  He made it portable with a keyboard, screen and a diskette all build in one.  The problem was the screen.  He decided to use a 5" screen because 7" screen cost too much.  The 5" screen was just too small.

He included a huge amount of software $1500 worth.  It was a hit and for the price $1750 including all that the software.   The 5"screen was a problem and cut into the sales.  Adam announced a new model with a larger screen way before they were ready and it kill the sales.  So they had no revenue coming in and all most bankrupt the company.  

When they did start shipping, KayPro came out with a clone except with a 9" screen and it took away lots of the sales. 

 

Franklin ACE

Franklin made calculators so it made sense to get into making computers.  So they made an Apple clone.  They were immediately sued by Apple and removed their computer from the market.  They removed the Apple code and tried again with ACE 500, but by that time they missed the market.  Very few 500s were sold.

PET

In '82, my wife and I attended the West Coast Computer Faire where Commodore was showing their newly announced PET computer.  With all the confusion was hard to check out it out.  Thankfully, they had set up a near by hotel room with about 10 PETs.  We went there and it was peacefull and I had I chance to check it out.  They also have technicians to help.  The interface was BASIC so you typed in a command and it would execute it.  WOW!  I was blown away and immediately wanted one.  We decided to buy it.  Purchase price was $800.  We purchased it right there.

Atari

When Warner bought Atari, the first thing they did was cancel the bonus to any programmer who authored a marketable game.  The bonus was $100,000.  Warner was accustom to handling actors so they thought they didn't need to pay bonus to programmers.  After all, where they not paid a salary to write games.

The programmers on hearing about the cancellation, quit and went to work for Electronic Arts.  Atari went bankrupted and EA flourished.

Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

As computer enthusiast, we were excited when we hear that Texas instruments was coming out with a computer because TI had a good reputation as a electronic maker.  They used MS Basic as their interface.  When we started using the 99a, we discovered that they eliminated the BASIC commands PEEK and POKE.  We couldn't believed it.  TI had decided they did not want anyone Peeking and Poking into their priority operational system.  That killed the enthusiasm for the hobbists and the TI was a poor seller.  It was a really stupid decision on managements part.

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