ah, i had forgotten it was that long ago! i imagine even ibm was much smaller then and that there was a lot less perceived need, not to mention that electronics wasn't mature enough to have made it easy (the well regulated high voltage alone would have been a huge problem, even though the earlier xerox copiers did use vacuum tubes in the copy counters and relays for the logic parts of the machine, and those were some very complicated vacuum tubes worth a lot of money even then). xerox did start small, i've seen one of the earlier models that actually used a number of stock parts for a certain model of washing machine, in fact my father needed a replacement solenoid for one once, xerox was out of stock, and so he got one at an appliance repair shop!
Bruce Johnson wrote: ------ > Well, it took Haloid some 13-14 years before they were an 'overnight' > success, something I rather doubt would be allowed in todays 'gotta > make a profit by next quarter' business world. > > They certainly wouldn't have survived the first, disastrous model > released in the late 1940's. (A recent Scientific American article > recounts the history of Chester Carlson and his decades-long struggle > to bring his idea to fruition. He first demonstrated it in 1937; it > wasn't until 1959 that Xerox finally introduced the first practical > model.) -------- > Companies that are young take risks, Companies that are established > don't; they have too much to lose. or rather, executives at big companies are often afraid to take risk, and perhaps too lazy and short sighted in many cases. after all it's popular to blame people for failure even when it was a good dice roll and to blame r/d when a competitor comes out with something new. torro actually fired their "think tank" after they had to license the weed eater idea, they seemed to think that a think tank should have all of the ideas before any one else. > > HP, while helmed by Dave and Bill, was the rare exception...and even > they passed on the Apple II :-/ well, in all fairness hp at that time was primarily into industrial/high end test gear and stuff, not hobbyist and household stuff. hp's departure from the core business into the consumer market came after it was very well established, and i'd suspect after most of the management had been changed and they saw $ signs. the frustrating thing now is that as often happens lately, the core business in test gear and semiconductors has a different name now and it's hard to find that divisions site from the "hp" site that's full of pc stuff. ------ i know that motorola also made a 68k desktop machine in the late 90's, i think it was vxi bus but i'm not sure. ---- > (Trivia note...I'm fairly certain the first desktop system using a > Motorola 68000 CPU and 3 1/2" floppies was NOT the Mac, but an HP -------- -- <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm> proof that the U.S. media is now state controlled! Ask your' local tv station why the hell they aren't airing the news any more! Our system of government requires an informed public, with their eyes open. -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
