Re: interesting take on Olsen's "no reason for any individual tohave a computer in his home"

From: Ben Myers (_at_)
Date: 11/24/04 

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:54:08 GMT

For a period of time during the late 486 and early Pentium era (late Epicene era
in computer terms?), DEC had an OEM deal with Olivetti to build low-end desktop
Celebris and Venturis boxes. The cases were beige and stylish looking, but made
of cheap *** metal and a pain in the ass to work on. I recently saw some
Olivetti brand computers in a scrap pile. They looked identical to the DEC
units. These mechanical monstrosities prove the adage that people who design a
computer chassis should have to work in field service for 90 days, repairing the
messes they created, then put back to work to design the next cycle of
equipment. Odds are designers would learn from their mistakes for a change.

The Italian who worked for DEC somewhere in that time frame is Enrico Pesatori,
who is still bouncing around the computer biz as pres of Penguin Computing, an
assembler of Linux boxes... Ben Myers.

On Wed, 24 Nov 04 11:55:27 GMT, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

>In article <7-mdnYrFm6bN2D7cRVn-tg@igs.net>,
> "John Smith" <a@nonymous.com> wrote:
>>jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
>>>
>>> It did not. WTF are you talking about? When DEC "sold" a
>>> PC, it was not selling its own products. It was selling
>>> somebody else's manufactured output. Alphas were never, ever
>>> in the retail market. You could not walk into a CompUSA and
>>> buy an Alpha off the shelf with all software installed
>>> and maintenance on an as is basis.
>>
>>
>>1) Early on in DEC's PC game they were partnered with Olivetti, mostly as
>a
>>way to get them into the business.
>
>I don't recall any talk about PCs with the Olivetti deal. Now there
>may have been another deal but I would think the main players would
>have talked about it.
>>
>>2) Later on DEC was a significant manufacturer of PC's in its own right.
>JF
>>is correct about the DEC plant in Kanata, Ontario - if memory serves me
>>correccly, it was producing the lion's share of DEC's PC products ans well
>>as the sole source for several Alpha systems.
>
>This could not have been in the early 80s.
>>
>>3) As to Alpha not being on the shelf at Sears and CompUSA, neither was
>>Proliant or HP's equivalent x86 boxes - which were ostensiby competitors
>to
>>some Alpha's running NT.
>
>NT was tied up in knots because of the deal made with Gates. Palmer
>did that deal. Since Palmer did it the year could never have been
>before 1987. 1987 was the last time I worked and Olsen was still
>CEO. When Palmer got hired, the quality of software and documentation
>that was DEC's reputation got dismissed as an "Olsen thing" and thus
>should be destroyed.
>
>/BAH
>
>Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

Quantcast