garius

4 ms·

1.
by garius 2y ago
Yup. I'll be covering OS/2 when I look at operating systems in this period. The level of foot-shooting by IBM on that one was ridiculous.
2.
by garius 2y ago
keyboard wasn't great either, to begin with!
3.
by garius 2y ago
I did try and find out if it was. Sadly couldn't find anything to confirm it!
4.
by garius 2y ago
Yup. Downside of how much tech has changed is stuff gets missed in a copy edit because the numbers sound so silly (to modern ears) they assume I haven't screwed up a typo or find/replace. I'll flag it.
5.
by garius 2y ago
You have a 4?! I'm jealous! Yeah, I think like everything their issue (with hindsight) was mostly that they needed to be faster on the changes across the board to survive. I don't really blame them for missing that window. It was
6.
by garius 2y ago
Something I didn't have space to mention in the piece was that during the recession of the early eighties, Vector went out of their way to support their dealer network. They offered loans and let dealers delay payments on deliveries to
7.
by garius 2y ago
Rest assured Steve is very much on my long-list! If Every commission 'season two' of this series, then I'll likely focus on figures from the software side of Silicon Valley. Steve makes that list in a heartbeat.
8.
by garius 2y ago
Reading that back in the day was one of the reasons she was on my list for this series to write about. Was the first time I'd heard of her! (Love your ongoing blog and output)
9.
by garius 2y ago
Yeah - one thing that didn't make the edit unfortunately was a few paragraphs on this. They'll make the book chapter though, when I write that. It was one reason I wanted to tackle Osborne first in the series - because Vector did,
10.
by garius 3y ago
I only mention it briefly in the piece, but Osborne were already working on an IBM compatible machine (codenamed the 'Wayne') when the company went under. It wasn't one of the things Osborne himself managed to retain the righ
11.
by garius 3y ago
It's really complex. I get into it as much as I can at the end, but the Osborne Effect absolutely plays a part. It's just not in the way that got press at the time (i.e. the Executive being announced too early). Basically Adam rep
12.
by garius 3y ago
I mean, I'm LITERALLY here. And I wrote it. I talk about sources in the piece. I own Osborne's books. The only picture in it is one that's credited to me, a photo of my personal copy of Hypergrowth. I have done interviews wit
13.
by garius 3y ago
Yes. As I cover in the piece, it's Felsenstein he singled out to physically design it. The two men knew each other from Homebrew and Osborne collared him at the West Coast Computer Faire, bringing him onboard for a share of the company
14.
by garius 3y ago
So at this time, Gates actually has a DOS deal in place with Lore Harp over at Vector Graphic - one he'll renege on when IBM come knocking. That'll come up in the next piece, as I'll be looking at Lore and the Vector 1. But y
15.
by garius 3y ago
I write this column and I'm not a robot. Although I'll admit I haven't Voight-Kampff tested myself recently.
16.
by garius 3y ago
Oh don't worry. I'll get to Commodore (and Tramiel) later in the article series. I just wanted to tackle Adam first as he had a more personal relationship with Jobs.
17.
by garius 7y ago
Sure - if someone pays me to! I do this mostly for fun. So tbh the alternative here was "not tell people something interesting at all" rather than "write a longform piece about the Hospitallers". I DO have plans for the
18.
by garius 7y ago
Twitter thread author here! Because, as others have said, you go where the people are, otherwise you're just howling into the void, and what's the point of doing it? If I only wrote on Medium, or for niche magazines, or newspapers